The still of art by my Antonia The still of art is the chapter of My Antonia The road home by which will be talked about. This chapter suggests that Willa Cather uses artistic references in the creation of the novel My Antonia. Much of Willa Cather's background comes from her childhood in Nebraska. She even uprooted the character of Annie Sadilek, from Red Cloud, a town where Cather lived during her adolescence ("Classic Notes," 1). Despite his background, John J. Murphy believes that "My Antonia is a novel in which vision and arrangement create character" (Murphy, 37) and Cather created it by drawing inspiration from things like the Bible and paintings. There are many specific and non-specific biblical borrowings and echoes in the novel My Antonia. An example is when Grandpa Burden reads from the Bible, first Psalm 47 and then the first two chapters of Matthew, the story of the birth of Christ. Then when the Burdens go to Shimerda after the suicide "they looked very biblical as they left" (Cather, 100). Matthew and Luke's Christmas story is echoed in the widow Steaven's account of the birth of Antonia's son. Additionally, Jim's farewell scene with Antonia, illuminated by the sun and moon, reflects Revelation 12:1. “Cather's biblical subtext is unusual for an American western in that it incorporates Antonia's Catholic tradition and Jim's Protestant tradition to make the events notable” (Murphy, 40). Murphy also suggests that Cather was influenced by the paintings she saw while visiting Barbizon in 1902. Many of the paintings Cather saw were reminiscences of Nebraska's primitive mud and stone, cornfields, and peasant huts. Cather associates Antonia with the paintings of Jean-Francois Millet. These paintings often contained "women who looked old and battered, who were stooped and slow and not food for much else. Old brave faces like most of these women working in the field have, songs so happy they hum, and observations so in a good mood." they yell at a girl who sees too much of a particular reaper. There is something worth thinking about in these dark, cheerful old women, who have raised fourteen children and can surpass their children and grandchildren in the harvest field, lay down their children. rake and write the traveler's directions on how to get to the next town in handwriting as precise as an accountant's. As the sun set, the joy ceased, the women were tired and looked more and more as Millet had painted them. warped, bowed, and heavy" (Murphy 45). Millet certainly contributes to Jim's vision of Antonia in several scenes of the novel. Early on he says, "her eyes are large, warm, and full of light, like the sun shining it shines on the brown pools in the woods. His skin was also brown, and his cheeks had a glow of rich dark color. Her brown hair was curly and wild looking" (Cather, 23). Millet's influence is also strong later in the novel when Jim describes Antonia as "a battered woman now but who still had something that fires imagination, she could still stop her breath for a moment with a look or gesture that somehow revealed the common meaning." of things. All she had to do was stand in the orchard, put her hand on a tree and look at the apples, to make you feel the goodness of finally planting, tending, and harvesting" (353). These paintings that Cather saw obviously made her think about what women were like and obviously had a great impact on her. Reading the critical analysis gave me a new perspective on Mia Antonia. I always enjoy seeing how others interpret literature and John J. Murphy's interpretation was very.