Three Cheers for the Red, White, and Blue!
A Flag Day salute by an American folk artist from upstate New York.The evocative American icon of a working windmill driving a water pump, grain mill, or another machine is a common feature of the rural landscape. Wind-powered machines have been used by farmers and manufacturers in the Middle East and Europe for at least fifteen hundred years and became common throughout Europe curing the Middle Ages. Hand-held children's toys, similar to today's pinwheel, can be seen in illustrated thirteenth-century manuscripts from northern Europe. Larger versions of these toys, which can be permanently mounted in fixed locations to catch the wind, are still produced in Europe and the United States and have become common features in yard and garden decoration. The tail, which provides a surface for ornamentation, is usually attached to keep the propeller blades spinning into the wind.
This whirligig is simple, bold, and patriotic. As its painted blades spin, they blend into concentric circles of red, white, and blue, echoing the colors of Old Glory painted on the tail.
Source: Lynda Roscoe Hartigan. Made with Passion: The Hemphill Folk Art Collection in the National Museum of American Art (Washington, D.C. and London: For the National Museum of American Art by the Smithsonian Institution Press, 1990).
Pictured: Unidentified, n.d., American Flag Whirligig, mid-20th century, painted iron and carved and painted wood, 28 1/4 x 38 1/2 x 28 1/4 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Herbert Waide Hemphill, Jr. and museum purchase made possible by Ralph Cross Johnson.
A Flag Day salute by an American folk artist from upstate New York.The evocative American icon of a working windmill driving a water pump, grain mill, or another machine is a common feature of the rural landscape. Wind-powered machines have been used by farmers and manufacturers in the Middle East and Europe for at least fifteen hundred years and became common throughout Europe curing the Middle Ages. Hand-held children's toys, similar to today's pinwheel, can be seen in illustrated thirteenth-century manuscripts from northern Europe. Larger versions of these toys, which can be permanently mounted in fixed locations to catch the wind, are still produced in Europe and the United States and have become common features in yard and garden decoration. The tail, which provides a surface for ornamentation, is usually attached to keep the propeller blades spinning into the wind.