This painting by America Artist Grant Wood is one of the ten
most famous paintings in the world and one of the most parodied (along with “The
Scream”). Wood painted it in 1930.
First he came upon the Gothic Revival-style house in Eldon, Iowa, then he used his own
sister Nan and his dentist as
models for the couple painted in the foreground. (They never actually stood in front of the house. He painted
the elements separately.)
Wood entered the painting in a competition sponsored by the
Art Institute of Chicago and though the judges first called it “comic valentine”, a museum patron
(according to Wikipedia) convinced them to award the painting the first prize
of $300 and to buy it for the Museum.
When the instant fame of the painting reached Iowa, the natives
of the state were outraged at being portrayed as “pinched, grim-faced puritanical
Bible thumpers”, but by the time the Depression hit the country, people began
to see the painting as a depiction of the steadfast American spirit..
The artist’s sister, Nan, was upset at being pictured as the
wife of a man twice her age (the dentist who served as the model for the
pitchfork-toting farmer), so she and Grant Wood told people this was meant to
be a picture of a farmer and his spinster daughter. But everyone who sees the
painting sees it as a married couple—pinched and solemn, hardworking and
humorless, who have undoubtedly been married for so long they’ve started to
look alike.
In my collection of antique photos I have two couples I’d
like to nominate as stand-ins for the American Gothic couple—or, since they
pre-date the Grant Wood painting by at least 30 years if not more, let’s call
them the original American Gothic.
This pair appeared together in a leather photo case I
bought. The images are so clean and vivid that I nearly jumped when I opened
the case to find these two sixth- plate ambrotypes on ruby glass. For some reason, I’m convinced this is
the only portrait this couple ever had taken of themselves. They look like a no-nonsense pair who
would not waste money on frivolity like photographs.
The thing that fascinates me about this pair is the woman’s
hair. (And her square granny
glasses.) I’m pretty sure her real
hair color would be white, not black, but she doesn’t look like someone who would
color her hair (which was considered shocking and almost never done in the 19th
century.) Maybe she’s wearing a
wig? Also, those crazy banana
curls may be made of chenille—I believe I read something about that being a fad
back in the 19th century.
This other pair hang in my bedroom, and every time I look at
them I smile. (I’m sorry I
couldn’t get a clearer photo of the man but the light and reflections totally
foiled me on the day I snapped the photo.)
These two are examples of painted tintypes, a format that
combines two of my great loves—photography and folk art. Painted tintypes like these usually
began with a full plate (about 8 by ten inches) tintype photograph. Then someone—either the photographer’s
staff or an artistic housewife—would paint over the image, sometimes to the point
that you could no longer tell it’s a photograph. Many hilariously non-realistic portraits were created this
way.
But just painting over the photograph wasn’t enough. The mat and frame of the painting were
also hand-made and painted to embellish the original photograph.
In this pair, you can see that the lady’s clothing and the
flowers in her hair have been painted in, and her cheeks tinted. The man’s hair
and beard have been enhanced.
Then, as is common with painted tintypes, the maker,
convinced that “More is More” embellished the mat and frame. In this case someone did an oval of
gold glitter on top of another oval of red paper under the white mat and the three-layered
wood frame, which is almost like a shadow box.
These couples clearly have been together so long they
started to look alike, and their stern visages embody, like the Grant Wood
portrait, the best qualities of
the steadfast American spirit. They
are the salt of the earth.
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