In 1930, amidst the fields of rural America affected by the bitter realities of the Great Depression, Grant Wood preserved a piece of Americana that would resonate throughout history. Using meticulous brushstrokes, Wood captures the essence of a nation in hurt and triumph in his iconic painting, American Gothic. I will argue that the painting American Gothic by Grant Wood holds significant importance in art history due to its portrayal of American rural life during the Great Depression era, its exploration of national identity and values, and its lasting impact on American art and culture, symbolizing both tradition and modernity. The Great Depression was a severe economic downturn that burdened the United States, along with much of the world, …show more content…
“American Gothic” reflects the struggles and values of rural America during this time. Despite the hardships of farmers of the time, including the two figures in this painting, they exude a sense of resilience and determination. The farmer’s firm grip on the pitchfork and the daughter’s steady gaze suggest a commitment to hard work and perseverance in the face of adversity. Dr. Steven Zucker, in Grant Wood, American Gothic, states as the viewer looks at this piece they can “see this farmer, see perhaps as the artist said, his daughter, standing before their simple farm house”, Dr, Beth Harris adds “so there is a sense of hardworking, practical people, kind of conservative aspect of America”. Everything within this painting goes back to reflecting the heart of America and who people were during the Great Depression and even in the Midwest as a whole. In order for the understanding of who these people were, a large part of this painting relied on the accurate portrayal of the American Midwest during the early 20th century. Wood depicted his dentist and his sister playing the part of father and daughter in the
In Daily Life in the United States, 1920-1939: Decades of Promise and Pain, author David E. Kyvig, creates historical account of the Great Depression, and the events leading up to it. Kyvig’s goal in writing this book was to show how Americans had to change their daily life in order to cope with the changing times. Kyvig utilizes historical evidence and inferences from these events and developments to strengthen his point. The book is organized chronologically, recounting events and their effects on American culture. Each chapter of the book tackles a various point in American history between 1920 and1939 and events are used to comment on American life at the time. While Kyvig does not exactly have a “thesis” per se, his main point is to examine American life under a microscope, seeing how people either reacted, or were forced to react due to a wide range of specific events or developments in history, be it Prohibition, the KKK, or women’s suffrage.
Grant Wood was a Regionalist artist who continually endeavored to capture the idyllic beauty of America’s farmlands. In 1930 he had been roaming through his hometown in Iowa searching for inspiration when he stumbled upon a house that left him spellbound. From this encounter came America’s iconic American Gothic. Not long after Wood’s masterpiece was complete the once ideal countryside and the people who tended to it were overcome by despair and suffering as the Great Depression came to be. It was a time of economic distress that affected nearly every nation. America’s stock market crashed in 1929 and by 1933 millions of Americans were found without work and consequently without adequate food, shelter, and other necessities. In 1935, things took a turn for the worst as severe winds and dust storms destroyed the southern Great Plains in the event that became known as the Dust Bowl. Farmers, who had been able to fall back on their crops during past depressions, were hit especially hard. With no work or way or other source of income, many farms were foreclosed, leaving countless families hungry and homeless. Ben Shahn, a Lithuanian-born man who had a deep passion for social injustice, captures the well-known hopelessness of the Great Depression through his photograph Rural Rehabilitation Client. Shahn and Wood use their art to depict the desperation of everyday farmers in America due to the terrors and adverse repercussions that the Great Depression incited.
“…when the nation was balanced precariously between the darkness of the Great Depression on one side and the storms of war in Europe and the Pacific on the other…..Once again the American people understood the magnitude of the challenge, the importance of an unparallel national commitment, and, most of all, the certainty that only one resolution was acceptable.”(p3) This quote is from the opening paragraph of the chapter in Brokaw’s book, “The Time of their Lives.” These ordinary people surmounted times of great destitution while courageously facing the epoch of the Great depression. They comprehended the necessity for commitment in order to preserve their independence. Brokaw uses imagery including “the Darkness of the Great depression” to reveal to the reader the severity of their situation. He depicts the Great Depression not just as a time of hardships, but as an era when thousands of men and women starved to death, parents could not provide for themselves or their families and unemployment was so high that a days work would yield, at most, a loaf of stale bread to feed an entire family. Although he does not say these things directly, his use of imagery causes the reader to have these thoughts and to see these images.
The Great Depression, which occurred during the 1920s and 1930s, was a time period of extreme economic crisis affecting all American citizens in some sort of way. During the Great Depression, Americans questioned their future, the government’s role in containing the economic turmoil, and the president at the time Herbert Hoover. Woody Guthrie’s song “This Land Was Made for You and Me” expresses some of the feelings many Americans experienced during this time period.
American Progress is positioned on an American landscape with the left half of the painting representing western America, while the right side of the picture represents eastern America. This painting is filled with numerous colors all throughout the image, but the left side of the painting is noticeably darker than the rest. In fact, as you move towards the right of the painting, the colors get lighter and brighter. The meanings of the light and darkness within the painting symbolize the known and unknown of the land in America. The west is viewed as dark and mysterious, while the east is welcoming and prosperous.
Thomas Hart Benton was born in the familiar, small town of Neosho, Missouri. He was named after his granduncle, the famed and prominent pre-American Civil War senator. First Thomas Hart Benton studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and then lived in beautiful Paris for three years. When he came back he moved to New York City after 1912 he turned away from his usual style, modernism, and gradually developed a rugged naturalism that affirmed traditional rural values. By the 1930’s Benton was riding a tide of popular acclaim along with his fellow regionalist Grant Wood, who was responsible for American Gothic, and John Steuart Curry, who was responsible for The Tragic Prelude. The mural, America Today (1930-1931, The Equitable Life Assurance Society of the U.S., New York City), Thomas Hart Benton’s masterpiece, presented an optimistic portrayal of a vital country filled with earthy, muscular figures.
Grant Wood is a famous philosopher who was born in February in the year 1891 in Anamosa, Iowa. Wood was born to Quaker parents on a small farm. This experience would be the basis of his iconic images of small-town plain folk and verdant Midwestern vistas. He later moved to Cedar Rapids after the death of his father in 1901. He first studied at the Minneapolis School of design between 1910 and 1911 and became a professional designer while attending night courses at the University of Iowa and at the Art Institute of Chicago. At the end of 1915 he gave up designing and returned to Cedar Rapids. After his military service he taught painting and drawing at the public school of Cedar Rapids and visited Paris in 1920 with Marvin Cone. His early works were outdoor scenes combining a bright Fauve palette and a loose, impressionistic style - the result of a 1923-24 trip to Italy and Paris, which included study at the Academie Julian. He visited Europe again in 1928 and notably went to Germany and Holland where he discovered German and Dutch primitive painters to whom he borrowed many facets. Wood was appointed head of the Iowa Works Progress Administration-Federal Arts project in 1934 and also taught at the University of Iowa.
During The Great Depression, people had to find ways to save money on even the bare necessities. One example of this was the widespread use of vacant lots, and land provided bythe cities to grow food. Americans now had to live in the manner of their ancestors, making their own clothing, growing their own food, and agai...
Grant Wood’s American Gothic is one of the most famous paintings in the history of American art. The painting brought Wood almost instant fame after being exhibited for the first time at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1930. It is probably the most reproduced and parodied works of art, and has become a staple within American pop-culture. The portrait of what appears to be a couple, standing solemnly in front of their mid-western home seems to be a simplistic representation of rural America. As simple as it sounds, when looking deeper into this image, it reveals something much more complex.
Elements of Southern Gothic Literature Literature comes in all types of styles and one type is Southern Gothic. But what makes a story develop into this type of Southern Gothic style? There are many characteristics that are apparent in literature, so what conditions are distinct that would give them the term Southern Gothic literature? What kind of elements do we call for when trying to find this type of literature? Southern Gothic is a literature that has a style all its own.
Martin, Robert K and Eric Savoy. American gothic. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1998. Print.
Hattenhauer, Darryl. “Shirley Jackson’s American Gothic.” New York: State University of New York Press, 2003. Print.
Southern Gothic Literature is a subgenre of Gothic fiction writing, which takes place in the American South. The Southern Gothic style is one of that employs the topics such as death, bizarre, violent, madness, and supernatural. These tools are used “to explore social issues and reveal the cultural character of the American South (Wikipedia).” The view of the South which is self-identified as the “national” or “American” view is basically a colonial Romance, with the rest of the nation identified with the forces of the light and the South with the forces of the darkness (Wacker 107).The authors of Southern Gothic typically use damaged characters to make their stories better, and to show deeper meanings of unpleasant Southern characteristics. These characters are diverse from society due to social, physical or mental disabilities. However, not all characteristics of the characters are bad; it is that a mixture of good and bad is found in most of the characters. Two authors who express the Southern Gothic writing style are William Faulkner, who wrote “A Rose for Emily,” and Flanner O Conner, the author of “Good Country People” and “A Good Man is Hard to Find.”
The. Gothic Art: Glorious Visions. Upper Saddle River (NJ): Prentice Hall, 1996. Print. The. Camille, Michael.
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.