In Grant Wood’s “American Gothic” Grant painted an American couple standing in front a Midwestern style home. When you first look at the picture, you will be under the impression that American Gothic is a realistic painting, and in a sense this is true. Looking at the painting and then at the actual house, which was the model for the painting, it is clear Wood rendered a realistic version of the house. Similarly, Wood’s two models, his sister Nan and his dentist Dr. B.H. McKeeby, are realistically recreated, but when you are viewing a photograph of Nan, it can be seen that his sister’s face is in a sense elongated beyond her regular facial proportions. Grant Wood had intended to do a time-consuming to do a portrait of Midwestern “types,” …show more content…
it is known that the house in Eldon, Iowa inspired the painting Wood called American Gothic, because the only images of the house that survived were introductory sketches for the painting.Another early sketch that was created places a man and woman in front of a house, this setup is very similar to the final painting.
Grant Wood’s setup of this arrangement may have been based on the late nineteenth and early twentieth century practice of traveling photographers making subjects pose in front of their homes as a form of a portrait. The position homeowners stood in context with their homes had an association Americans have with their homes. Traditionally Americans view their homes as extensions of themselves. In other words, if you have a nice home that symbolizes your wealth. In rural America, a home not only signified family but also the mutual hard work of its members, and as the family’s greatest economic control. Grant Wood, who rarely explained his work, did not explain his choice of this house. Was he mocking the presence of this window as a homeowner’s choice to make an ordinary house look more magnificent than it was? Or was he honoring the effort the homeowners took (and the additional expense they incurred), to make an artistic statement that was not otherwise needed? No one knows for sure. But it is true that the choice was not made by chance. Wood used his compositional …show more content…
elements with such care that some importance is attached to his choice of the house’s. The addition that advertisement companies added, such as substituting the pitchfork for something else, could symbolize this painting as a universal platform that best describes the common American family.
One component that still puzzles me is the fact that the couple is showing no emotion at all. Is this signifying that at the time American’s were not content with the Midwestern lifestyle? Another things that adds to the negativity of this painting are the color choices. Most of the colors are neutral and dim. There is no life is this painting so why is it even being considered an American Icon. Sure it is easy to make parodies of “American Gothic”, but it isn’t a painting that a foreigner can look at and immediately say that it represent America or that it is an American Icon. This painting also can’t be an American icon due to the fact of immigration in the present. If American Gothic contained a variety a different people from other cultures then it could be considered an American icon. The fact that people argue if American Gothic was inspired by European art takes some credibility away from the “totally American inspired” idea. Grant’s title for this piece was not “America”, so American Gothic only pertains to the Midwest rather than the whole nation. Not everyone saw the same symbolism. Some perceived the work as a mocking parody of the Midwest.
One of the outraged farm wife even threatened to bite off Wood’s ear. Meanwhile, Gertrude Stein and other critics praised the painting as a cutting small-town satire. Still others saw the painting as honoring the Midwest and its strong values. As the Great Depression wore down the country, Americans desired for positive representations of themselves, and Wood’s “American Gothic” failed to do so.
Gothic Literature was a natural progression from romanticism, which had existed in the 18th Century. Initially, such a ‘unique’ style of literature was met with a somewhat mixed response; although it was greeted with enthusiasm from members of the public, literary critics were much more dubious and sceptical.
Kathy Prendergast, further contends, that it is this convergence of the Gothic art style and Romantic genre which was quintessential of the nineteenth century era. Both collided to spotlight terror, valuelessness emotion and vulnerability. Both collided to perpetrate a sense of wonderment in the reader/viewer, a sense of helplessness in the face of some superior force. The Gothic architecture with its peculiarity, mystery and imperilment; the Gothic architecture with its a...
The mixed reaction I have towards the painting is because, first off, I still wouldn’t know what is really behind it or what it’s trying to tell us without looking at it from a distance. When I looked at it from a computer desktop I could see a shoe, a mountai...
Rome and the Statue of Liberty in New York are all proof of the extraordinary celebrated artwork human kind has been able to do throughout several years. Now, I want to discuss another celebrated work of art that was quite popular in the medieval period, Gothic architecture. During the medieval period Gothic architecture was considered to be luxurious because of its exaggerated height given to buildings. Not only did it give height, it also had plenty of other characteristics like the pointed arch, the vaulted ceiling, and of course, plenty of windows where light could pass right through. For statesman historian, Abbot Suger, light was important. He believed light was a connection from heaven to Earth. The more light, the better. It was because of Abbot Suger that the admired Gothic style began along with more of his art program from about 1125-1144 (Inventing the Exegetical Stained-Glass Window: Suger, Hugh, and a New Elite Art, par 1). However, not everyone agreed with this extravagant style. When Gothic cathedrals began being built, French abbot, Bernard de Clairvaux made a judgment of his own. He explained that he did not see the need to be so extravagant when the money going to those glittering churches can go to a better use, the poor. I agree with Bernard; there is no need to be stylish when adorning cathedrals if there are better uses for that money.
They say imitation is the most sincere form of flattery. If that is true, I would have to say that many people praise American Gothic every day. It is parodied in the political cartoons of the newspapers around the country and on television as well. Almost anyone could recognize the solemn couple from having been printed on everything from coffee mugs to mousepads. Grant Wood’s classic tale of a farming family in rural Iowa has truly
Ringe, Donald A. American Gothic: Imagination and Reason in Nineteenth-Century Fiction. Lexington KY: The University Press of Kentucky, 1982.
The Gothic subculture is not to be mistaken for: the Germanic tribes that defeated the Romans, the once-popular form of architecture in Western Europe, or the literary style, although this is from where the term etymologically stems. The modern Gothic subculture began as a more "romantic" or "literary" offshoot of the Punk movement of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Punk itself was a rejection of most of society’s values, and the Gothic movement is no different. As Punk died in the early 1980s, Goth survived and grew into its own subculture, originally keeping the core "rejection of society" attitude. As time passed, this attitude transformed into more of a “no more blind acceptance of societal values” instead of rejection for its own sake.
Hattenhauer, Darryl. “Shirley Jackson’s American Gothic.” New York: State University of New York Press, 2003. Print.
American Gothic is a painting by American artist Grant Wood in 1930. Shown in the painting is what appears to be a farmer and his spinster daughter in front of their house. However, the models for the painting were Grant Wood’s sister, Nan, wearing a colonial print apron mimicking the 19th century Americana style, and Wood’s dentist, Doctor Byron McKeeby from the state of Iowa. Wood painted the house along with the people he imagined might live there. The house is actually a real place that exists in Eldon, Iowa. It was built in the American Gothic style. The interesting thing about this artwork is that the models were never painted together or in front of the house, each element was painted individually. Although the history behind the making of the painting is extremely fascinating, the symbolism for what the art represents is what sparks the
It looks like a normal house, like one you’d find in the suburbs. It looks like no one’s home, with the little lace curtains drawn shut.
3 p.. Ebook http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Gothic. Image and Ideology in Modern/Postmodern Discourse - Google Books." Google Books.
The. Gothic Art: Glorious Visions. Upper Saddle River (NJ): Prentice Hall, 1996. Print. The. Camille, Michael.
This painting by Vincent Van Gogh is on display at the Art Institute of Chicago Museum, in the Impressionism exhibit. There are many things going on in this painting that catch the viewer’s eye. The first is the piece’s vibrant colors, light blues and browns, bright greens, and more. The brush strokes that are very visible and can easily be identified as very thick some might even say bold. The furniture, the objects, and the setting are easy to identify and are proportioned to each other. There is so much to see in this piece to attempt to explain in only a few simple sentences.
What is America Gothic? The American Gothic movement started around the same time as the transcendentalist movement. Gothic writers unlike transcendentalist writers believed that life wasn 't all rainbows and butterflies. They saw it as a cruel and sometimes menacing place. During this time Gothic writers wrote about the true evils and that even the nicest person could have some of the worse demons.
The Gothic Age to the Renaissance changed various aspects of art and architecture especially by the influence of religious beliefs. Some other influences came from the ideas antiquity and humanity, but most importantly from leading artists during those times that were influenced by one another’s work. The name “Gothic” was not created until.. The High Renaissance is most known as an enlightened period, because they showed a more realistic and detailed perspective of the world as it was. However, both periods shared an immense amount of importance to religious beliefs in which it was shown within their art.