Dragon Slayer With Two Sons 

Edith Vonnegut painted Dragon Slayer With Two Sons with oils on canvas, a well-established fine art tradition, and a way of asserting a personal vision. This painting has a very particular feel, though. Vonnegut’s technique is not about hyper-realism, but rather a kind of raw expression. This can be seen most clearly in her rendering of the figures and their placement against the setting. The application of paint is very direct, with visible brushstrokes and a bold color palette. There’s a refreshing directness in the way Vonnegut allows the paint itself to be evident. This aesthetic connects to a larger trend in 20th-century art of embracing process and materiality. Artists like Vonnegut challenged the traditional hierarchy between fine art and craft by foregrounding the act of making and asserting her own view of the world. The artist focuses our attention to the subject, rather than technique, making for a powerful statement.