“In the Crystal Depths”
Today, one from the Golden Age of Illustration.
This oil on canvas illustration, titled “In the Crystal Depths”, is an oil painting from 1906 by the American artist and illustrator, N. C. Wyeth. This is one of five pieces in a series that was commissioned for The Outing Magazine. The series was published in June of 1907 under the name, The Indian and his Solitude.
This series was very popular with the public. So much so, that The Outing Magazine created a variety of different sized reproductions of Wyeth’s images that they sold to their readers, including a box set of all the images together.
Wyeth was one of Howard Pyle’s star pupils. Pyle was extremely popular and one of the most well-known artists from the American Age of Illustration. When Wyeth got his first commission creating a western inspired piece, Pyle convinced Wyeth to head west to do some research. Wyeth listened, and in 1904 he headed out to the southwest United States and got a job working as a cowboy.
While out there, Wyeth spent some time with the Navajo that lived in Arizona. When his money was stolen, he became a mail carrier, and worked to get enough money to head back home. Several years later, Wyeth returned to the west, and spend his money acquiring clothing and other interests from the Native Americans. He used these as props to help make his depictions more authentic.
“In the Crystal Depths” is currently in the collections of the Brandywine River Museum of Art in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania in the United States.
For more on N. C. Wyeth, please visit his short biography here.
You can find more artists to learn about here.
