Portrait of an artist and marital conflict

Uncompromisingly realistic in style, yet mysteriously visionary in affect, the paintings of Andrew Wyeth evoke the austere, flat, sometimes desolate beauty of the rural Midwest. It is not surprising that Larry Watson, author of “Montana 1948” and other novels on in the Northern Plains, should have found inspiration for his latest work in the story of Wyeth and the enigmatic woman, Helga, who became the model and muse for his extraordinary series of paintings.

“Orchard,” Watson’s sixth novel, is not intended to serve as a fictionalized version of art history or biography; the factual Wyeth and his Helga are merely the starting point. Watson’s novel is not only a study of the relationship between artist and muse, but also a stark double-portrait of the troubled marriages of two couples living in rural Wisconsin in the 1950s.

Ned Weaver is a critically acclaimed artist. Harriet, his wife, remembers the days when she was his greatest inspiration. She has since resigned herself to watching one woman after another serve as his model and mistress, but she takes consolation in the fact that she is still the one whose aesthetic judgment matters to him.

But there is something different about Ned’s latest obsession, a stolid-seeming farm wife, Sonja House, whose husband, Henry, owns a nearby apple orchard. Through no effort or design of her own, Sonja fascinates Ned as no previous model has ever done: “Weaver had never known a model with this woman’s talent for stillness.... She took to motionlessness eagerly, as if stasis were her natural state and she had been waiting for a reason to return to it.”

Sonja’s unself-conscious beauty, her quiet stoicism, are a mystery to Ned, who wonders, “Must one understand an enigma in order to portray it to others?” But the reader is soon made privy to Sonja’s history: her impoverished childhood in Norway, her fearful passage to America, her marriage to apple farmer Henry House and the tragic loss of their little son, John. By the time Sonja agrees to pose for Weaver, the Houses’ marriage is in a sad state. When Henry hears from his neighbors that his wife has been posing in the nude, things go from bad to worse.

Watson’s sinewy third-person narrative dips into each character’s perspective. In scene after scene, he builds a powerful atmosphere of subdued, yet highly charged eroticism. He also makes superb use of dialogue, both to illuminate his characters and to dramatize the intensity of their conflicts.

Watson’s insights into his characters not only bring them to life, but also shed light on the nature of art, love and marriage. For Ned, it is an article of faith that his art comes first, no matter how selfish this may make him. To Henry House, a man of instinct, love is something unseen and unspoken: “ ... it didn’t matter that Henry couldn’t describe the turn of Sonja’s hip or tell how the curve of her ankle differed from any other, because he didn’t need his senses to sense her.”

But what Sonja craves, although she is certainly no narcissist, is, quite simply, attention: “Now, imagine that there is someone in the world who would look at you hour after hour, day after day....” she says, trying to explain why she continues to pose for Weaver. “Because he thinks you’re beautiful? Perhaps. But no matter what -- because he thinks you’re worth looking at. All the world deserves this and you are simply one part of it. Do you know what a gift this is, just to be part of this living world that should be carefully examined?”

Harriet is the most reflective of the four. Why does this intelligent woman put up with Ned’s womanizing? Clearly, she believes in his greatness as an artist and finds a sense of purpose in her role as advisor. But by the time Sonja comes into their life, Harriet has begun wondering if it is worth being so unhappy merely to earn a place as a footnote in the art history books. Watson probes to understand what has kept Harriet by her husband’s side:

“Harriet had long known ... that only to his art did he bring his best self. All the other hours of his life he simply tried to slay as pleasantly as he could until it came time to pick up his brush again. Nevertheless, Harriet kept waiting for Ned to display that capacity for generosity, honesty, and wholeness that he revealed when he put images on paper or canvas.... If these qualities were in him, Harriet frequently wondered, why didn’t they come out in his relationships as well?”

Ned Weaver claims he paints not just to capture a moment or to examine the relationship of lines, shapes and colors, but to tell a story. “Orchard” is perhaps the kind of story that Weaver would want to tell: clear-eyed, close-to-the-bone, inherently dramatic and endlessly implicative.