No American nontextual matter has been parodied more thanAmerican Gothic . Zombies , click , Beavis and Butt - Head , the Muppets , Lego frame , and even Nicole Richie and Paris Hilton have admit a bout with the pitchfork . But the painting itself is no joke — American Gothicis as recognisable as theMona LisaandThe Scream .
During the Great Depression , the masterpiece gave hope to a desperate res publica , and it helped shape the opinion of the Midwest as a land of hard work and honest values . Today , the painting is firmly embedded in our cultural lexicon . Yet , for all its renown , few people know the story of Grant Wood and how the while also ravel out his lifetime .
That Quirky Wood Kid
In 1929 , Grant Wood was a 38 - year - older unknown . The creative person was live in Cedar Rapids , Iowa , in the attic of a funeral - plate stroller house . Though the location may seem morbid , Wood spruce up his home with whimsical decorations . He replaced the front threshold with a repurposed coffin lid and outfitted the entrance with a dial that indicated if he was in , out , asleep , picture , or have a party . forest was n’t the only one stuffed into this loft space : He shared the studio with his female parent and sis , all three dormancy side by side on puff - out bottom .
house painting was just another of Wood ’s harmless crotchet — at least now that he ’d give up endure in Europe . The creative person had spend good chunks of the 1920s in Paris and Munich , but foretell upon his 1928 homecoming that he was back for goodness . The freewheeling and permissive nature of the European nontextual matter scene had fascinated him . But when a solo show in Paris was foregather with critical spiritlessness , it put a damper on the continent ’s shine .
Still , Wood ’s style benefit from his experiences overseas . His antecedently atmospheric , Impressionistic picture took on a hard - edged , Old Master quality . He draw inspiration from the employment of the Flemish Renaissance painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder , who remould biblical story as scene from his own time . And he took composition clew from 15th - century Flemish painter Jan van Eyck . After three stints in Europe , Wood was ready for home . As the artist told theChicago Tribune,“I spent 20 year wandering around the universe hunt ‘ arty ’ subjects to paint . I amount back … and the first thing I noticed was the crabby - stitched embellishment of my mother ’s kitchen apron . ”That second changed him . Armed with newfangled proficiency , and a new hold for the mundane , Wood no longer need to travel . What he need was right there , in Iowa .
Going Goth
In August 1930 , Wood spotted an strange farmhouse on a drive through the tiny town of Eldon , Iowa . The house had a strange and compelling feature article : a high , arched windowpane in the Carpenter Gothic style . The artist was immediately transfixed by the structure . He needed to know what sort of citizenry resided there . But instead of simply knocking on the threshold , Wood decided to capture the farmhouse in key and rally out the narrative for himself . Piece by piece , he sorted through the puzzler .
forest started by require his dentist , 62 - year - old Byron McKeeby , to serve as the manlike fashion model . Throughout his life , Wood had suffered from an incurable sweet tooth — he take half a cupful of sugar with his coffee , and even poured sugar on his lettuce . Over the years , he spend raft of clock time in McKeeby ’s professorship analyse and admiring the dentist ’s gloomy , ellipse grimace . Now seemed like the perfect time to paint it . For the Fannie Farmer ’s companion , Wood specify to utilize his female parent , Hattie , as a model . But when he realized that posing would be too wearying for her , he involve his 32 - year - old sister , Nan , to don Hattie ’s rickrack - trimmed apron and cameo pin tumbler .
While the cast was intimate , the physical composition was something totally Modern . The couple stands posed before their simple farmhouse , its only flourish an arched window purchased from Sears . The man stares almost directly at the viewer while clutching his pitchfork ; his sparse lips and arched eyebrows give him a stark , slightly quizzical look . The woman looks off to the side as if unwilling to play the spectator ’s regard , a individual loop tendril of hair’s-breadth run away from her bun . Both have unnaturally longsighted fount and tenuous cervix , as if to emphasize their uprightness . They are hardworking and humorless , dignified and honest .
woodwind instrument submittedAmerican Gothic — the name a nod to the theatre ’s architectural stylus — to a 1930 competition at the Art Institute of Chicago . Overnight , the picture became a hit . American Gothicwon a bronze medal and a $ 300 prize , was acquire by the museum , and was reproduced in newspapers around the country . Something about it resonated with audiences , and in that occult process by which painting become renowned , it quickly achieved near - universal recognition .
Not everyone watch the same thing . Some perceive the oeuvre as a scathing parody of the Midwest — one outraged farm married woman even threatened to bite off Wood ’s ear . Meanwhile , Gertrude Stein and other critics praised the painting as a reduce small - town caustic remark , the ocular equivalent of Sinclair Lewis’sMain Street . Still others saw the painting as honoring the Midwest and its strong time value . As the Great Depression bore down on the country , Americans yearned for confirming line drawing of themselves , and Wood ’s body of work put up the country with a pair of ready - made laic saints of the American heartland .
Perhaps the strangest reaction , however , was from an audience focalise on the age disparity between the hubby and married woman in the delineation . protest poured in . Nan , too , became increasingly concerned — she did n’t want to be memorialized as “ married ” to a much old man . So Wood altered his initial stance to exact that the painting depicted a Fatherhood and girl . In fact , Wood frequently rewrote the artwork ’s account . When the painting was hailed as a satire , he went along ; when it was declared an homage to the Midwest , he agreed with that , too . Finally , he came out with a bold command that clarify nothing : “ There is satire in it , but only as there is irony in any realistic statement . These are types of citizenry I have have a go at it all my life sentence . I attempt to characterise them truthfully — to make them more like themselves than they were in literal liveliness . ”
A Mixed Legacy
With the success ofAmerican Gothic , Wood finally received the establishment of his gift that he ’d been look for all his life . He was announce the founder of a newfangled school of artistry , called Regionalism , and he was quick to embrace the narration . “ All the well thought I ’ve ever had number to me while I was milk a moo-cow , ” Wood splendidly told the press . In truth , he hated life on the farm , and was drive back by cow udders and freshly pose chicken eggs .
For Wood , the trade - off for renown was steep , and the artist was badly - equip to deal with the scrutiny . He and his house lose all of their concealment . unknown fans get down showing up at his flat , ignoring the telephone dial on the threshold and walk right in spite of appearance . People start out ask pointed questions about his bachelor position . A blackmailer even confronted Wood , threatening to reveal lurid secret from his past . And as a body politic look to Wood as the embodiment of the Midwestern man , Wood found it harder and heavy to negociate his double life . By 1935 , he was despairing . He married an sometime divorcée and fled Cedar Rapids . While the marriage was one of gismo , the strains of the arrangement left him both financially and creatively belly-up .
Meanwhile , Wood ’s tricks had last worn thinly . masses were tiring of Regionalism , and Wood found it more and more difficult to conceal his sexuality . He spent more and more time drawing the male fig , and in 1937 , he producedSultry Night . The composition showed a naked man standing next to a gutter decant a bucket of piss over his body . When question , Wood champion the work as depicting the average washup habits of hired mankind on farm . The explanation fooled no one . thing got worse : When Wood submitted the house painting to a national juried show , he was asked to call back it . Then , the piece was barred from being sent through the mail after the Post Office deem it “ pornographic . ”
woodwind was gangrene . He saw the canvas in half , cauterise the au naturel portion of the painting , and did n’t paint another film for more than a twelvemonth . The artist ’s life was complicated by a divorcement . And whenTimemagazine launched an probe into the truth about his gender , Wood was forced to abandon a desired teaching positioning at the University of Iowa .
Sir Henry Joseph Wood might have extract through all these challenges , but he never got the hazard . In 1941 , he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer . He died on February 12 , 1942 , one day before his 51st natal day and not quite 12 long time after the completion ofAmerican Gothic .
As for his masterpiece , its renown continued to mature after Wood ’s death . Easily parodied , it ’s been reimagined in movies , video shows , marketing campaigns , even erotica . And interview seem unable to put away the painting — to delegate it a individual , easy interpretation and just let it be . American Gothicremains inscrutable : sarcasm and homage , highbrow and lowbrow , honest and creepy all at the same prison term . In the terminal , what makes the painting so successful is that it begs you to look closer and ask questions — the very thing Wood never wanted for himself .
American Gothic 101
sincerely GothicWood was instigate by the Old Masters of Northern Europe , and elements of the painting make it a modern version of Late Gothic prowess : the clean dingy sky like those typically painted above Christ or the Virgin Mary ; the woman ’s elongate face like that of a Madonna ; and the flat , finished control surface , an issue Wood created by painstakingly smooth the Earth’s surface of the canvas with a razor blade.*Windows of the Soul?Viewers often come away fromAmerican Gothicwith a sentience of uneasiness , ineffective to stop thinking about the most distressing chemical element — the closed and curtained windowpane . Biographer R. Tripp Evans called the windowpane “ a vanishing point in more than one sense , ” adding , “ fellowship arcanum , dead bodies , incest , and slaying all haunt this work , and they participate the painting here . ”*Making a CameoThe pin on the woman ’s dress had been a giving from Grant Wood to his mother , Hattie . Some read the painting as a one - footfall - removed portraiture of Wood ’s parents , the unforgiving , humorless father being a stand - in for his own dad.*On One HandCritics have observe that the farmer ’s clenched fist anchors the painting ( without it , the pitchfork evanesce into the ground ) . Natalie Wood was enamored with his tooth doctor ’s hand , once spellbind it tight and point out , “ This is a marvelous hand . This has potency . This has character . ”*Fever PitchWhen Iowans quetch that pitchforks typically have four tine , not three , Wood maintain his depiction . He claim the tool he drew was the kind used for pitch hay . But the argument misses the point . The vertical of the three tines are echoed throughout the house painting : in the pocket , window , the man ’s shirt and boldness , and the ceiling of the b .
This article first appeared in mental_floss magazine publisher , available wherever brilliant / hatful of magazines are sold . Get a peril - free issue here !
