Artsy Insight: Andrew Wyeth Brings the Outdoors Inside

When not painting en plein air (as pictured), Andrew Wyeth captured nature through the giant windows of his 1875 schoolhouse-turned-home and studio, where he painted for nearly 70 years. Nestled in overgrown foliage in the heart of rural Pennsylvania, Wyeth’s studio faced his preferred northern light, which flooded a space scattered with drawings and pigments, scribbled notes, and cartons of eggs for mixing tempera paints—a testament to his claim that “art is messy”. “I love to study the many things that grow below the corn stalks and bring them back to the studio to study the color,” Wyeth once said. “If one could only catch that true color of nature—the very thought of it drives me mad.”

Photograph via Wikimedia Commons