#christinas world

Andrew Wyeth’s masterpiece Christina’s World is one of those paintings which will leave you with a rather odd unsettling vibe and more surprisingly with hope. The painting depicts a young woman, thin of frame with emaciated limbs, lying in a sun-dappled field and reaching longingly towards a gray farmhouse(her house) on a distant hill. This is a true depiction of Christina Olson’s(Andrew Wyeth’s neighbour) life, as she suffered from a rare crippling form of genetic neuropathy. She refused to use wheelchair and preferred to crawl instead.

At first glance the viewer may perceive a sense of calm and serenity, but only after looking closer, we can see the mystery and contrasting features.

We see Christina’s out of proportion left hand is shown gripping the ground, while her right hand is diminutive and shrunken. This seems to portray her pain and struggle as she tries to reach her house. It tries to instill hopelessness and loneliness at the beginning. But when you see her head positioned towards her house(highlighted by short grass around it), like she is longing for something so great and tries to achieve it with struggle and determination. And only by her will to live(looking at you Schopenhauer), she creates a world of hope and strength, for its viewers. Its really interesting to note that everything goes against this optimistic view, like dreary brownish grass and use of neutral colours(tempera style) which tries to meander our perception towards surrendering to the atrocities of life. But its only Christina, in her striking pink dress and hair tossed up by wind, who carries these atrocities on her shoulders and tries to move forward showing us her independent and self-sufficient nature. I was trying to put myself into her shoes and feel what she must have felt at this very moment. Maybe i will never know. But whatever she made me feel without looking at her face is beyond the shadow of a doubt truly wonderful. And i don’t know if i love this feeling, but i will keep it until the end.