Dear Reader,
Making art that is inspired by another piece of art is currently
at the top of my list, as I begin the sixth mixed media painting
based on my late husband John Gaumond’s photographs (see
last month’s Judy’s Journal). What were the chances
of an exhibition arriving at the Worcester Art Museum that features
one iconic painting, “Our Peaceable Kingdom,” c.1833,
by Edward Hicks and forty-two responses to it by a national
and international group of artists? But this exhibition held
a different and complex purpose, with a satisfying outcome.
The gallery is set up as an installation, with walls filled
by support information and the centrally located Hicks painting
and forty-two easels are set in rows facing it. The viewer is
placed behind the easel, much the same as the artist was when
she/he was making the painting. There was lots of going back
and forth between the Hicks painting, comparing it to the contemporary
artists responses to exhibit curator Lee Mingwei’s question:
What is peace?
It’s more fun to see this exhibition with an art partner
– an extra set of eyes notice twice as much! Artists’
statements explaining each work are shown on a wall, so not
immediately accessible for figuring out the what or why of each
effort. Many mimicked the basic composition, which includes
animals usually associated as predator and prey, such as a lion
and wolf relaxing with a sheep and calf, and people (settlers
grouped with Native Americans). Lee Mingwei’s purpose was
to have the artists express their answers to the central question
through a painting, just as Hicks did almost 200 years ago.
Lee would also have viewers stop and think about what their
own “peaceable kingdom” would look like.
A stand-out for me showed the painting’s landscape replicated,
but only sets of eyes in place, matching the dozens of animals
and humans in the original. If we only saw each other’s’
eyes, how would that affect our solutions to conflicts? Another
was a portrait of a baby cuddled on the chest of a lion without
a jot of aggression or fear in either. How possible could that
be? Yet another painting was simply passages of pastel color,
with no landscape or figures. Can there ever be true peace as
long as people and animals inhabit the planet? While Hicks painted
sixty-two versions of “Our Peaceable Kingdom,” they
all represented essentially the same hope in peaceful coexistence.
Until this exhibition closes on February 1, 2026, there is an
opportunity to ponder forty-two provocative responses to this
ideal worldview.
