#4

Christina’s World is a 1948 painting by Andrew Wyeth. Its style is representational, the landscape is naturalistic and all the parts are clearly identifiable. The woman is facing away from us sitting in a field of grass. Even though the woman is realistic, the grass looks more out of a dream than actual grass, giving the painting a graceful look when viewed as a whole. Her body is relaxed and everything seems to be in order, but after a little research, it seems the backstory to this piece is a lot more grim than perceived. The subject is actually Wyeth’s neighbor who had crippling polio, yet her disease never stopped her from conquering life. She wasn’t hopeless and Wyeth tried to replicate that concept of hope in this painting. Unlike the passage on John Berger, this female is clearly fighting the standards set by European paintings. “To be born a woman has been to be born, within an allotted and confined space, into the keeping of men”, Berger states in Ways of Seeing, in regards to women. This woman is in no way caged by the confines of men. She’s alone in the painting, maybe signifying self-sufficiency. She is facing away from the spectator, carefree yet firm. Her pose giving the idea that she’ll rise, both figuratively and literally. The ethereal feel of the grass reinforcing these strong ideals. Even if the viewer has no clue about our faceless subjects disability, you can still see her power and freedom portrayed in this painting. It’s a compelling message and along with many other paintings of this period, helped pave the way towards our reinvented view on women.