Chadds Ford’s Andrew Wyeth, one of the greatest American artists of the 20th century, loved using unusual perspectives in his paintings, writes Sebastian Smee for the Washington Post. 

This preference resulted in some of his best works. For example, his “Northern Point,” exhibited at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, is painted from the perspective of a bird of prey. The painting shows a lightning rod perched atop the roof of a house. 

Part of the artwork’s appeal is the tension between the shingles, the perfectly captured woodgrain and weather-beaten texture, and the amber-glass orb on the lightning rod. 

It is clear that painting the house from this unusual perspective enabled him to impose his unique brand of hallucinatory clarity from above. 

Read more about Andrew Wyeth in the Washington Post.