A work of art can tell a story
Sometimes the artist intentionally tells a story through a work of art and its title, other times the art may remind the viewer of a particular story they've read before.
Those connections to stories may not have been intended, but they introduce new layers in viewing art.
In this collection, excerpts from Wisconsin authors or from stories set in Wisconsin are connected to art from all over the world that resides in the Grohmann Museum Collection.
The Slaughtered Pig (1650) by Mattheus van HelmontGrohmann Museum at Milwaukee School of Engineering
Laura Ingalls Wilder was an author who wrote books based on her frontier childhood across the American Midwest. In Little House in the Big Woods, she recalls the years she spent in rural Wisconsin during the 1860s, living in a small cabin with her family.
Though young, Laura helps her parents around their farm, but she still finds time to play with her older sister, Mary. The two enjoy fall because of the toys they make. Every year after their father butchers the pig, he gives them the inflated pig’s bladder to use as a ball.
Looking at the little boy in this painting of a family butchering a pig,
Mary and Laura weren’t the only children who enjoyed the fun of fall (and butchering) time!
The meat was laid on a board in the back-door shed, and every piece was sprinkled with salt. The hams and the shoulders were put to pickle in brine, for they would be smoked, like the venison, in the hollow log.
"You can't beat hickory-cured ham," Pa said.
He was blowing up the bladder. It made a little white balloon, and he tied the end tight with a string and gave it to Mary and Laura to play with. They could throw it into the air and spat it back and forth with their hands. Or it would bounce along the ground and they could kick it.
The Little House in the Big Woods
1932
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Potato Harvest (1889) by Ludwig KnausGrohmann Museum at Milwaukee School of Engineering
Wilder also wrote about her husband Almanzo’s childhood in the book Farmer Boy. In this passage, Almanzo, who is about nine years old, is cold and hungry in the field as he harvests potatoes alongside his older sister Alice, his father, and the adult farmhands.
Harvesting potatoes is hard work;
if a child is too young to help for
long periods of time in the field,
parents may assign them “snack duty”
to give the child a helpful task
while adults and older children
do the literal heavy lifting,
like this child in Potato Harvest.
They worked and they worked, and still they did not hear the dinner horn. Almanzo was all hollow inside. He said to Alice:
“Before we get to the end of this row, we’ll hear it.” But they didn’t. Almanzo decided something must have happened to the horn. He said to Father:
“I guess it’s dinner-time.”
John laughed at him, and Father said:
“It’s hardly the middle of the morning, son.”
Almanzo went on picking potatoes. Then Father called, “Put a potato in the ashes, Almanzo. That’ll take the edge off your appetite.”
Almanzo put two big potatoes in the hot ashes, on for him and one for Alice. He piled hot ashes over them, and he piled more potato tops on the fire. He knew he should go back to work, but he stood in the pleasant heat, waiting for the potatoes to bake.
Farmer Boy
1933
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Lime Kiln (1847) by Karl von KratzerGrohmann Museum at Milwaukee School of Engineering
Other farm work was much more fun for a kid!
In Thimble Summer, Garnet is a young girl growing up on her family’s farm in southwestern Wisconsin.
During one summer, she goes on several adventures, from attending the county fair to getting locked in the library overnight!
In one chapter, Garnet is excited to stay overnight
at the lime kiln with her father and older brother.
She especially looks forward to staying awake all night!
Fuel needs to be added to the kiln several times an hour:
people work day and night to keep the fire fed.
Garnet stared fascinated at the kiln. The huge oven, open at the top, was crowned with flames of white and purple, and the iron door was red-hot, and glowing like the eye of a dragon.
Every ten or fifteen minutes the two men slid open the metal door with a piece of lead pipe; the clanging sound shattered all the dark gathered stillness of the woods. For a few minutes you could look into the brilliant heart of the fire as Mr. Freebody and Mr. Linden, staggering a little, lifted the big logs to feed it.
Thimble Summer
1938
Elizabeth Enright
Loggers
The father of the modern environmental movement was Aldo Leopold, a professor at UW-Madison. Leopold spent much of his free time on a farm near Baraboo, Wisconsin, and spent years attempting to restore the farmland to its native landscape.
The Sand Counties of Wisconsin
His reflections on the natural surroundings inspired him to write a series of essays. These writings were eventually gathered into A Sand County Almanac, named after the sandy soils in that region of the state.
Heat from the Furnace
The essays that make up the Almanac span the calendar year. The following passage opens the essay “Good Oak,” from the month of February, in which Leopold stresses the importance of understanding the work that provides the conveniences of modern life, such as a warm home.
There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm. One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery, and the other that heat comes from the furnace.
To avoid the first danger, one should plant a garden, preferably where there is no grocer to confuse the issue.
To avoid the second, he should lay a split of good oak on the andirons, preferably where there is no furnace, and let it warm his shins while a February blizzard tosses the trees outside. If one has cut, split, hauled, and piled his own good oak, and let his mind work the while, he will remember much about where the heat comes from, and with a wealth of detail denied to those who spend the week in town astride a radiator.
A Sand County Almanac
1949
Aldo Leopold
