This is an article about American Gothic by Grant Wood, by artist Stephen F. Condren, BFA-SAIC, of Condren Galleries, a Fine Arts Gallery, offering JPEG & PDF scans with prints. If there was ever a painting at the Art Institute of Chicago that has World rank and international acclaim it is American Gothic by Grant Wood. This painting is so famous that it is rated as the second most widely used image in the world, second only to the Mona Lisa by Leonardo Da Vinci.
When we now look at this famous painting it is almost a hoot because it is difficult to see it on its own terms because of all the notoriety its has gathered over the years. This certainly was not what was in the mind of Grant Wood when he painted it.
Image
The image is simple, clean, and well-organized, it is a farmer couple standing in their work clothes in front of their farm-house. Now when you examine this more carefully the design becomes apparent. Look at the pitch-fork of the farmer, it is placed dead center in the painting anchoring the work. The shape of the pitch-fork is echoed in the seams of the denim over-alls and shirt of the farmer. His hand is firmly grasping the handle of the pitch-fork securing its position in the painting.
Even though the couple are beautifully detailed they are silhouetted against the background house and the landscape further behind. This stylization further accentuates the figures up front focusing our attention on them. However, the house with all of it’s fine details is important in providing depth of field to the work of art without making use of standard perspective practices. The best that you can say is that this a one-point perspective but that would be hard press to prove with the images up front so cleverly blocking any such vanishing point technique.
Architecture
The landscape all around is highly stylized and almost unnatural, the trees look more like sponges dipped in green paint and placed behind the house and barn. However, this stylization of the trees has a purpose in that it gives space for the house to stand and also show-case the house’s fine details (notice the repeated image of the Gothic window pains on the curtains in the window). Complimenting the images of the pitch-fork and trouser seams are the vertical panels of cedar siding on the house thrusting our eyes upward and keeping us focused in the center. The siding on the side of the house near the porch is horizontal thus putting a stop to vertical movement and keeping our eyes focused inward.
What you have here in reality is the artist’s sister and his dentist posing for the painting. Would they have posed had then known what an international sensation they have become?
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