Philadelphia Antiques Show 2022

80 2 0 2 2 LOAN EXH I B I T 1983 • FLIGHT OF FANCY The 1983 loan exhibit “Flights of Fancy” considered the extraordinary preponderance of birds in early American art. Once again, the inimitable Joan Johnson assembled an astonishingly diverse array of art, from wall plaques and gate weights to fraktur and weathervanes to plates and quilts. The catalogue essays addressed the ways in which artists and artisans employed birds in their art: “Birds as Patriotic Symbols” (Elinor Lander Horowitz); “Decorative Birds in American Furniture” (Albert M. Sack); “The Usefulness of Birds: ‘When Tame Swans Fly Against the Winds’” (Ellen Paul Denker); and “A Survey of the Religious Symbols of Birds” (Anita Schorsch). Denker noted how we “eat them, pluck them, watch them fly south in the winter, welcome them in the spring, and wake to their sweet songs,” (p.83) but for those who came before us birds served an even more important role. And Schorsch wrote that “Here, in America, the inheritors of both medieval iconography and the Puritan kingdom worked their symbols—often birds—into portraits, fraktur, embroidery, book plates, coins, pottery, literature, and even furniture. But the message was invariably the same—either to warn of evil ways with symbols such as the monk’s black bird from medieval manuscripts or to inspire people to the better life with the pelican of charity, the eagle of the reborn, or the dove of peace.” (p.90) Looking back, what should be added here is that the Indigenous People whose lands the Europeans took over in the colonial period had long worshiped, praised, painted, carved, and followed the migrations of the many species of birds found in North America—all with a profound respect for the birds as fellow inhabitants of the land. The carved and painted bird’s yellow beak and head are held high and forward, and its brightly colored plumage—with piqued out designs—and its elegant, s-curved body, is shown in a pre-flight stance. Its design and motifs fall within the traditions representing birds as a decorative subject, particularly to the Pennsylvania Germans. Especially within the agrarian communities, artisans made such representations of nature as either whimsical creations to adorn their houses or as tokens of affection to give as a gift. Given the numerous surviving examples of single birds and bird trees such as that on view in the museum’s gallery 107, birds likely held symbolic and spiritual meanings on a personal basis and within the various communities. Flight of Fancy, 1983 Painted wood, 10 x 8 inches Collection of Joan M. Johnson