''American Gothic'' is a 1930
painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and a ...
by
Grant Wood
Grant DeVolson Wood (February 13, 1891 February 12, 1942) was an American painter and representative of Regionalism, best known for his paintings depicting the rural American Midwest. He is particularly well known for ''American Gothic'' (1930 ...
in the collection of the
Art Institute of Chicago
The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...
. Wood was inspired to paint what is now known as the
''American Gothic'' House in
Eldon, Iowa
Eldon is a city in Wapello County, Iowa, United States. The population was 783 at the time of the 2020 census. It is the site of the small Carpenter Gothic style house that has come to be known as the ''American Gothic'' House. Artist Grant Wo ...
, along with "the kind of people
efancied should live in that house". It depicts a farmer standing beside his daughter – often mistakenly assumed to be his wife.
[Fineman, Mia (June 8, 2005).]
The Most Famous Farm Couple in the World: Why American Gothic still fascinates
. ''Slate
Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic rock. ...
''. The painting's name is a word play on the house's
architectural style
An architectural style is a set of characteristics and features that make a building or other structure notable or historically identifiable. It is a sub-class of style in the visual arts generally, and most styles in architecture relate closely ...
,
Carpenter Gothic
Carpenter Gothic, also sometimes called Carpenter's Gothic or Rural Gothic, is a North American architectural style-designation for an application of Gothic Revival architectural detailing and picturesque massing applied to wooden structures ...
.
The figures were modeled by Wood's sister
Nan Wood Graham
Nan Wood Graham (July 26, 1899 – December 14, 1990) was an American artist and art teacher. She was the sister of painter Grant Wood. She is best known as the model for the woman in her brother's most famous painting, ''American Gothic'' ...
and their dentist Dr. Byron McKeeby. The woman is dressed in a
colonial
Colonial or The Colonial may refer to:
* Colonial, of, relating to, or characteristic of a colony or colony (biology)
Architecture
* American colonial architecture
* French Colonial
* Spanish Colonial architecture
Automobiles
* Colonial (1920 au ...
print
apron
An apron is a garment that is worn over other clothing to cover the front of the body. The word comes from old French ''napron'' meaning a small piece of cloth, however over time "a napron" became "an apron", through a linguistics process cal ...
evoking 20th-century rural
Americana while the man is adorned in
overalls
Overalls, also called bib-and-brace overalls or dungarees, are a type of garment usually used as protective clothing when working. The garments are commonly referred to as a "pair of overalls" by analogy with "pair of trousers".
Overalls were ...
covered by a
suit jacket
A suit jacket, also called a lounge jacket, lounge coat or suit coat, is a jacket in classic menswear that is part of a suit.
Single and double-breasted
Most single-breasted suit jackets have two or three buttons, and one or four buttons are unu ...
and carries a
pitchfork
A pitchfork (also a hay fork) is an agricultural tool with a long handle and two to five tines used to lift and pitch or throw loose material, such as hay, straw, manure, or leaves.
The term is also applied colloquially, but inaccurately, to ...
. The plants on the porch of the house are
mother-in-law's tongue
''Dracaena trifasciata'' is a species of flowering plant in the family Asparagaceae, native to tropical West Africa from Nigeria east to the Congo. It is most commonly known as the snake plant, Saint George's sword, mother-in-law's tongue, and v ...
and
beefsteak begonia, which also appear in Wood's 1929 portrait of his mother, ''Woman with Plants''.
''American Gothic'' is one of the most familiar images of 20th-century
American art
Visual art of the United States or American art is visual art made in the United States or by U.S. artists. Before colonization there were many flourishing traditions of Native American art, and where the Spanish colonized Spanish Colonial arc ...
and has been widely
parodied
A parody, also known as a spoof, a satire, a send-up, a take-off, a lampoon, a play on (something), or a caricature, is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or mock its subject by means of satiric or ironic imitation. Often its sub ...
in American
popular culture
Popular culture (also called mass culture or pop culture) is generally recognized by members of a society as a set of practices, beliefs, artistic output (also known as, popular art or mass art) and objects that are dominant or prevalent in a ...
.
From 2016 to 2017, the painting was displayed in Paris at the Musée de l'Orangerie
The Musée de l'Orangerie ( en, Orangery Museum) is an art gallery of impressionist and post-impressionist paintings located in the west corner of the Tuileries Garden next to the Place de la Concorde in Paris. The museum is most famous as th ...
and in London at the Royal Academy of Arts
The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its pur ...
in its first showings outside the United States.
Creation
In August 1930, Grant Wood
Grant DeVolson Wood (February 13, 1891 February 12, 1942) was an American painter and representative of Regionalism, best known for his paintings depicting the rural American Midwest. He is particularly well known for ''American Gothic'' (1930 ...
, an American painter with European training, was driven around Eldon, Iowa
Eldon is a city in Wapello County, Iowa, United States. The population was 783 at the time of the 2020 census. It is the site of the small Carpenter Gothic style house that has come to be known as the ''American Gothic'' House. Artist Grant Wo ...
, 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
Carpenter Gothic, also sometimes called Carpenter's Gothic or Rural Gothic, is a North American architectural style-designation for an application of Gothic Revival architectural detailing and picturesque massing applied to wooden structures ...
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 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
Framing, in construction, is the fitting together of pieces to give a structure support and shape. Framing materials are usually wood, engineered wood, or structural steel. The alternative to framed construction is generally called ''mass wal ...
".[ Garwood, p. 119]
At the time, Wood classified it as one of the "cardboardy frame houses on Iowa farms" and considered it "very paintable".[Quoted in Hoving, p. 36] After obtaining permission from the house's owners, Selma Jones-Johnston and her family, Wood made a sketch the next day in oil paint
Oil paint is a type of slow-drying paint that consists of particles of pigment suspended in a drying oil, commonly linseed oil. The viscosity of the paint may be modified by the addition of a solvent such as turpentine or white spirit, and ...
on paperboard
Paperboard is a thick paper-based material. While there is no rigid differentiation between paper and paperboard, paperboard is generally thicker (usually over 0.30 mm, 0.012 in, or 12 points) than paper and has certain superior attributes ...
from the front yard. This sketch depicted a steeper roof and a longer window with a more pronounced ogive
An ogive ( ) is the roundly tapered end of a two-dimensional or three-dimensional object. Ogive curves and surfaces are used in engineering, architecture and woodworking.
Etymology
The earliest use of the word ''ogive'' is found in the 13th c ...
than on the actual house – features which eventually adorned the final work.
Wood decided to paint the house along with, in his words, "the kind of people efancied should live in that house".[ He recruited his sister, ]Nan
Nan or NAN may refer to:
Places China
* Nan County, Yiyang, Hunan, China
* Nan Commandery, historical commandery in Hubei, China
Thailand
* Nan Province
** Nan, Thailand, the administrative capital of Nan Province
* Nan River
People Given name
...
(1899–1990), to be the model for the daughter, dressing her in a colonial print apron mimicking 20th-century rural Americana. While preparing for the painting, Wood requested that she make the apron herself and include rickrack
Rickrack is a flat piece of braided trim, shaped like a zigzag. It is used as a decorative element in clothes or curtains. Before the prevalence of sewing machines and overlockers, rickrack was used to provide a finished edge to fabric, and its ...
trim to better reflect the time period. Unfortunately rickrack was no longer available in stores, and so Nan removed trim from their mother Hattie's old dresses to apply to the apron instead. The model for the father was the Wood family's dentist, Dr. Byron McKeeby (1867–1950) from Cedar Rapids, Iowa
Cedar Rapids () is the second-largest city in Iowa, United States and is the county seat of Linn County, Iowa, Linn County. The city lies on both banks of the Cedar River (Iowa River), Cedar River, north of Iowa City, Iowa, Iowa City and north ...
. Nan told people that her brother had envisioned the pair as father and daughter, not husband and wife, which Wood himself confirmed in his letter to a Mrs. Nellie Sudduth in 1941: "The prim lady with him is his grown-up daughter."[
Elements of the painting stress the ''vertical'' that is associated with ]Gothic architecture
Gothic architecture (or pointed architecture) is an architectural style that was prevalent in Europe from the late 12th to the 16th century, during the High and Late Middle Ages, surviving into the 17th and 18th centuries in some areas. It ...
. The upright, three-pronged pitchfork
A pitchfork (also a hay fork) is an agricultural tool with a long handle and two to five tines used to lift and pitch or throw loose material, such as hay, straw, manure, or leaves.
The term is also applied colloquially, but inaccurately, to ...
is echoed in the stitching of the man's overalls and shirt, the Gothic pointed-arch window of the house under the steeped roof, and the structure of the man's face. However, Wood did not add figures to his sketch until he returned to his studio in Cedar Rapids.[Quoted in ]Biel
, french: Biennois(e)
, neighboring_municipalities= Brügg, Ipsach, Leubringen/Magglingen (''Evilard/Macolin''), Nidau, Orpund, Orvin, Pieterlen, Port, Safnern, Tüscherz-Alfermée, Vauffelin
, twintowns = Iserlohn (Germany) ...
, p. 22 Moreover, he would not return to Eldon again, although he did request a photograph of the home to complete his painting.
Reception and interpretation
Wood entered the painting in a competition at the Art Institute of Chicago
The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...
. 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
The ''Chicago Evening Post'' was a daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, from March 1, 1886, until October 29, 1932, when it was absorbed by the ''Chicago Daily News''. The newspaper was founded as a penny paper during the technologic ...
'', and then in New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
, Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
, Kansas City
The Kansas City metropolitan area is a bi-state metropolitan area anchored by Kansas City, Missouri. Its 14 counties straddle the border between the U.S. states of Missouri (9 counties) and Kansas (5 counties). With and a population of more th ...
, and Indianapolis
Indianapolis (), colloquially known as Indy, is the state capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Indiana and the seat of Marion County. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the consolidated population of Indianapolis and Marion ...
. However, when the image finally appeared in the ''Cedar Rapids Gazette
''The Gazette'' is a daily print newspaper and online news source published in the American city of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The first paper was published as an evening journal, branded the ''Evening Gazette'', on Wednesday, January 10, 1883. The new ...
'', there was a backlash. Iowans were furious at their depiction as "pinched, grim-faced, puritanical Bible-thumpers". Wood protested, saying that he had not painted a caricature
A caricature is a rendered image showing the features of its subject in a simplified or exaggerated way through sketching, pencil strokes, or other artistic drawings (compare to: cartoon). Caricatures can be either insulting or complimentary, ...
of Iowans but a depiction of his ''appreciation'', stating "I had to go to France to appreciate Iowa."[ In a 1941 letter, Wood said that, "In general, I have found, the people who resent the painting are those who feel that they themselves resemble the portrayal."
Art critics who had favorable opinions about the painting, such as ]Gertrude Stein
Gertrude Stein (February 3, 1874 – July 27, 1946) was an American novelist, poet, playwright, and art collector. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the Allegheny West neighborhood and raised in Oakland, California, Stein moved to Paris ...
and Christopher Morley
Christopher Darlington Morley (May 5, 1890 – March 28, 1957) was an American journalist, novelist, essayist and poet. He also produced stage productions for a few years and gave college lectures.''Online Literature''
Biography
Morley was bo ...
, similarly assumed the painting was meant to be a satire
Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming o ...
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
Sherwood Anderson (September 13, 1876 – March 8, 1941) was an American novelist and short story writer, known for subjective and self-revealing works. Self-educated, he rose to become a successful copywriter and business owner in Cleveland and ...
's 1919 novel ''Winesburg, Ohio
''Winesburg, Ohio'' (full title: ''Winesburg, Ohio: A Group of Tales of Ohio Small-Town Life'') is a 1919 short story cycle by the American author Sherwood Anderson. The work is structured around the life of protagonist George Willard, from the ...
'', Sinclair Lewis
Harry Sinclair Lewis (February 7, 1885 – January 10, 1951) was an American writer and playwright. In 1930, he became the first writer from the United States (and the first from the Americas) to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, which was ...
's 1920 '' Main Street'', and Carl Van Vechten's 1924 ''The Tattooed Countess''.[
However, with the deepening of the ]Great Depression
The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
not too long after the painting was made, ''American Gothic'' came to be seen as a depiction of the steadfast American pioneer
American pioneers were European American and African American settlers who migrated westward from the Thirteen Colonies and later United States to settle in and develop areas of North America that had previously been inhabited or used by Nati ...
spirit. Wood assisted this interpretive transition by renouncing his bohemian
Bohemian or Bohemians may refer to:
*Anything of or relating to Bohemia
Beer
* National Bohemian, a brand brewed by Pabst
* Bohemian, a brand of beer brewed by Molson Coors
Culture and arts
* Bohemianism, an unconventional lifestyle, origin ...
youth in Paris and grouping himself with populist Midwestern painters such as John Steuart Curry
John Steuart Curry (November 14, 1897 – August 29, 1946) was an American painter whose career spanned the years from 1924 until his death. He was noted for his paintings depicting rural life in his home state, Kansas. Along with Thomas Hart B ...
and Thomas Hart Benton, who revolted against the dominance of East Coast art circles. Wood was quoted in this period as stating, "All the good ideas I've ever had came to me while I was milking a cow."[
American art historian Wanda M. Corn insists that Wood was not painting a modern couple, but rather one of the past, pointing to the fact that Wood directed the models to wear old-fashioned clothing which he found inspiration for by consulting his family photo album. Wood even posed the figures in a way that resembled long-exposure photographs of Midwestern families that dated before World War I.
Art historian Tripp Evans interpreted it in 2010 as an "old-fashioned mourning portrait ... Tellingly, the curtains hanging in the windows of the house, both upstairs and down, are pulled closed in the middle of the day, a mourning custom in Victorian America. The woman wears a black dress beneath her apron, and glances away as if holding back tears. One imagines she is grieving for the man beside her.” Wood had been only 10 when his father died, and later he lived for a decade "above a garage reserved for ]hearse
A hearse is a large vehicle, originally a horse carriage but later with the introduction of motor vehicles, a car, used to carry the body of a deceased person in a coffin at a funeral, wake, or memorial service. They range from deliberately a ...
s", so death was probably on his mind.
In 2019, culture writer Kelly Grovier described the painting as a portrait of Pluto
Pluto (minor-planet designation: 134340 Pluto) is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of trans-Neptunian object, bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. It is the ninth-largest and tenth-most-massive known object to directly orbit the S ...
and Proserpina
Proserpina ( , ) or Proserpine ( ) is an ancient Roman goddess whose iconography, functions and myths are virtually identical to those of Greek Persephone. Proserpina replaced or was combined with the ancient Roman fertility goddess Libera, whose ...
, the Roman gods
The Roman deities most widely known today are those the Romans identified with Greek counterparts (see '' interpretatio graeca''), integrating Greek myths, iconography, and sometimes religious practices into Roman culture, including Latin li ...
of the underworld
The underworld, also known as the netherworld or hell, is the supernatural world of the dead in various religious traditions and myths, located below the world of the living. Chthonic is the technical adjective for things of the underwo ...
(a comparison made earlier by American writer Guy Davenport in his analysis of the painting in a 1978 lecture, “The Geography of the Imagination” .) Grovier suggests the small globe on the weather vane at the very top of the painting represents the dwarf planet Pluto
Pluto (minor-planet designation: 134340 Pluto) is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of trans-Neptunian object, bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. It is the ninth-largest and tenth-most-massive known object to directly orbit the S ...
(the planet was famously discovered in 1930 around the time of the painting's creation). Grovier interprets the pitchfork-wielding farmer as the guardian of the gates of hell, Pluto, and points to the woman's cameo brooch, containing a classical representation of the mythological goddess, Proserpina, and the dangling strand of hair by the woman's right ear as representing the ravishing in the goddess's myth.[How Science and Tech Left an Imprint on 3 Iconic Paintings]
, Kelly Grovier, ''Wired'', January 9, 2019. Excerpted from '' A New Way of Seeing: The History of Art in 57 Works''
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
Gordon Roger Alexander Buchanan Parks (November 30, 1912 – March 7, 2006) was an American photographer, composer, author, poet, and film director, who became prominent in U.S. documentary photojournalism in the 1940s through 1970s—particula ...
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
''The Music Man'' is a musical with book, music, and lyrics by Meredith Willson, based on a story by Willson and Franklin Lacey. The plot concerns con man Harold Hill, who poses as a boys' band organizer and leader and sells band instruments ...
'', movies such as ''The Rocky Horror Picture Show
''The Rocky Horror Picture Show'' is a 1975 Musical film, musical comedy horror film by 20th Century Fox, produced by Lou Adler and Michael White (producer), Michael White and directed by Jim Sharman. The screenplay was written by Sharman an ...
'', and television shows such as ''Green Acres
''Green Acres'' is an American television sitcom starring Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor as a couple who move from New York City to a country farm. Produced by Filmways as a sister show to '' Petticoat Junction'', the series was first broadc ...
'' (in the final scene of the opening credits), The '' Dick Van Dyke Show'' ("The Masterpiece" episode), in an episode of ''The Simpsons
''The Simpsons'' is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical depiction of American life, epitomized by the Simpson family, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, ...
'', and the ''SpongeBob SquarePants
''SpongeBob SquarePants'' (or simply ''SpongeBob'') is an American Animated series, animated Television comedy, comedy Television show, television series created by marine science educator and animator Stephen Hillenburg for Nickelodeon. It ...
'' episode "FarmerBob". It has also been parodied in marketing campaigns, pornography, and by couples who recreate the image photographically by facing a camera in the same way, one of them holding a pitchfork or other object in its place.[ The painting famously appears in the opening titles of the television show '']Desperate Housewives
''Desperate Housewives'' is an American comedy-drama soap opera television series created by Marc Cherry and produced by ABC Studios and Cherry Productions. It aired for eight seasons on ABC from October 3, 2004, until May 13, 2012, for a t ...
'' (2004–2012).The Daily Telegraph
/ref>
The couple from the painting was also recreated in the HBO drama '' Oz'' during one of the show's monologue segments in the episode "A Town Without Pity" during the first half of the show's fourth season. The Dibble House was not included owing to logistical and budget constraints.
The couple in the introduction of Doctor Who
''Doctor Who'' is a British science fiction television series broadcast by the BBC since 1963. The series depicts the adventures of a Time Lord called the Doctor, an extraterrestrial being who appears to be human. The Doctor explores the ...
's series 3 episode "Gridlock
Gridlock is a form of traffic congestion where "continuous queues of vehicles block an entire network of intersecting streets, bringing traffic in all directions to a complete standstill". The term originates from a situation possible in a grid ...
" also resembles that of the painting.
See also
* Protestant work ethic
The Protestant work ethic, also known as the Calvinist work ethic or the Puritan work ethic, is a work ethic concept in theology, sociology, economics and history which emphasizes that diligence, discipline, and frugality are a result of a per ...
* Southern Gothic
Southern Gothic is an artistic subgenre of fiction, country music, film and television that are heavily influenced by Gothic elements and the American South. Common themes of Southern Gothic include storytelling of deeply flawed, disturbing or ...
References
Sources
*
*
*
Further reading
* (contains image of first Wood sketch of the house)
External links
Grant Wood and Frank Lloyd Wright Compared
About the painting, on the Art Institute's site
Slate article about ''American Gothic''
''American Gothic'': A Life of America's Most Famous Painting
Television Commercials (1950s-1960s)
contains General Mills New Country Corn Flakes commercial
''American Gothic'' Parodies collection
November 18, 2002, National Public Radio ''Morning Edition'' report about ''American Gothic''
by Melissa Gray that includes an interview with Art Institute of Chicago curator Daniel Schulman.
June 6, 1991, National Public Radio ''Morning Edition'' report on Iowa's celebration of the centennial of Grant Wood's birth by Robin Feinsmith.
Several portions of the report focus on ''American Gothic''.
February 13, 1976, National Public Radio ''All Things Considered'' Cary Frumpkin interview with James Dennis, author of ''Grant Wood: A Study in American Art and Culture''.
The interview contains a discussion about ''American Gothic''.
{{DEFAULTSORT:American Gothic
Iowa culture
Paintings of couples
Paintings by Grant Wood
Paintings in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago
1930 paintings