Grant Wood

February 13, 1891, American painter,"America Gothic The author Grant Wood was born.

character brief introduction

Grant Wood was an American painter born four miles east of Anamosa, Iowa. Many of his paintings vividly depicted the civilian and rural landscapes of his native state of Iowa. Wood was one of three leading figures in the regionalist movement in the Midwest, which promoted figurative painting of rural American themes against European abstract art. Wood's mild irony and bland interpretations sometimes provoked dissent, especially "American Gothic," an iconic 20th-century painting figure that really made him famous.

In "American Gothic", the female character is based on her sister Nan Wood Graham (the male character is based on Wood's dentist). The female image in the painting has a plain appearance and a serious expression. It is a typical Iowa woman. At the same time, this image has an eternal mystery, so it is also called the "Mona Lisa of America."

"American Gothic."

"American Gothic" is an oil painting created by Grant Wood in 1930. Together with "The Statue of Liberty","Barbie","Buffalo Nickel" and "Uncle Sam", it is called the five major symbols of American culture. In the United States in 1928, Grant Wood went to Munich, Germany, and was fascinated by the Gothic art there. The so-called Gothic architecture is mainly composed of stone skeleton coupons and flying buttresses. Its basic unit is to make double circle skeleton tip coupons on pillars at the four corners of a square or rectangular plane, with one on each side and one on the diagonal. Roof stone slabs are placed on the coupons to form a vault. In this way, coupons with the same vector height can be made on different spans. The vault is light in weight and the intersection lines are clear, which reduces the thrust of the coupons 'feet and simplifies construction. Due to the use of architectural forms such as sharp coupons, pointed arches and flying buttresses, the interior space of the Gothic church is high, simple and unified. The decorative details also use sharp coupons as the theme, forming an organic whole of the architectural style and structural techniques.

In August 1930, Wood saw a rather Gothic house in a small town south of Iowa. It was built in the 1880s and had five rooms. Wood was very impressed by the compact and solid design of the building, especially the Gothic windows in the attic. He imagined a farmer and his daughter standing in front of the house, and then took pictures of the house and brought them back to his studio. He asked his 62-year-old dentist and his 30-year-old sister to model the figures in the painting and asked them to dress in 19th-century Victorian clothes. Although the two people are standing together in the painting, the two figures were actually completed on different occasions.

Wood spent two months completing the work, in time for the Chicago Art Institute exhibition. Although judges were initially divided on whether to accept his painting, the painting was eventually exhibited and won a bronze medal and a $300 prize. The painting caused great controversy at the time, with an art critic accusing it of being a "cartoon that insults ordinary rural people." Some people think that Wood used this painting to satirize the narrowness and suppression of Central and Western culture, but Wood himself denies this statement; others interpret this painting as a celebration of rural American morality; others think that the theme of this work is very ambiguous, with both praise and irony. Wood later revealed that his painting contained elements of irony, but he remained silent as to which elements they were.

The man's eyes are straight forward, his lips are closed, his yellow, thin face is serious, and the bridge of his nose is meticulously covered with round glasses. In his muddy hand, he holds a fork that represents both the industrious spirit of farmers in an era when agriculture was dominant, and the unquestionable male authority and power in a 19th-century patriarchal society. Compositionally, the fork echoes the oval face of the figure and the lines of the Gothic window behind the figure. The woman standing next to him has a typical Victorian female outfit, reminiscent of Jane Eyre from her hairstyle to her dress and even her expression. Like men, the woman's expression was not smiling, because women in that era were strict, reserved, hard-working, and self-denying. She stood slightly behind the man, looking at the man with her eyes, a little "only he is listening".

The relationship between the two characters in the painting has also been a topic of constant debate. Are they an old farm couple or a father and daughter? If it is a couple, many Iowa farmer's wives think this is a painting that defends their image; if it is a father and daughter, does the man holding a fork in his hand represent a common farmer or a preacher who drives away his daughter's suitors without jealousy? Critics who understand the father-daughter relationship interpret the folds on her daughter's chin and neck as "the sharpness of an old maid," but others believe that these folds imply that her daughter is not as rigid as her dress (buttons tightly close to her neck).