Settling in Iowa, he became increasingly drawn to midwestern traditions and culture that he would celebrate in his works. Employing the hard edge precision and meticulous detail to convey a distinctly American style, Wood started painting types rather than individuals, creating universal and timeless storytelling. Visiting Eldon, Iowa in the summer of , the artist was struck by a little white cottage with a single oversized window, created in a style known as Carpenter Gothic.
He sketched out the house on an envelope, determined to use it as a backdrop in what would become his most famous painting. In American Gothic , the painter used his sister Nan and his dentist Byron McKeeby as models for a farmer and his daughter, dressing them as what he referred to as tintypes from my old family album. As Grant Wood himself explained:.
I imagined American Gothic people with their faces stretched out long to go with this American Gothic house. The American Gothic painting depicts a woman dressed in colonial print apron evoking 19th-century Americana and a man holding a pitchfork. For the highly detailed and polished style and the rigid frontality of the two figures, it is believed Wood was influenced by Flemish Renaissance art , which he studied during his earlier travels to Europe.
Influenced by European traditions, the artist has turned these lessons towards the American landscape. He painted a somewhat archaic image , providing a sense of hardworking practical people and a conservative aspect of America. However, despite confronting us directly, the characters of American Gothic remain difficult to read.
Over the years, every element of the painting has been mined for meaning , although the artist remained silent on these debates. Ambiguous and multilayered, the American Gothic is imbued with various psychoanalytical, political and historical meanings.
The painting is both real and symbolic. Placing a man and woman in front of the house, it is believed that Wood refers to the association Americans have with their homes as extensions of themselves, especially in rural America. There is also a certain geometry of lines, circles and zigzags in the painting. It also seems as if the main compositional elements of the American Gothic are based upon the upstairs arched window. From there, the picture of the prize-winning painting ran in several newspapers across the country, making Wood instantly famous.
This was a major breakthrough for Grant Wood, who was previously an unknown year-old aspiring artist , living in the attic of a funeral-home carriage house with his mother and sister.
However, the American Gothic sparked a backlash in the artist's hometown of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, as locals were displeased about being portrayed as pinched, grim-faced, puritanical Bible-thumpers.
Wood, who rarely explained his work, did not clarify his choice of this house. 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 elements with such care that some importance is attached to his choice of the house.
Butcher, photographer. More info. Important compositional elements of the painting are based upon the window. It has two equal arches, capped by the oddly shaped pane that joins them together from the top. Looking at the painting in its entirety, the window is duplicated with the two halves of the window repeated by the two human figures standing side by side The roof of the house visually joins the man and woman in the same way that the oddly shaped top pane of glass joins the two arches of the window.
In a surviving pre-painting sketch, the male figure holds a rake rather than the three tined hayfork of the painting. Again, this cannot have been an idle choice. If Wood was making such a statement, he kept it to himself. It also functions compositionally, as it mirrors upside down the shape of the panes in the upstairs window.
This kind of repetitive pattern enlivens the composition and gives it rhythm. The plants were not on the porch of the house when Wood created his sketches. Wood then sought out models his dentist and his sister to represent the type of person he imagined would live in such a home.
The spikes of the three-pronged pitchfork are at the centre of the painting. The figures in the painting have exaggerated long features, reflecting the long gothic window that can be seen behind them.
For many people, the exaggerated faces and expressions of the subjects of the painting seem to present a kind of satire of rural American life. It is speculated that Iowans did not take kindly to the image, many expressing severe distaste for the way it represented Iowan life.
Wood never clarified whether the image was meant to be sincere or satirising. During his life he made a number of confusing statements in answer to the question. The pitchfork sits at the very centre of the piece, with white tips glinting back at us from between the two protagonists.
The three-pronged spear can be viewed as a symbol of hard labour and hard work. It seems to play with the American idea of the self-made man and the American Dream. Those who work hard will reap the rewards. The human subjects of this painting appear to be standing against a rich background of trees, with their gothic-style home over their shoulder. But judging by their expressions, they do not seem to be living a fulfilled or joyful life. There is an austerity in the painting and its depiction of working class people in s America.
The pitchfork stands between the viewer and the subjects of the painting and mirrors back their long, spindly forms. But we cannot ignore the fact that the gaze of the viewer also reflects and mimics the cold glare of the farmer and his daughter. The pitchfork is almost a third character in the image, intervening between subject and viewer and creating a thin, hostile divide. There are also other ways to interpret this image.
When Wood created this painting, the great depression was depriving many Americans of basic goods. The pitchfork seems to suggest a steadfastness and determination. A will to work hard and persevere. The pitchfork is a richly symbolic item. Referred to as a trident in Greek mythology, it was the symbol of the mighty Poseidon, god of the sea.
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