Analysis Of Edward Hicks's 'The Peaceable Kingdom'

On the day of September 29th 2017, a trip to the local Dallas Museum of arts was made. After a few artistical examinations, there was an outstanding piece that stood out the most; it was called “The Peaceable Kingdom”. The Idealist painter Edward Hicks portrayed his background of religion to specify an important passage in the bible, Isiah 11: 6-9. Hicks used that passage to personalize many sentiments through his 62 different-surviving paintings. The individual elements in this version of the painting play an important role in the overall theme of peace and harmony influenced by an important religious event. Hicks naturalistic approach showcases his talent to use spatial recession, and atmospheric effects to form an equation that yields to …show more content…
The color of the artwork was the first element that grasped the attention. Since the landscape is atmosphere prospective of this painting, earthy colors were used. The naturalistic strokes on the lion, and the vivid outline of the leopard’s coat also managed to accumulate to the natural color. The vibrant colors in the left corner of the painting shed a light on the significance of that distinct location. The second element that needs to be critiqued was the look and feel of the canvas. The texture produced two different senses; sight and touch. Unfortunately, the touch part of the painting was not allowed but the overall texture of the canvas was very smooth, there was not that many edges to make the painting rough. The texture can be evaluated more by looking at the biggest element in this painting which is the cow, the body of the cow has minimal edges with very smooth strokes. This goes for all the animals in this painting. This naturalistic smooth canvas worked together to create a flow. The movement of this piece seems to be slow, almost at rest. The leopard seems to be moving in an orderly fashion, not attacking any of the food sources available at his …show more content…
He took the Isiah’s passage to influence his world as he lives amongst it. Hicks provided me a pair of glasses to see the equation of nature. He wanted Peace and Harmony where life was not chaotic like his timeline. He portrayed the community needs to aspire together in order to achieve that state. Each element of the equation needs to be accounted for to create this slow and naturalistic smooth painting. He showed that the distance doesn’t have to be ugly, it can be a beautiful sunset with everyone co-existing. When elemental differences are set aside, the world can be finally set in peace and