Date: Fri 05-Mar-1999

Publication: Ant

Author: CURT

Quick Words:

Hicks

Full Text:

The Kingdoms Of Edward Hicks

with cuts

By Karla Klein Albertson

WILLIAMSBURG, VA. -- "The Kingdoms of Edward Hicks," which opened in early

February at the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center of Colonial

Williamsburg, opens new windows on the life of the well-known Bucks County,

Penn. painter and Quaker minister.

Collectors, who only know Hicks' work from the visionary "Peaceable Kingdom"

paintings, will find a more complete picture of the artist's range from the

trade signs he painted for a living to his tranquil renditions of farm life in

the early Nineteenth Century.

Without a doubt, the famous Kingdoms remain at the heart of the show, curated

by Carolyn J. Weekley, director of museums for Colonial Williamsburg. Between

the 1820s and his death in 1849, Hicks painted 62 versions of this scene with

animals and a small child based on Isaiah's biblical prophecy (11:6-9) of

harmony among the gentle and fierce creatures of the earth.

Weekley's interest, which led to her research for this exhibition and its

accompanying catalogue, began in her college days. "I never quite got over

seeing one of his Kingdoms, painted in the 1830s, in which two particular

animals -- the lion and the leopard -- have these very intense, almost

electrifying gazes. It seemed anathema to what the picture was all about,

which was peace. I always felt there was something more going on in these

paintings than just a simple moralistic teaching of `thou shalt not harm.'"

Hicks earliest versions from the 1820s are often framed by the actual biblical

text, "The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, & the leopard shall lie down

with the kid, & the young lion & the fatling together; and a little child

shall lead them." Surrounded by this roster of animals, the determined child

in question guides the lion with a firm grasp on his mane. Most renditions

include a vignette depicting William Penn's Treaty with the Lenape Indians in

the background. An expanded version of the treaty subject, which also

represented mankind's ability to live in harmony, was the main subject of

several paintings by Hicks. Examples are in the collections of AARFAC, the

Shelburne and the Mercer Museum.

Weekley continued, "His paintings are enormously appealing. They're powerful

little pictures. When you stand in front of these things, a lot of people have

the same reaction that I did. You sense something about these paintings that

is mysterious. You don't quite get it, but you know there's something more

there that intrigues you. They're colorful and detailed, so you don't stand

ten feet away to view them. You need to study them up close."

When she began to organize the show, which took many years to bring together,

Weekley realized, "The Kingdom paintings are the core of the exhibition. What

we were really trying to achieve with the show was to bring greater

understanding to why he did these paintings. These are at the center of his

artistic life, and this vision is where his creativity comes from. After all,

he spent three decades of thinking about and working on these paintings. He

painted the first about 1816-1818 and was working on one last one the night

before he died. That one is in the show. He was definitely compelled. He said

he had an excessive fondness for painting, and you sense that when you look at

his work."

After reading an article by David Tatham, "Edward Hicks, Elias Hicks, and John

Comly: Perspectives on the Peaceable Kingdom Theme" in American Art Journal,

XIII (1981), Weekley became convinced that the changes in the depictions of

the Kingdom series stemmed from Hicks distress over Quaker sectarian strife.

The painter was the cousin of Elias Hicks, who led the "Hicksite" contingent

of Quakers, which found itself in disagreement with more orthodox members of

the community.

Her views are expressed at length in the middle chapters of the exhibition's

accompanying volume, The Kingdoms of Edward Hicks. Written by Weekley with the

assistance of Laura Pass Barry as a joint AARFAC/Abrams publication, the book

is available for $39.95 from the Folk Art Center gift shop at 757/220-7693 or

through local bookstores.

Weekley points out, "I think he was very involved and upset by what was going

on in the Society of Friends. He really bonded with Elias Hicks, and at one

point, says he was like a father. Edward Hicks' personal disappointment and

anger are very obvious in these paintings. Toward the end of his life, the

animals become dispersed, not organized together as they used to be. Finally,

they fall to the bottom of the canvas, all facing different directions with no

unity, just as there was no reunification in the church during his lifetime."

Weekley declines to label Hicks a "folk" painter, noting a passage by

contemporary John Comly, who felt he had "a genius, and taste for imitation,

which if the Divine law had not prohibited, might have rivaled Peale or

West....". This refers to the Quaker feeling that portrait commissions of the

type accepted by Charles Willson Peale and Benjamin West were an indulgence of

human vanity.

Peale, however, did paint Quaker portraits, and a dichotomy developed between

the worldly, wealthy Friends of the city, who were more flexible in their

attitude toward art, and the more modest Quakers who lived in outlying areas.

Weekley writes, "The Society of Friends in Edward's time considered ornamental

painting a suitable trade for members so long as it was done within the

Society's general aesthetic guidelines."

Although 30 of the show's 80 exhibits are various versions of the Peaceable

Kingdom, visitors may be more intrigued by less familiar subject matter, in

particular the farm scapes which capture the rural tranquillity of Quaker

agrarian life. An excellent example is "The Residence of David Twining," a

scene Hicks painted at least four times between 1845 and 1847, near the end of

his life.

When young, Edward Hicks lived at the prosperous Bucks Country farm of David

and Elizabeth Twining, and sixty years later in his life painted the home and

fields as they appeared in 1785 based on his memories. The sale at Christie's

on January 15 of a "Peaceable Kingdom" for $4,732,500 has overshadowed the

fact that, minutes earlier, a version of "The Residence of David Twining,"

where Hicks once lived, had reached a remarkable $1,432,500.

One Twining farm painting was executed for David Leedom, whose parents Jesse

and Mary Twining Leedom appear in the work. Hicks also painted Leedom Farm for

David in 1849, a few month before his death at age 70. The view's vast

luminous sky and orderly arrangement of livestock in the foreground seem to

recapture the vision of harmonious life so important to Hicks and other

Quakers.

The Hicks exhibition is the focus of several Williamsburg special events

scheduled this spring, including the Williamsburg Institute on "Folk Art

Favorites" on March 11-14 and a series of lectures each Wednesday at 3:30 pm

during May at the Hennage Auditorium of Williamsburg's De Witt Wallace

Gallery. The first, on May 5, will feature Carolyn Weekley exploring the

message behind "The Kingdoms of Edward Hicks." (Institute information:

800/603-0948; lecture information: 757/220-7724.)

After closing at Williamsburg in September, "The Kingdoms of Edward Hicks"

goes on an extended tour of the country, opening at the Philadelphia Museum of

Art on October 10, then on to Denver and San Francisco. Philadelphia's curator

of American painting Darrel Sewell notes, "Hicks was a man with a vision, who

really did associate himself with his art. His work is based on his deep

feelings about what was going on in the world around him." Viewers around the

country will be able to share Hick's accurate interpretations of local Quaker

life as well as his hopeful visions of a better world in the new millennium.

In the DeWitt Wallace Gallery at Williamsburg, visitors can view two other

exhibitions of interest to collectors. "British Embroidery: `Curious Works'

from the Seventeenth Century," through September 6, showcases more than 100

padded, boxed and beaded examples of needlework, including gloves, purses, and

panels. "Am I Not a Man and a Brother: Abolition and Anti-Slavery in the Early

Chesapeake," February 7, 1999 - January 2, 2000, displays many artifacts

connected with the British and American anti-slavery movements, such as the

ceramic medal of a kneeling slave created about 1787 by potter and

abolitionist Josiah Wedgwood. Information: 800-HISTORY or

www.colonialwilliamsburg.org.