An Upbringing in particular is a small masterpiece. About 2 1/2 feet square, it depicts flat farm country under a partly cloudy sky. A man in a double-breasted suit and white Stetson is standing and feeding a white-headed calf right out of a square milk bottle. In a shallow blue pond behind them, a full-grown cow watches, and farther back, a man in a red Farm-All tractor has also paused to look on. Perfectly reasonable, the scene is nevertheless so idealized it seems to hover in time.

Less unusual but just as beautiful, Portrait of Melissa an egg tempera painting on wood at 2 by 3 feet, is crisp and sensitive. A young woman is posed against a small shelf with a clock on it, her red hair set against gray Victorian wallpaper dotted with red roses, late-day sunlight pouring through from the right."

The artist invariably appears in horn-rimmed glasses and full evening dress, the attire as indicative of formal, personal and symbolic meaning as the other props with which the artist dresses his paintings.

Maedgen, whose figurative technique matches his ability as stage setter, delves further into symbol with paintings like one of a squashed top-hat and bowler, each hat supporting a rock and resting on a table clothed in green. Like Best Cat, another fully staged painting is The Feed Store, the artist, as always dressed in formal black attire, seated in a wing back chair in a scene of bizarre time, place and decoration."