While Henry Varnum Poor’s fresco does not initially appear to have a religious theme, it in fact draws on centuries of religious iconographic tradition. In the fresco, we see a lone farmer carrying two pails of milk, standing in front of a white farmhouse. This house is Poor’s own farm, located on Lakewood Road in Skowhegan. The man in the fresco, a farmer clad in a dark jacket and gray pants, is in fact the property’s former owner, known by the moniker Old Kincaid (Cummings 43). Two large trees stand on the left side of the house, reaching up towards the sky. The man looks up into the left-hand corner, a bright light illuminating his face. These beams of light seem to be coming from above him, represented by sheer brushes of white seemingly pouring out of the clouds above his head, barely noticeable at first glance. Mildred Cummings, Willard W. Cummings’s wife, describes these clouds as a “summer mackerel sky,” a term used to describe rippled cloud formations, a common occurrence during Maine summers (Cummings 43). This choice of depicting a cloud formation characteristic of a Maine summer shows that Poor was painting from observation, creating a scene that is true to life.
Not only do the clouds take up much of the wall space, but their presence on the right wall of the meeting house’s vestibule is worth noting. In the iconographic tradition, clouds are a symbol for mist and signify “the intermediate world between the formal and non-formal” (Cirlot 51). The abundance of clouds is thus perfectly fitting for a vestibule, a transitory space between the exterior and the interior, the informal outside world and the formal space of a place of worship. Another point of interest in the fresco is the way Old Kincaid is positioned. The man stands with his head and shoulders directed towards the left of the composition, as if he were looking into the meetinghouse. Just as the clouds stress the transitory nature of the vestibule, the farmer’s gaze guides and invites the visitors inside the sacred space.
Perhaps the most significant religious element in this fresco is the iconography of the light. In the Christian tradition, light signifies spiritual illumination or the presence of the Divine (Cirlot 188). Here, we see the farmer looking up at the sky, awash in rays of light. Although the work’s title, The Lord Reveals Himself to Old Kincaid, might be have been the result of a facetious reply by the artist when, according to Mildred Cummings, he was “asked about his choice and the fact that it’s not a religious subject matter (43), Poor’s handling of light suggests spiritual undertones, with God appearing as rays of light rather than a physical being, revealing himself through nature itself.
In works such as Giovanni Bellini’s Saint Francis in the Desert and Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio’s Conversion of St. Paul, we see God’s presence being revealed through light. Bellini’s painting shares a strikingly similar composition to Poor’s, with Saint Francis standing in the bottom left corner of the painting and looks up. In Caravaggio’s painting, St. Paul falls off his horse, stunned by a bright light that represents the power of the divine. Thus, this seemingly innocuous painting of a farm, establishes links with a long tradition of religious iconography.
Faye Hirsch, who is writing a book on the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, offers interesting insights into Henry Varnum Poor’s religious beliefs. It turns out that Poor was not a religious man himself but that he revered nature. As a result, the iconography and setting of his fresco begin to make sense, with nature being a divine manifestation. Poor intentionally did not paint any explicitly religious imagery, but rather allows the viewer to feel the presence of God through the natural world, and in particular clouds, trees, and light. In his personal interpretation of a centuries-old religious iconography, Poor took his depiction to a new direction, manifesting the divine presence through a Maine summer day. In doing this, Poor spoke directly to his audience, the people in rural Maine.
—Lydia Burke
- Cirlot, J.E. A Dictionary of Symbols. London: Routledge, 1971.
- Cummings, Mildred H. South Solon: The Story of a Meeting House. South Solon, Maine: South Solon Historical Society, 1959.