The peaceable kingdom
Introduction
The peaceable kingdom is an oil on canvas painting by Edward Hicks, a person who believed in a direct and personal relationship with God. His painting about the peaceable painting was inspired by the text in the book of Isaiah 11:6 “The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; and their young ones shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox…” In this same painting he also includes William Penn’s men purchasing a peace treaty with the Indians to ensure that the people of Pennsylvania continue to co-exist peacefully. This served as historical example of a peaceful kingdom.
Hick has been able to make this painting appear like a three dimensional picture yet it is a two dimensional picture buy changing the size on his drawings and putting them accurately on separate locations on the canvas. He has also use linear perspective to make objects appear small as and converge as they approach the horizon. These has also been able to achieve this by attaining atmospheric perspective. The images that are converging towards the horizon line do not have as much contrast as those in the foreground. He has been able to use hue and value, atmospheric perspective and linear perspective and created an illusion of great distance making his painting look like a three dimensional image. He is able to create depth by overlapping the animals so that larger shapes seem closer and the small shapes seem further away.
He has also been able to perfectly show the foreground, the middle ground and background of his painting. The foreground is where he has placed the wolf and the lamb lying close to each other. Other features in the fore ground include the leopard and the kid placed just close enough to the leopard and the lion close to the oxen. In the middle ground there is; two women, two children, a large bird, a bear, two cows, a calf and a cub. he has placed these animals in the foreground and middle ground within close proximity to create an illusion or an image of what is written in the scripture. The background of this image is where he has places Penn’s soldier with the Indian people and far behind them also in the background there is a water body with a sailing ship and far beyond the water body there is a dense forest and a mountain.
In his painting he uses the color white to illustrate the forest in the background to ensure that the forest does not stand out more than the animals in the foreground. He uses brown and yellow shades to pain the animals in the foreground to ensure that he draws attention to them and the features in the background do not out stand them. The distant landscape beyond the water body is painted in light colors to create on illusion of a fall season. Hick managed to draw everything carefully although the domestic animals are more perfectly drawn compared to the wild animals. The wild animals seem to be created from an artistic imagination, he was not able to draw these animals in their correct shapes, an example is the mane of the lion is wrongly placed. This brown and yellow shades used on the animals create a certain sense of warmth and convey a message of peace and uniformity and also to show a natural environment.
Hick used images of calm animals, their bodies are perfectly curved, the images from these painting flow from one to the other. The restful, curvy bodies of the animals create a peaceful mood and convey the meaning of peace that he intended to convey in his painting. The lines he uses in creating his images are clean, soft and flowing creating a perfect image. The horizon in this painting is peaceful and makes the environment feel relaxing. The texture of the images on the painting is soft creating a light mood. The light in the image is natural and comes from the sun since the whole painting is set in a natural environment. His painting is well balanced and there is uniformity in his art work.
Conclusion
Hick’s painting is based on a scripture that prophecy’s a certain peace that even predator and prey shall co-exist and human and animals shall leave in peace and in a very sere environment. The images of the Penn’s soldiers and the Indians echoes that prophecy, since it is a peace treaty that they are signing so that the original inhabitants of the land and the foreigners shall co-exist in peace. He has been able to create an illusion of depth in his painting thus making his two dimensional painting look like a three dimensional painting. Space is well illustrated in his painting since the foreground, middle ground and background are well shown. The painting has a well-balanced rhythm since images are flowing from one to the other. The images of the animals are calm and restful thus creating a good relaxing mood. The horizon is well illustrated and lastly the lighting in the painting is from the sun’s natural light.
