pdf - Schwarz Gallery

The Creation of a Peaceable Kingdom
Of the Peaceable Kingdom paintings by Hicks, the pictures that comprise the border Kingdom series are clearly those in
which Hicks was teaching himself how to paint easel works. As a sign painter he would have learned how to combine visual
elements and utilize the techniques of tracing and transfer of image material to compose an integrated image that would
convey a single idea. Using these familiar techniques Hicks composed his Kingdom tableaux using images from selected print
sources and sketches taken from life. Examination of a number of these early border Kingdom works using x-radiography and
infrared reflectography illustrated just how much Hicks relied on these techniques to assemble his imagery. Extensive
underdrawing can be seen of not only the animals and figures but also landscape and foreground elements. A number of these
formative paintings, when radiographed, indicate that Hicks painted the surrounding landscapes intuitively. A complete sky,
then the mountainous landscape, and the middle ground and foreground imagery would have been meticulously executed,
layer upon layer, to create the overall landscape perspective. Additional underdrawing, appearing as detailed and completed
sketches, becomes visible beneath selected animals. In many cases these animals have been directly associated with
contemporary print sources and, as one might expect, often appear in reverse orientation from the print source image, an
artifact of the tracing and transfer processes he used. With this in mind, one can often see these “lifted” images as animals
that seem to float, curiously, amidst the more practiced aspects of his composition.
It is interesting to note that Hicks, a devoted and charismatic Quaker minister, often referred to his love of easel painting
as an indulgent character flaw. That he was capable of a more academic style of painting and rarely pursued it until the end
of his life might largely be attributed to the constraints of the Quaker religion to which he was quite devoted, a religion that
largely eschewed decorative painting and ornamentation for favor of plainness and simplicity of dress. It is not an
uncommon assertion that the inclusion of a Biblical text or proverb as a text border was yet another way of avoiding similar
criticism while also combining his love of painting with his ministry.
As Hicks gained confidence with his subject, his unique style emerged. The text borders disappeared and in time gave way
to larger image areas. The effort to execute realistic, atmospheric perspective seems to relax, giving way to a flatter picture
plane. The landscape begins to tilt toward the viewer and the animals and figures appear as if cut from paper, arranged one
atop another throughout the landscape. It is here that we become aware of a certain resurgence of his training and
background as a sign painter where softer, sculptural three-dimensional modeling gives way to bold, calligraphic brushwork
and a certain “posterization” of form. Another example of the return to sign painting technique can be seen in the use of
drop shadowing. These broad-stroke, characteristic shadows that surround and give emphasis to lettering come to use in the
outline and shadowing of animals and figures.
This painting stands as an extraordinary example in Hicks’s evolution of the Peaceable Kingdom from both an aesthetic and
academic point of view. It is actually an example of a late border Kingdom. The text border has been removed and the work
installed on a new support in its present dimension, apparently during the artist’s lifetime. That the text border remains
extant, reading: “A little child was leading them in love,/And not one savage beast was seen to frown,/His grim carniv’rous
nature there did cease,/When the great PENN his famous treaty made,” resonates as metaphor for the pivotal place this work
occupies in the genre. The image has been achieved with a meticulously executed cloud-filled sky, largely obscured by foliage
and landscape as in the early Kingdom works. Now, though, the picture plane begins to tilt toward the viewer. Strong though
somewhat tentative drop shadows begin to appear, defining figures, and the animals themselves appear flatter and more
graphic, in composition. The atmosphere of the sky is treated less academically, with billowing clouds giving way to the
characteristic blue-to-pink sky that is often associated with the later Kingdom pictures, now appearing on the horizon. His