Peter Blume's The Rock (1944-48) and the Post-war Landscape (Article)
Title: Peter Blume's The Rock (1944-48) and the Post-war Landscape
Author: Cecile Whiting
Abstract: Peter Blume's The Rock, a painting that preoccupied the artist for the duration of the war (although he did not complete it until 1948), combines evidence of death and destruction alongside signs of renewal. In tune with a future-oriented ethos of that time, The Rock acknowledged destruction in the past but nevertheless held out hope for what lay ahead by reasserting the possibility of rebuilding through human cooperation. This article examines how Blume's painting spoke to an emergent global consciousness that in its most idealistic form presaged a future of liberal humanism, but that, in its most crass form, eventually led to the development of global commercial networks and the exhaustion of natural resources.
Year: 2021
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: RANAM (Recherches Anglaises et Nord Americaines) no.54
Publisher: Presses Universitaires de Strasbourg

Andrew Wyeth and Birds of War (Article)
Title: Andrew Wyeth and Birds of War
Author: Cecile Whiting
Abstract: Demonstrates the ways in which two temperas painted by Andrew Wyeth in 1942 that feature birds were haunted by wartime killing and death. Exploring avian vision both in theme and technique, these paintings entered into a complex visual dialogue with Wyeth's father, N.C. Wyeth, and brother-in-law, artist Peter Hurd, both of whom produced pictures explicitly on behalf of the war effort featuring birds of aerial viewpoints. Providing an alternative to more obviously patriotic and celebratory wartime pictures, Wyeth's temperas develop interspecies contact between birds and humans, enabling viewers to imaginatively empathize and experience death with the birds.
Year: 2021
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Panorama v.7 n.2
Publisher: Journal fo the Association of Historians of American Art

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