WILLIAMSBURG, VA. - "The Kingdoms of Edward Hicks," which opened in early February at the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center of Colonial Williamsburg, opens new windows on the life of the well-known Bucks County, Penn. painter and Quaker minister.

Collectors, who only know Hicks' work from the visionary "Peaceable Kingdom" paintings, will find a more complete picture of the artist's range from the trade signs he painted for a living to his tranquil renditions of farm life in the early Nineteenth Century.

Without a doubt, the famous Kingdoms remain at the heart of the show, curated by Carolyn J. Weekley, director of museums for Colonial Williamsburg. Between the 1820s and his death in 1849, Hicks painted 62 versions of this scene with animals and a small child based on Isaiah's biblical prophecy (11:6-9) of harmony among the gentle and fierce creatures of the earth.

Weekley's interest, which led to her research for this exhibition and its accompanying catalogue, began in her college days. "I never quite got over seeing one of his Kingdoms, painted in the 1830s, in which two particular animals Ī the lion and the leopard Ī have these very intense, almost electrifying gazes. It seemed anathema to what the picture was all about, which was peace. I always felt there was something more going on in these paintings than just a simple moralistic teaching of `thou shalt not harm.'"

Hicks earliest versions from the 1820s are often framed by the actual biblical text, "The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, & the leopard shall lie down with the kid, & the young lion & the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them." Surrounded by this roster of animals, the determined child in question guides the lion with a firm grasp on his mane. Most renditions include a vignette depicting William Penn's Treaty with the Lenape Indians in the background. An expanded version of the treaty subject, which also represented mankind's ability to live in harmony, was the main subject of several paintings by Hicks. Examples are in the collections of AARFAC, the Shelburne and the Mercer Museum.

Weekley continued, "His paintings are enormously appealing. They're powerful little pictures. When you stand in front of these things, a lot of people have the same reaction that I did. You sense something about these paintings that is mysterious. You don't quite get it, but you know there's something more there that intrigues you. They're colorful and detailed, so you don't stand ten feet away to view them. You need to study them up close."

When she began to organize the show, which took many years to bring together, Weekley realized, "The Kingdom paintings are the core of the exhibition. What we were really trying to achieve with the show was to bring greater understanding to why he did these paintings. These are at the center of his artistic life, and this vision is where his creativity comes from. After all, he spent three decades of thinking about and working on these paintings. He painted the first about 1816-1818 and was working on one last one the night before he died. That one is in the show. He was definitely compelled. He said he had an excessive fondness for painting, and you sense that when you look at his work."

After reading an article by David Tatham, "Edward Hicks, Elias Hicks, and John Comly: Perspectives on the Peaceable Kingdom Theme" in American Art Journal, XIII (1981), Weekley became convinced that the changes in the depictions of the Kingdom series stemmed from Hicks distress over Quaker sectarian strife. The painter was the cousin of Elias Hicks, who led the "Hicksite" contingent of Quakers, which found itself in disagreement with more orthodox members of the community.

Her views are expressed at length in the middle chapters of the exhibition's accompanying volume, The Kingdoms of Edward Hicks. Written by Weekley with the assistance of Laura Pass Barry as a joint AARFAC/Abrams publication, the book is available for $39.95 from the Folk Art Center gift shop at 757/220-7693 or through local bookstores.

Weekley points out, "I think he was very involved and upset by what was going on in the Society of Friends. He really bonded with Elias Hicks, and at one point, says he was like a father. Edward Hicks' personal disappointment and anger are very obvious in these paintings. Toward the end of his life, the animals become dispersed, not organized together as they used to be. Finally, they fall to the bottom of the canvas, all facing different directions with no unity, just as there was no reunification in the church during his lifetime."

Weekley declines to label Hicks a "folk" painter, noting a passage by contemporary John Comly, who felt he had "a genius, and taste for imitation, which if the Divine law had not prohibited, might have rivaled Peale or West....". This refers to the Quaker feeling that portrait commissions of the type accepted by Charles Willson Peale and Benjamin West were an indulgence of human vanity.

Peale, however, did paint Quaker portraits, and a dichotomy developed between the worldly, wealthy Friends of the city, who were more flexible in their attitude toward art, and the more modest Quakers who lived in outlying areas. Weekley writes, "The Society of Friends in Edward's time considered ornamental painting a suitable trade for members so long as it was done within the Society's general aesthetic guidelines."

Although 30 of the show's 80 exhibits are various versions of the Peaceable Kingdom, visitors may be more intrigued by less familiar subject matter, in particular the farm scapes which capture the rural tranquillity of Quaker agrarian life. An excellent example is "The Residence of David Twining," a scene Hicks painted at least four times between 1845 and 1847, near the end of his life.

When young, Edward Hicks lived at the prosperous Bucks Country farm of David and Elizabeth Twining, and sixty years later in his life painted the home and fields as they appeared in 1785 based on his memories. The sale at Christie's on January 15 of a "Peaceable Kingdom" for $4,732,500 has overshadowed the fact that, minutes earlier, a version of "The Residence of David Twining," where Hicks once lived, had reached a remarkable $1,432,500.

One Twining farm painting was executed for David Leedom, whose parents Jesse and Mary Twining Leedom appear in the work. Hicks also painted Leedom Farm for David in 1849, a few month before his death at age 70. The view's vast luminous sky and orderly arrangement of livestock in the foreground seem to recapture the vision of harmonious life so important to Hicks and other Quakers.

The Hicks exhibition is the focus of several Williamsburg special events scheduled this spring, including the Williamsburg Institute on "Folk Art Favorites" on March 11-14 and a series of lectures each Wednesday at 3:30 pm during May at the Hennage Auditorium of Williamsburg's De Witt Wallace Gallery. The first, on May 5, will feature Carolyn Weekley exploring the message behind "The Kingdoms of Edward Hicks." (Institute information: 800/603-0948; lecture information: 757/220-7724.)

After closing at Williamsburg in September, "The Kingdoms of Edward Hicks" goes on an extended tour of the country, opening at the Philadelphia Museum of Art on October 10, then on to Denver and San Francisco. Philadelphia's curator of American painting Darrel Sewell notes, "Hicks was a man with a vision, who really did associate himself with his art. His work is based on his deep feelings about what was going on in the world around him." Viewers around the country will be able to share Hick's accurate interpretations of local Quaker life as well as his hopeful visions of a better world in the new millennium.

In the DeWitt Wallace Gallery at Williamsburg, visitors can view two other exhibitions of interest to collectors. "British Embroidery: `Curious Works' from the Seventeenth Century," through September 6, showcases more than 100 padded, boxed and beaded examples of needlework, including gloves, purses, and panels. "Am I Not a Man and a Brother: Abolition and Anti-Slavery in the Early Chesapeake," February 7, 1999 - January 2, 2000, displays many artifacts connected with the British and American anti-slavery movements, such as the ceramic medal of a kneeling slave created about 1787 by potter and abolitionist Josiah Wedgwood. Information: 800-HISTORY or www.colonialwilliamsburg.org.