Andrew Wyeth Master Bedroom Analysis

Humanity has faced the challenge of placing a definition on the ever so abstract concept of art since the beginning of the Renaissance. The ongoing dispute between art critics and aesthetic philosophers has generated the creation of numerous textual and pictorial compositions in regards to varying views on the idea of art. To translate a scene of a room and a bed onto a large canvas should not be considered true art. Early art philosophers struggled between perceiving art as an inspiration or a true knowledge. Andrew Wyeth’s watercolor, Master Bedroom, seems to just be an imitation of a real master bedroom instead of a true work of art. The piece deserves the least amount of appreciation because of its lack of originality, creativity, and

emotion. Art should be able to promote a shift in emotions within the audience due to a mental transfer into an interesting and new way of thinking. Master Bedroom, composed in 1965, is one of Andrew Wyeth’s most famous paintings, but its credentials should not define its value. The watercolor composition lends no feeling any different from the monotonous encounter with one’s bedroom, deeming itself less than true art.
The use of dull and simple colors may be the explanation behind the unemotional experience of Wyeth’s piece.

Maybe his sole purpose of the painting relied on the use of colors that were not so lurid. The sepia tone of the overall painting renders the same old feeling of walking into an old vintage room. Coming in contact with feelings and emotions is a checkpoint when experiencing art and this general experience is what art critic, Clive Bell, addressed and deemed an aesthetic experience in his book, Art. The absence of being able to feel a new or “peculiar emotion” when observing the painting, makes it just any old painting with little to no significance (Bell 187). Experiencing the aesthetic experience in which Bell speaks of means that the audience actually is actually provoked into interacting with the work of art because of its significance and a certain quality in which Bell calls “significant form” (Bell 8). In observing the piece, one can relate to the forms in the painting, but those forms are not expressive of any type of message. Wyeth may have had a specific experience with the scene, but the audience’s interpretation of the piece does not connect, disqualifying the piece from being a work of art, according to philosopher, Leo Tolstoy. He argues that art is only art when “the spectators or auditors are infected by the feelings which the author has felt” (Tolstoy 179) in his book, What is Art?. There is no sense of “unity” between “the artist and the audience” where the audience “feels as if the work were his own and not someone else's—as if what it expresses were just what he had long been wishing to express” (Tolstoy 180). John Berger also addresses the issue of audience and art interaction in his book, Ways of Seeing. Within the text, he explains the relationship between the audience’s beliefs and how it affects their reception of a certain piece of art. He says that the audience’s “knowledge” and “explanation” of a scene “never quite fits the sight”

(Berger 7). Berger sends the message that the audience sometimes connects the piece to personal experience and connection between the audience and the composition to personal experiences and beliefs, but sometimes is not able to connect at all. When there is no connection, whatsoever, the piece cannot be labeled as art.
Artists usually have a motive linked to connecting with the audience’s feelings and emotions. They attempt to achieve the goal of communicating some sort of message or feeling to the audience, typically through the means of creativity. When a composition lacks creativity, it lends a more informational appeal and lacks its ability to express any type of emotional feeling. Master Bedroom may have used watered down pigments of pain as a medium of composition, but the piece does not “oppress” the audience to the point where the audience is “no longer conscious” toward his or her current feelings (Collingwood 109). The audience has no chance of remove or a slight catharsis because there is no sense of creativity to initiate the act. In his book, The Principles of Art, philosopher, R. G. Collingwood, expresses the same notion regarding art as expression. Wyeth painting a still-life picture of a room, does not “express his true emotion” in an “unconscious” manner, making his work to simply be an imitated bed (Collingwood 110). According to Plato, a classical philosopher, Wyeth is “an imitator” and God possesses the knowledge of the art of composition and is the “creator and maker” (“The Republic” 398a). In his books, The Republic and Ion, he explains his thoughts on true art and its composers. He says there are “three forms of a bed” and in this case involving Wyeth, he decides to “praise the carpenter” by showing his, but his form of praise is not art (“The Republic” 520c). Plato also perceives Wyeth to not have the “knowledge” or “skill” of a carpenter; therefore, he is not an artist (“Ion” 531e-532a). Though he is moved by “divine inspiration”, his art cannot be classified as art, because his skill level is not adequate enough, which reverts back to his lack of creativity (“Ion” 556b).
Imitation can also be seen as an expression of inspiration. Some may even claim that life’s sole purposes is to seek out channels for expression, similar to one of the main purposes of art. Oscar Wilde, an essayist, believes in this idea and explains it in his book, The Decay of Living. He says that Wyeth is in fact not only an artist but also an inventor of the bed, window and pillow that is pictured in the composition because those objects “did not exist until art had invented them” (Wilde 73). That would mean that the artist are the creators of the world and if they are the creators of the world then they are the creators of art. For someone to contend that life imitates art would be false due to the circularity of the claim. Wilde makes the claim that “life imitates art far more than art imitates life” (Wilde 30) because of the similarity in purposes, but art is formed by the living and the living was created by a “divine power”, according to Plato. That divine power is who truly knows what art is and holds the capabilities of producing it. Wyeth is just channeling his appreciation for the window, bed, pillow, and a dog that the divine power has made in his Master Bedroom. His channeling cannot be considered a form of art because he did not produce the original; he is actually the one participating in imitation.
Wyeth composed Master Bedroom with an insane amount of stroke skill and detail intricacy, but that does not make his piece original or creative. Creativity leads to originality and individuality that determine the value of art and its authenticity. If Wyeth would have added a corpse or a skull in the dull room in an effort to display the slow and gloomy decay of life, Master Bedroom would have effectively communicated a feeling and emotional message that the audience could relate and connect to. The absence of that connection is also the absence of his expression because if what is trying to express is not known, and then it is not present at all. For his composition to be considered a true work of art, he does not have to be a carpenter that is able to build beds and construct windows. However, he must understand that he is not the original creator of the objects in his painting and his illustration was driven completely by some sort of inspiration. This inspiration is somewhat a direct reflection of admiration for the skillset of the constructors of the objects maintained in the painting.