Here is a room from my clip files—a stark early 19th century keeping room, a romanticized version of a past that never was, glorifying the humble, beautiful nonetheless. I don’t remember where this was published, but for some reason, I think it was Vogue, about 20 or 25 years ago. It is in the summer of home of the late Andrew Wyeth in Cushing, Maine. I’m not a huge fan of Wyeth’s art, cultish, faux mysterious, sentimental, manipulative, but I do like the clarity of vision here—country without the cute—weathered surfaces catching the sea light outside, uncompromising palette. I admire the aesthetic rigor that it takes to produce a room like this, be it modernist, minimalist or colonialist, but myself, I’m afraid that I’m forever being seduced by a continental mirror, a pretty lamp, or my friends’ demands for comfortable seating when they visit….no Shaker-like purity for me.
Oh, Look! Shiny object!
THE DOWN EAST DILETTANTE 
Ah, yes, the moral purity of poverty as aesthetics. Never understood its attraction other than as a marketing ploy.
Oh Blue, perfectly said. I wish I'd thought of it first! I have an acquaintance who cringes, tears up, shakes even, at the very notion of upholstery that isn't made from dirty 16th century bed linen, or at the idea of a chair that isn't beaten and battered, or of lighting her rooms with anything but bent iron candleholders….
Oh those crazy madcap Wyeths, what will they think of next?!A very beautiful room, thank you for posting it. I could see someone like Thomas Obrien making it into something glorious.
Does your acquaintance also have a privy in the back yard and tallow tapers in her candlesticks?
Yes to the tallow tapers…Privy, not exactly, but the fittings of the bathroom are self consciously primitive, down to an 18th century candlefixture holding the potty paper. I'm sure you'd love it….
Anonymous, LOL!
A Sad , Empty, Lonely Room.I couldn't get excited to paint that.
Loved the phrase "a romanticized version of a past that never was." Rather like the home of that English eccentric who created a home that was looked/lived like a set of a Dickens novel. What ever floats your boat as long as I don't have to float on it, too.
But it does have the color scheme that is all the rage in interior design this year-very Belgian, the bare bones of a Vervoodt interior.For myself, I believe as Le Corbusier, "Color will come to your rescue".
I think you are interpreting Wyeth's paintings based on their appearance versus Wyeth's inner workings. The whole family (all three generations) is "wondrous strange." There is nothing romantic about them — especially if you've read their biographies: "N. C. Wyeth" by David Michaelis and "Andrew Wyeth: A Secret Life" by Richard Meryman.
oh dilletante – how can you not love "Her Room" or "Christina's World" – a little surrealistic perhaps or "Mayflowers". true – strange colors just like this room and the wainscotting – isn't that a little much. i love BLUE's comment -succinct and to the point. i need to go and look at tiffany interiors now to shake the bad taste of shaker interiors – they didn't have sex either. your relative would love the shaker chair i have thats been rebuilt so many times i don't think it has an original piece in it. whew – give me eclecticism or give me death.
Home Before…what was the guy's name? Seevers, I think? I rather admired the way he created his dusty atmosphere with whatever was at hand—a stage set, as you say. But live in it? noooooooDandy, have always loved that quote…but of course, I love monochromatic vervoodt style too….LOL, sometimes I worry I love everything….every era, every color, every styleLinda, I think 'strange' is the operative word…and commercial. Turner, I actually do like Her Room, and consider Christina's world worthy of all the controversey it causes in the art world. There's early Andrew W., and there's crowd pleasing, faux mystical Andrew W., and I say it's spinach.