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Edward Hicks, having apprenticed to a Pennsylvania coachmaker at thirteen, became a minister in 1811. He was torn between his calling as a Quaker minister and his love of painting, worrying that his art kept him from "the Lord's work."


Hicks precisely identified this subject with a long inscription along the bottom of the canvas: "An Indian summer view of the Farm & Stock OF JAMES C. CORNELL of Northampton Bucks county Pennsylvania. That took the Premium in the Agricultural society, October the 12, 1848 Painted by E. Hicks in the 69th year of his age." Though the punctuation and capitalization are inconsistent, the quality of the lettering proves that Edward Hicks was schooled in sign painting.


Having no background in academic art, Hicks employed the direct approach of a primitive or folk painter. The horizontal band of livestock across the foreground, although childlike in its simplicity, clearly presents each prize-winning animal as an individual portrait. Hicks' delight in creating ornamental pattern is evident in the arrangement of fences, while the rich red and bright white of the house and barn symmetrically flank this central landscape. Although the stark silhouettes of figures and buildings seem naive, Hicks softly blended his paints over the orchard to give the impression of space existing well beyond what the eye can see.

More information on this painting can be found in the Gallery publication _American Naive Paintings_, which is available as a free PDF <u>https://www.nga.gov/content/dam/ngaweb/research/publications/pdfs/American%20Naive%20Painting.pdf</u>

Details

  • Title: The Cornell Farm
  • Creator: Edward Hicks
  • Date Created: 1848
  • Physical Dimensions: overall: 93.3 x 124.4 cm (36 3/4 x 49 in.) framed: 119.1 x 149.9 x 6 cm (46 7/8 x 59 x 2 3/8 in.)
  • Provenance: Painted for James C. Cornell, Northampton, Bucks County, Pennsylvania; to Theodore Cornell, his son; to Russell Cornell, his son; to Mr. and Mrs. J. Stanley Lee (Mrs. Lee is Hick's great-granddaughter), Newtown, Pennsylvania, by whom sold in 1954 to Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch; gift to NGA, 1964.
  • Medium: oil on canvas

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