Elisabeth Martinez

3/24/16
Team Presentation Assignment
Humanities
At the time of the Romantic Era, an artists called Edward Hicks created a painting called
The Peaceable Kingdom. Hicks was an American folk artist that created art that conveyed a
meaning though abstract signs and symbols.
American folk art was the type of art that created interest in others, and was well known in the
nineteenth century. Folk art didnt consists of the artist to me professionally trained, instead they
lacked the technical schooling in the visual arts. Inspiration came from any surrounding object
they thought could use a little more designs and express more of a natural detail. Folk art truly
brought out the neutrality and meaning of life during the nineteenth century.
This painting consisted of the help and inspiration of Quaker William Penn. Hicks created
more than one hundred versions of this painting, inspiration drawn from the Book of Isaiah,
which quoted, The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the
kidand a little child shall lead them(pg.235) Hicks represent the wild animals and children on
a verdant landscape, and in the far left background Quaker William Penn displays the peace
treaty being signed with the Lenape tribe.
Through this decorative painting Hicks display an image of an unnatural event, yet conveying
a message though the gestures of the children, reaching out lovingly to the wild creatures in
their midst, that Hicks establishes the link between natural innocence and peace. (pg.235)