An era of American art has come to an end.

Andrew Wyeth, a painter known for his stark, affecting images of rural America, died in his sleep last night. He was 91. Though critics weren’t always so keen on his work — one likened it to "sort of colored drawings" — his son, Jamie, offered this assessement: "At one level, it’s all snowy woods and stone walls. At another, it’s terrifying. He exists at both levels. He is a very odd painter." Fellow painter, the late Mark Rothko, summarized Wyeth with these words: "Wyeth is about the pursuit of strangeness." And that strangeness certainly lingered.

Even presidents weren’t immune to Wyeth’s aesthetic. President Nixon offered him the President Medal of Freedom, while President George H. W. Bush bestowed him with the Congressional Gold Medal, making Wyeth the first artist to receive that award.

Wyeth’s most famous painting is most definitely "Christina’s World," pictured below. It depicts a paralyzed girl making her way through a field of wheat. The character and her family are featured prominently in Wyeth’s work. Perhaps Wyeth’s fascination with an ill girl sprang from his own childhood. He was, reportedly, sickly and had to leave school after a few weeks. Isolated at home, Wyeth spent his time drawing and painting. He would later remark, "I played alone, and wandered a great deal over the hills, painting watercolors that literally exploded, slapdash over my pages, and drew in pencil or pen and ink in a wild and undisciplined manner." He obviously honed his skills over the next few decades and will no doubt go down in history as one of our nation’s greatest artists. The scenes he painted may not be contemporary, but they still resonate.

Image: Wikipedia