First Harvest in the Wilderness with Pileated Woodpecker by Valerie Hegarty

I chose this piece from the 20x200.com website because I loved the juxposition of the woodpecker onto a well-drawn yet bland wilderness landscape. The background is actually Asher B. Durand’s painting from 1855 entitled First Harvest in the Wilderness. It looks like the woodpecker is actually confused by the realism in the painting and is trying to peck holes through it because it thinks the work is real. There can be so many different interpretations of what this means, but Hegarty offers one clever explanation, which is that as industry began taking off in the northeastern U.S., the pileated woodpecker lost its habitat and faced extinction. This is its revenge on people, which I find to be hilarious!