American Gothic c. 1930 / Grant Wood
For my next artwork I have chosen “American Gothic,” by the 20th century American painter, Grant Wood.
In this work, a somber man and his daughter stand in front of an Iowa farmhouse. It was the house that inspired the artist, while the couple are the kind of people he imagined living there.
Wood chose to pose the father and daughter in rigidly upright positions. The pitchfork the farmer holds as well as the lines in his face and shirt emphasize the vertical dimension. The vertical lines in the house and the strong horizontal line of the roof add to the dimensional emphasis.
The muted palette and emphasis on verticality conveys a sense of strictness and conventionality. Yet Wood intended it to convey a positive image of rural America, using strong dimensional lines to give a feeling of stability.