Gratitude
Annette Everett
- Medium
United States
ca. 2019
Bronze
Inspired by Jules Breton’s painting Song of the Lark, Everett’s Gratitude captures a moment of profound gratitude. In Brenton’s painting, a woman is lifted out of her laborious field work when, at dawn, she becomes, as Everett describes, “transfixed [by] the song of a lark in the sky above her.” Similarly, the woman in Gratitude is lifted up in gratitude as she turns her face heavenward, expressing thanks for the harvest of the field.
Artist J. Leo Fairbanks wrote, “Art is for service, for making things beautiful as well as useful; for lifting men above the sordid things that grind and depress; to give a joyous optimism in one’s work; . . . to realize transitory hopes in enduring tangible material; to visualize ideals . . . and to idealize realities.”