Christina Olson and the end of Art History

Remember Christina's World? I should have know better really but I was going to ask the question over whether there was was any story behind either the picture or Christina herself. All I know is that she had Infantile Paralysis as an .. er ... infant and that Andrew Wyeth met her one day and painted the picture from memory. However, there is the book Christina Olson: Her World Beyond the Canvas and this completely changes the view of the picture. Wyeth's painting is technically admirable but apart from Christina's World, I feel most of it is cold, like an antidote to all that Norman Rockwell saccharine. Not that I would dismiss Norman Rockwell as meaningless - every so often he paints something off-the-wall enough to reset your mind counter to all the usual wide-eyed baseball kids and ThanksGiving Dinners. We spend so much time over here criticising the Americans for not having any idea about life in the rest of the World but on the whole, we are pretty ignorant of the real USA ourselves.

I thought that the scene in 'Saving Private Ryan' where the Major and The Priest travel to see Mrs Ryan looked like Christina's World and it is nice to see that a better man than me thinks so too, though in light of the slightly darker nature of the picture it seems the film-makers have the 'Rural Idyll' view in mind rather than the deeper meaning.

I keep thinking of Lake Wobegon as well probably because of the name Olson.