In Gourd, Wyeth creates harmony between an irregularly shaped “birdhouse gourd” and the tree that created it within a spiral, Golden Ratio (used by artists for centuries to create an aesthetically-pleasing balance between the weight of subjects in a painting). The composition spins out from the blue bird who rests at her doorway, around the perimeter of the gourd’s shell, to the budding branch, enclosing the negative space of the brilliant blue sky – mimicking a yin-yang symbol. Looking closely at the painting, we can see the artist’s fingerprints. Wyeth is known to use his hands and whatever other tools are necessary to create the desired effect. One suspects that he frantically worked through the application of wet paint to capture this brief moment of the gourd’s owner peeking out of her home.