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Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth,
Texas, USA
EMu user since 2006
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"I
cannot lie, I did it with my little hatchet" admits a youthful George
Washington to his father, thereby passing into American legend. This anecdote of the cherry tree was captured, or
rather created, by bookseller and itinerant preacher Parson Mason Locke Weems in
1806, and although the tale lacks historical authenticity Weems' intention it seems
was to articulate a moral fact, judging that the tale was "too valuable
to be lost, and too true to be doubted".
In Parson Weems Fable (1939), by Grant Wood, Weems appears in the
foreground, drawing back a curtain on the scene at the moment of
confession. Wood embellishes the scene through clever use of repeating motifs,
such as the spherical shapes in the trees, buttons, cherries, and cherry like
curtain fringe. The artist also designed the painting's frame, which repeats the
spherical motif with ornamental beading and picks up the star on the house with
a series of painted stars.
Although delightfully amusing today, Wood's visual puns, such as his use of
the mature Washington's head from a celebrated portrait by Gilbert Stuart,
seemed to his contemporaries to satirise and deride the famous legend. (And one
might question the virtuousness of Washington's confession ;given that he is
caught with the little hatchet in hand: "I cannot lie becuase you've caught
me red handed!") Wood, however, claimed that he actually wished to preserve
such folklore, especially at a time when fascism was threatening democracy.
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