My first ever video on this channel was on Grant
Wood. I originally wanted it to be on American Gothic but, because I wasn’t comfortable with
my abilities of making a proper video essay, I saved it for later. I made a
video on Daughters of Revolution. Later, I made a video on Parson Weems’ Fable,
again by Grant Wood. I didn’t think my video essayist skills were quite refined
enough for a video on American Gothic. But they are now, I hope! It’s about time I tackle
this painting and I’ll answer this question: “Why is it so beloved, popular, and iconic?” The answer to the question is, at
least I believe, “nationalism”. I will spare you with the
details of Grant Wood’s life, and the story behind the making of this
painting. There are plenty of videos out there that cover that, without
actually explaining the painting. First let’s look at this painting: A father stands, pitchfork in his hands, next
to his daughter. Yes, she’s his daughter. He’s coldly looking at us. Behind
them is their house with an oddly arch-shaped window in the back. From
this, we can make many assumptions, mainly that this man is a farmer and he’s
posing in front of his country house. That’s it. It’s an extremely simple composition that hardly explains why
this painting is so iconic. To try to understand, I think we first need
to forget any notion about this painting, any parody that we’ve seen of it online and in
media, we need to wipe the slate clean. Obviously, that’s impossible. Our relationship and
overexposure to this painting has completely desensitized us to it. However, we can try to
imagine this being our first time seeing it. There’s something creepy about it,
isn’t there. There’s something about the whole thing looking like it’s staged
that’s off-putting. There’s the awkward daughter who avoids eye-contact
behind her very disturbing father. He’s the reason, at least to me, why this painting
is so eery. I don’t think it’s because of his face, yes, he looks like a very serious and
cold man, but not necessarily a creepy one. However, I do believe there’s
a belligerence in the way he’s presenting himself. He’s standing straight,
pitch-fork firmly in hand, staring down at us. I see this man as someone who’s protecting his
property and who perhaps sees us, the viewer, as a threat. His property isn’t only the
house we see behind him, but his daughter. And as it’s been said before, it’s
easy to create stories with the idea that this man isn’t only protecting his
property, but perhaps hiding something. There are some dark secrets
lurking behind this arched window, the daughter has seen things, and all of
it is kept a mystery by a rigid old man. The creepiness of this
painting lies in its mystery, belligerently guarded by a man and his pitch-fork. But this, to me, still isn’t enough to
explain the popularity of the painting. According to art historian Horst Waldemir Janson,
Wood went to Europe to train as an artist, as many of them would, but he was dissatisfied
until “he saw the works of the Old Masters of Flanders and Germany, and he realized
that these artists were great because they drew inspiration from their immediate
environment … […] and out of this experience [he] formed the style that made him famous
overnight when he painted American Gothic.” To Janson, Wood became famous overnight because
he, like the Old Master of Flanders and Germany, drew inspiration from his immediate environment. Perhaps, because of that, he was able
to reach an American sensibility. When speaking of American Gothic, Wood said
“Our cardboard frame houses on Iowa farms are especially suggestive of Middle West
civilization.” This Iowan cardboard frame house was particularly interesting to Wood
because of its gothic-style window, which is echoed in the title of the painting, and which
stands as a contradiction. As for the people, “I simply invented some “American Gothic” people
to stand in front of a house of this type.” Wood definitely took inspiration
from his immediate environment, yet we don’t know if he did so seriously, as
an hommage, or ironically, as a caricature. Some locals were offended and perceived it as
an attack, some urbanites saw it as a funny caricature of rural people, but as art history
professor R. Tripp Evans states in his biography on Grant Wood, which is where I took most
of my quotes by the way, “In Wood’s own day, the notion that American Gothic represented
a satire of midwestern types was less common than the competing claim that it embodied a
sincere and patriotic reflection of America.” Hommage or parody, there’s nonetheless a
nationalist appreciation of the work that sprang from the reaction.
The
Art Institute would say of Wood that he’s “an American with an original
viewpoint, without a vestige of foreign influence, […] [American Gothic] could
have been painted in no other country.” Art critic C.J. Bulliet would explain that
American Gothic has “masterful technique, and yet [it] remains AMERICAN”. He
actually wrote American in all caps there. You could read in the New Yorker: “As a symbol [Wood] stands for the corn-fed
Middle West against the anemic East, starving aesthetically upon warmed-over entrees
dished up by Spanish chefs in Paris kitchens. He stands for an independent American art against
the colonialism and cosmopolitanism of New York.” The last sentence from this New Yorker quote
really summarizes the idea that it’s because of nationalism that American Gothic might have taken
off and so quickly acquired the status of icon. America was becoming polarized, as it
always has been, between the rural folks and the urbanites. Urban America was getting
increasingly multicultural and cosmopolitan. The art coming from these centres, notably
New York, had strong European influences and, in the 1930s, the art that came
from Europe was often modern. Because of that, America struggled to find
its own artistic identity. It would come later after world war II when America, as
it gained power on the international stage, also gained cultural power through the
domination of abstract expressionism, the first influential American art movement, filled
with artists who weren’t even born in America. So we’re in a context of artistic exploration
in the Western world where artists created new modes of expression, new
trends and new art movements. However, America was lagging behind. And,
as seen, an urban art, corrupted by the influences of European modern art, cannot be
true American art. That could only come from an uncorrupted, or “pure”, American
artist from the corn-fields of Iowa. A myth was built. Grant Wood was
this prophecized purely American painter. His style came from no influence
other than his own hard work, creativity, and the good old American traditions
and values he grew up with and embodied. American Gothic was the materialization
of the will for America to create a modern cultural identity of its own,
independent of outside influences. But, that’s not really possible.
Creating “pure” art, uncorrupted by influences from outside your borders,
is impossible. Even modern art in Europe came from outside influences, notably
from Japan. I made a video about that. As stated earlier, Grant Wood studied in Europe, learned from the many modern movements he
encountered and was heavily influenced, not only by them, but also by the
old masters of Flanders and Germany. American Gothic is the embodiment of
American myth building and nothing makes it more clear than the title itself.
There’s the affirmation, or the reassurance, that this is an American artwork, the
gothic adds an element of mystery, of drama. This painting became popular, at least I believe,
because it gave the first modern American painting that, at least in its myth, was untouched
by foreign influence. America was fragile, it feared losing its authenticity, its
purity, if it wasn’t 100% American. In comes a rural white American artist making a
modern painting, a purely American painting. The myth of the independent, self-made,
all-American modern painting was created. Thank you so much for watching! Thank
you Aksel, Mike Wex, Roman Brendan, Russell Chinchilla and all my other patrons for
supporting the channel. If you also want help out, leave a like, subscribe and check
out Patreon.com/thecanvas. Thank you!
