American Gothic

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American Gothic (Grant Wood)
American Gothic
Grant Wood ,  1930
Oil on fibreboard
76 x 63.3 cm
Art Institute of Chicago

American Gothic is a painting (oil on chipboard, 76 cm × 63.3 cm ) painted by Grant Wood (1891–1942) in 1930 . The realistically painted picture shows a man holding a pitchfork and - depending on the interpretation - his wife or unmarried daughter in front of a neo-Gothic wooden house. The man looks directly at the viewer with a stern expression, the equally serious woman looks past the viewer and the man. The picture hangs in the Art Institute of Chicago today .

interpretation

Wood based his painting style on the exact realism of the Northern European masters of the 15th century. The picture is ambiguous in many ways:

  • Is the representation satirical, ironic or does it express admiration for the people depicted? Is it an ambiguous mixture of parody and glorification?
  • Does the picture show a nostalgic look at the past or the present?

The image composition suggests a type of photography that was often made by traveling photographers in the period after the Civil War . In addition to the same format, these images also incorporate symbolic objects such as B. the pitchfork held by the man, own.

Wood mostly evaded the questions about what he had intended with the picture: he portrayed "guys" he had known all his life and did not want to expose them.

About the creation

Grant's sister Nan, model for the woman depicted in the painting American Gothic

The artist had seen the house in the design of Carpenter Gothic in Eldon, Iowa in August 1930 while looking for inspiration out of the car window and decided to paint it. He designed the figures according to his ideas of the people who could live in such a house. Wood asked his sister Nan (1899–1990) and his dentist Dr. Byron McKeeby (1867–1950) to stand as a model and dressed her in a rural-colonial style. However, both never stood together in front of the building as a model, each element was drawn separately.

reception

Recognition and criticism

The painting was first exhibited in 1930 at the Forty-Third Annual Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture at the Art Institute of Chicago . Although it was reluctantly accepted by the jury, it won the bronze medal and $ 300 in prize money. One of the patrons of the event then convinced the other responsible persons to buy the picture. The painting can still be seen at the Chicago Art Institute today.

Parody of Gordon Parks (1942)

The picture was soon printed in many newspapers, which in some cases triggered violent reactions: For example, some farmers from Iowa felt attacked because they felt disparaged as bad-tempered puritanical moralists. Wood denied such allegations. On the other hand, the painting was very popular, including from Gertrude Stein , who valued the portrait as a satire on American small town and country life. Proponents placed the image in the context of contemporary critical depictions of conservative rural America, pioneered by literary figures like Sinclair Lewis with Main Street (1920), Sherwood Anderson with Winesburg (1919), and Carl Van Vechten with The Tattooed Countess (1924) .

According to another trend, the image quickly became something of a national sanctuary and a symbol of the American pioneering spirit and the disappearing rural America. It marks the beginning of regionalism in American art.

popularity

American Gothic is one of the most frequently staged and quoted images in US pop culture. Many artists have cited this image by replacing the couple with well-known personalities and replacing the house with well-known houses. In the picture is also for example in the Rocky Horror Picture Show by Richard O'Brien and in the opening credits of the television series Desperate Housewives is referred to, in the wake Bart wins elephant! the animated series The Simpsons and subsequently Nebraska the television series Dexter . In 2001 Sophie Matisse painted a painting with the same title, omitting the people originally portrayed.

literature

  • Grant Wood, Jane C. Milosch: Grant Wood's Studio - Birthplace of American Gothic . Prestel, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-7913-3325-9 (book about the artist and his creative time in his studio in Iowa with American Gothic as cover, English ).

Web links

credentials

  1. ↑ a b Image description on the Art Institute of Chicago website
  2. ^ The Art Institute of Chicago: American Gothic
  3. ↑ a b American realism
  4. ^ A b The most famous farm couple in the world
  5. ^ Iconic America: Grant Wood