The colorful rooster appearing on grocery store shelves is instantly associated with the Cornflakes brand. In this painting, Jamie Wyeth plays with our ability to recognize this imagery by humorously depicting an actual rooster standing in front of a bag of Cornflakes. But Wyeth is not only painting a visual pun. Unlike the simplified rooster used to sell breakfast cereal, Wyeth’s bird is meticulously painted. It is positioned in profile as the primary focus of the composition and seen at eye level, not from above or below as birds are often depicted. In effect, Wyeth paints the rooster as if it were a human by using the conventions of portraiture. This gives the bird a more elevated status than that of a common barnyard animal.

Jamie Wyeth belongs to an important family of American artists active for more than a century in the Brandywine Valley of eastern Pennsylvania. He is the son of celebrated artist Andrew Wyeth and grandson of the noted painter and illustrator N.C. Wyeth. While they each paint in their own signature styles, the Wyeths are best known for painting realist images of people, landscapes, and objects from everyday life. Each also demonstrates great technical mastery of their chosen mediums, especially watercolor. Here, the humble chicken becomes a noble portrait through Wyeth’s careful brush. [92]