American Gothic
-Jason

https://www.spreaker.com/user/ufpearth/hwts077  

“American Gothic” is one of the most famous paintings created by American artist Grant Wood.  Wood was inspired for the painting while visiting a small town in Iowa called Eldon.  What caught Wood’s attention, and imagination, in this location was a farmhouse, the Dibble House.  This unassuming home became the focal point of the 1930 piece of artwork that is one of the most iconic images of the American rural lifestyle.

Grant Wood was born near Anamosa, Iowa in 1891.  When Wood was ten, his father died and he, his sister, and mother relocated to Cedar Rapids, Iowa.  After graduating high school, Wood was enrolled in The Handicraft Guild located in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1910.  The Handicraft Guild was unique for its time because it had been founded by, and led and staffed, by women.  It was instrumental in helping women’s art movements in the United States.  Wood was a gifted artist who worked in many mediums: he worked with paint, pen, and metal for a variety of his projects.  In 1913, Wood enrolled in the School of the Art Institute of Chicago to continue his education.

The outbreak of World War I in 1914 opened a new avenue, and opportunities, for Wood’s artist talents.  He enlisted in the United States military and then used his skills to create new camouflage schemes to aid his fellow service members.  His schemes would be applied to warships, planes, weapons emplacements, and merchant ships to help prevent their being seen by the enemy.  While Wood never left the United States, his contributions to the war effort helped to bring victory to the Entente Powers. 

Wood’s newly felt confidence and income gave Wood the opportunity to further study art aboard.  Between 1922 and 1928 he made four trips to Europe to study Renaissance art techniques.  The work of Flemish master named Jan von Eyck captured his imagination.  Wood became fascinated with the detail and realism that Eyck had portrayed in his works.  This rigid attention to detail, naturalism, and realism would influence Wood’s later pieces. 

Jan von Eyck was a Renaissance artist from Northwest Europe who lived in Bruges, Flanders between 1390 and 1441.  The realism and attention to detail of Eyck’s painting style, in addition to his invention, and mastery, of oil painting made him one of the most sought-after artists of his time.  His meticulous attention to detail and the ability to convey onto the canvas those details ensured him continued patronage and cemented his legacy.  Later Flemish artists imitated, and some eventually surpassed, Eyck, but he was instrumental in founding the Early Netherlandish painting style that eclipsed the preceding International Gothic painting style.

Grant Wood’s “American Gothic” was heavily influenced by the Flemish Renaissance style of Eyck.  After returning from Europe in 1928, Wood traveled to Iowa to visit his relatives and home state.  While traveling around the small town of Eldon, Wood spotted the Dibble House.  The large, oversized windows on the first and second floor were the centerpieces of a style of construction called Carpenter Gothic, an architectural callback to Gothic buildings in Europe.  These windows would be ideal to highlight what the family who lived within looked like.  Wood wanted the couple to be facing forward and in a serious pose, as had been the case for those figures in Flemish-style Renaissance artwork.  He gained permission from the homeowners to create an oil painting of the front of their house before returning to his studio in Cedar Rapids. 

The idea was planted, but who were to be the models?  The solution to Wood’s modeling conundrum was solved when decided that his sister, Nan, would be a perfect candidate for the female figure.  His choice for the patriarch of painting was his dentist, Dr. Byron McKeeby.  Wood listened to his sister’s arguments regarding the relationship between the two figures: a father and daughter, not husband and wife.  Nan, and Dr. McKeeby, insisted that this interpretation was agreed upon by all members involved in the painting.  Wood dressed his models in late 19th century style to represent the Americana of that period.  Dr. McKeeby was given a pitchfork to symbolize the hard work necessary in the life of a Midwestern farmer, a fact also embodied by his overalls though they are covered by a suit jacket. 

Wood entered the completed piece into an art competition at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1930.  “American Gothic” and its artist won a bronze medal and a $300 prize.  The painting was displayed in the Institute’s gallery and quickly gained a nationwide audience.  Art critics immediately interpreted “American Gothic” as an allegorical caricature of the closed-mindedness and repression of small Midwestern rural towns and their inhabitants.  This caused a negative reception in the Midwest which they thought he intended to depict as backward.  Wood denied this, insisting that “American Gothic” was meant as a steadfast depiction of the enduring American pioneer spirit.

The crippling effects of the Great Depression prompted a different appreciation of Wood and “American Gothic.”  Wood became a champion of the Regionalism Movement, an art style that centered on the lifestyle of the Midwest and showcased at the Stone City Art Gallery in Stone City, Iowa, founded by Wood and two fellow artists in 1932.  “American Gothic” came to be seen not as a piece of satire, but exactly what Wood has always argued it was: the enduring spirit of the American perseverance.  His love and appreciation for the Midwest was carried to other parts of the country as he conducted a speaking tour extolling the American people on the virtues of the area.

Grant Wood died of pancreatic cancer on 12 February 1941.  Between 1934 and his death, he had taught painting at the University of Iowa’s School of Art.  His depiction of the American spirit during the Great Depression endeared him to the public.  When America entered World War II, Grant Wood’s name, and legacy, would be commemorated as a Liberty-class merchant ship was named after him.  In 2009, Wood was posthumously awarded the Iowa Prize, the state's highest citizen honor.  His sister Nan died in 1990, having bequeathed Grant’s works and personal belongings to the Figge Art Museum in Davenport, Iowa.  “American Gothic” is on permanent display in the Art Institute of Chicago in the Arts of the Americans Gallery 161.