Wood's American Gothic is a painting that has been the target of caustic jokes and parodies for over 80 years

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

In Russia, the painting "American Gothic" is practically unknown, while in America it is truly a national landmark. Painted in 1930 by the artist Grant Wood, it still captivates the mind and is the subject of numerous parodies. It all started with a small house and an unusual window in the Gothic style …

American artist Grant Wood was born and raised in Iowa, he painted realistic, sometimes exaggerated, portraits and landscapes dedicated to ordinary Americans, rural residents of the Midwest, executed with incredible accuracy to the smallest detail.

It all began with a small white country house with a gabled roof and a Gothic window, in which, apparently, lived a family of poor farmers.

This simple house in the city of Eldon, in the South of Iowa, impressed the artist so much and reminded him of his childhood that he decided to paint it, and along with those Americans who, in his opinion, could live in it.

The picture itself is completely straightforward. In the foreground, against the background of the house, an elderly farmer with a pitchfork and his daughter in a strict Puritan dress are depicted; as models, the artist chose a 62-year-old dentist's acquaintance Byron McKeebee and his 30-year-old daughter Nan. For Wood, this picture was a memory of his childhood, also spent on the farm, so he deliberately portrayed some of the personal things of his characters (glasses, an apron and a brooch) as old-fashioned, as he remembered them from childhood.

Quite unexpectedly for the author, the picture won a competition in Chicago, and after it was published in the newspapers, Grant Wood immediately became famous, but not in a good sense of the word, but vice versa. His picture did not leave indifferent any person who saw it, and everyone's reaction was extremely negative and indignant. The reason for this was the main characters of the picture, who, according to the artist's plan, personified ordinary villagers of the American hinterland. The menacing-looking farmer with a heavy look and his daughter, full of resentment and indignation, looked too rude and unattractive. ", - the wife of one of the farmers ironed in a letter to the newspaper. - ".

The children were really scared by this picture, they were afraid of a terrible grandfather with a terrible pitchfork, believing that he hid a corpse in the attic of his house.

Wood has said more than once that in his picture there is neither mockery, nor satire, nor ominous overtones, and the pitchfork simply symbolizes hard farm labor. Why would he, who grew up in a rural outback, who loves its nature and people, laugh at its inhabitants?

But, despite endless criticism and negative attitudes, Wood's painting became more and more popular. And during the years of the Great Depression, she even began to symbolize the national unshakable spirit and masculinity.

And the house depicted in the picture made the small town of Eldon famous, in which only about a thousand people live. Tourists from all over the world come to take a look and take pictures around it.

In the late 20th - early 21st centuries, interest in this picture increased sharply again, giving rise to a huge number of parodies of it. There are ridicule with the use of black humor, and parodies of famous characters with the substitution of the main characters of the picture, their clothes or the background against which they are depicted.

Here are just a few of them:

Evolution of American Society

It should be said that parodies are very popular among artists. Including such as humorous pin-up in the spirit of socialist realism.