What is the painting of a farmer and his wife and a pitchfork?
What Is the Painting of a Farmer and His Wife and a Pitchfork? What Is the Painting of a Farmer and His Wife and a Pitchfork? The painting of a farmer with a pitchfork and his daughter is named “American Gothic.” It was painted by Grant Wood in 1930 and, as of 2014, is currently housed at the Art Institute of Chicago.
What is the history of farm painting?
Paintings of farms and farmers first came to the fore during the realist movement when artist choose to paint the real world around them rather than portraits of the rich and powerful. For the first time in history the hard life of the working farmer was captured on canvas, immortalized forever. 1. American Gothic – Grant Wood
What inspired Grant Wood to paint American Gothic?
American Gothic is a 1930 painting by Grant Wood in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. Wood was inspired to paint what is now known as the American Gothic House in Eldon, Iowa, along with "the kind of people [he] fancied should live in that house".
Who is the man standing beside his daughter in the painting?
It depicts a farmer standing beside his daughter – often mistakenly assumed to be his wife. The painting is named for the house's architectural style . The figures were modeled by Wood's sister Nan Wood Graham and their dentist Dr. Byron McKeeby.
Who first sketched the house on the back of an envelope?
Sharp's brother suggested in 1973 that it was on this drive that Wood first sketched the house on the back of an envelope. Wood's earliest biographer, Darrell Garwood, noted that Wood "thought it a form of borrowed pretentiousness, a structural absurdity, to put a Gothic-style window in such a flimsy frame house ".
What was the meaning of the painting "The Tattooed Countess"?
Art critics who had favorable opinions about the painting, such as Gertrude Stein and Christopher Morley, similarly assumed the painting was meant to be a satire of rural small-town life. It was thus seen as part of the trend toward increasingly critical depictions of rural America along the lines of, in literature, Sherwood Anderson 's 1919 novel Winesburg, Ohio, Sinclair Lewis 's 1920 Main Street, and Carl Van Vechten 's 1924 The Tattooed Countess.
Who were the artists who resisted the dominance of East Coast art circles?
Wood assisted this interpretive transition by renouncing his bohemian youth in Paris and grouping himself with populist Midwestern painters such as John Steuart Curry and Thomas Hart Benton, who revolted against the dominance of East Coast art circles.
Who was Wood's sister?
Wood decided to paint the house along with, in his words, "the kind of people [he] fancied should live in that house". He recruited his sister, Nan (1899–1990), to be the model for the daughter, dressing her in a colonial print apron mimicking 20th-century rural Americana.
Who was Grant Wood?
Grant Wood, Self-portrait, 1932, Figge Art Museum. In August 1930, Grant Wood, an American painter with European training, was driven around Eldon, Iowa, by a young local painter named John Sharp. Looking for inspiration, he noticed the Dibble House, a small white house built in the Carpenter Gothic architectural style.
Where was the first parody of Ella Watson?
The Depression -era understanding of the painting as depicting an authentically American scene prompted the first well-known parody, a 1942 photo by Gordon Parks of cleaning woman Ella Watson, shot in Washington , D.C.
Overview
American Gothic is a 1930 painting by Grant Wood in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. Wood was inspired to paint what is now known as the American Gothic House in Eldon, Iowa, along with "the kind of people [he] fancied should live in that house". It depicts a farmer standing beside his daughter – often mistakenly assumed to be his wife. The painting's name is a word play o…
Creation
In August 1930, Grant Wood, an American painter with European training, was driven around Eldon, Iowa, by a young local painter named John Sharp. Looking for inspiration, he noticed the Dibble House, a small white house built in the Carpenter Gothic architectural style. Sharp's brother suggested in 1973 that it was on this drive that Wood first sketched the house on the back of an envelo…
Reception and interpretation
Wood entered the painting in a competition at the Art Institute of Chicago. One judge deemed it a "comic valentine", but a museum patron persuaded the jury to award the painting the bronze medal and a $300 cash prize. The same patron also persuaded the Art Institute to buy the painting, and it remains part of the Chicago museum's collection. The image soon began to be reproduced in newspapers, first by the Chicago Evening Post, and then in New York, Boston, Kans…
Parodies and other references
The Depression-era understanding of the painting as depicting an authentically American scene prompted the first well-known parody, a 1942 photo by Gordon Parks of cleaning woman Ella Watson, shot in Washington, D.C.
American Gothic is a frequently parodied image. It has been lampooned in Broadway shows such as The Music Man, movies such as The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and television shows such as Green …
See also
• Protestant work ethic
• Southern Gothic
Further reading
• Howard, Beth M. (March 18, 2018). "Masterpiece Rental: My Life in the 'American Gothic' House". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 5, 2018. (contains image of first Wood sketch of the house)