Edward Hicks—His PEACEABLE KINGDOMS and Other Paintings (review)

Book Reviews51 on Quakers. She has read and quantified the records of delinquency ofthe Meeting from 1678 and 1720 and divided the period into three parts characterized by different relationships between the Meeting and its members. The essay is basically flawed, however, because the data means little without an understanding of how many members there were in the meeting. Ofthis population, and also the surrounding non-Quaker one, we get only the most meager and glib reference. Gladfelter also shows little understanding of the historical origins and use of Quaker discipline, nor ofa monthly meeting's situation in a larger Quaker organization. Gladfelter could hardly have done better than to have followed the example of Susan Forbes in her essay on New Garden Monthly Meeting entitled "Quaker Tribalism." She describes not only delinquency rates accurately but also the patterns of participation in the business ofthe Meeting. After identifying the activists and leaders in the Meeting she discovered that their distinguishing characteristic was their family ties to other activist members. She also finds that after 1755 a more exclusive Society of Friends was forged mostly by the strict application of the marriage discipline. Forbes's essay corroborates Levy's pronouncment upon the utmost importance of the family in Quaker life. Nancy Tomes ingeniously investigated the visiting patterns among women Friends in Philadelphia, 1750 to 1800, and has extracted from these pedestrian records some fascinating and significant conclusions . Quaker women circulated almost exclusively among other Quakers and with that circle they favored their kin. But the larger circle of the Society and the smaller one of family did not conflict. Tomes writes: "Trying to unravel the two affiliations soon leads to the recognition that they became all the stronger as they were so effectively intertwined" (p. 190). Because solidarity with kin is an ancient practice which yet prospered among Pennsylvania Quakers whom Levy characterizes as "modern," we have a mixed portrait of the Quaker family in these essays. There remains however, the common discovery of the immense importance of the family within Quakerism. Tucson, ArizonaJack D. Marietta Edward Hicks-His PEACEABLE KINGDOMS and Other Paintings . Text by Eleanore Price Mather, catalogue by Dorothy Canning Miller and Eleanore Price Mather. Newark, Delaware: 52Quaker History University of Delaware Press (An American Art Journal/Kennedy Galleries Book), 1983. 224 pages. $40.00. In this book two recognized authorities present the fruits of years of painstaking research on the most famous of America'a folk or primitive painters, Edward Hicks (1780-1849). Their major effort updates the still-indispensable, biographically-focused study of Alice E. Ford (1952), providing for the first time a fully illustrated catalogue of all the 122 paintings thought to be by Hicks which have survived to the present and which include several examples of decoration of functional objects such as furniture, coaches, firescreens, and inn signs, artisan work that constituted a significant source of income for Hicks. Efficiently synthesizing archival material, such as Hicks' letters, account ledger, and Memoirs, with existing literature and the new discoveries of Mrs. Mather and Miss Miller, thejointlyauthored catalogue entries provide a wealth of useful specifics on physical condition, exhibition and ownership histories, and often also relationships to source material or other versions of a subject by Hicks. Thorough bibliographical listings of books, articles, and exhibition catalogues and a detailed index augment the value of the catalogue for anyone interested in doing research on Hicks. Mrs. Mather has also contributed a stimulating 77 page essay illuminating Hicks' paintings with reference to his life as a deeply committed Quaker who, joining the Society of Friends in 1803, was recorded as a minister in 1 8 12 and spent much of his energy and time traveling, preaching, and writing for his beliefs. The shifts in the intriguing and puzzling imagery ofthe sixty variants ofthe Peaceable Kingdom, from the first known canvas c. 1820 to the one left on the artist's easel at his death almost thirty years later, are explained with knowledgeable discussions of the issues in contemporary Quakerism, notably the Hicksite/Orthodox controversy at the center of which was a cousin of the artist, as well as Hicks' personal conflicts which are, however, resolved in the last...