American Gothic Grant Wood Analysis

I will be discussing artwork using the Barthes Rhetoric of Image. I will discuss how it uses linguistic message, non-coded iconic, coded iconic, and idiolect. The image I am using is “American Gothic” by Grant Wood on page 538. I hope this painting shows the reflection of hope in the people despite the Depression. There is not a linguistic message in the “American Gothic”. The non-coded iconic I see in the portrait painting are representational two-dimensional humans standing side by side. The elements of this artwork include geometric shapes in the background of a triangle, square, and trapezoid. Behind the shapes are green half circles, and behind that is blue. The focal point is in the front and center of the painting. It is a human who

Grant Wood used his sister and his dentist to be the models for the farmer and his daughter. The models stood in front of an Iowa farmhouse called the “Carpenter Gothic”. This farmhouse name inspired the name for Wood’s painting. Wood’s painting reflected hope for the people during the Great Depression. When I saw the “American Gothic”, I was drawn to it because I love history and how it affects people. I saw the hope in the man’s face and the trust in her husband in the woman’s face. The man looks like he spends his whole life working, trying to provide enough to survive the Depression. The woman gives an expression that the struggle is hard, but she looks for the only hope she has in her husband to keep them surviving. This painting reminds me how trust in someone is so powerful that it is the difference between barely making it and not making it at all. This image tells a story that relates to my life about how I have trust in my mother. My mom is a single woman who lives in a city with no family close by. It is just my mom and me who live in Dothan. She provides for everything I have or need, and I have trust in her to also be the hard-working person, like the man in the