'American Gothic' 20/09/2011

American Gothic c.1930

During the first lesson today, we were shown a number of paintings and pictures which were considered to be 'gothic'. I chose to talk about one in the bottom corner that really caught my eye. Although I didn't know it at the time, this picture entitled "American Gothic" is actually incredibly famous. Painted by Grant Wood in 1930 the picture depicts a man and supposedly his daughter standing outside a house made in the 'Gothic Revival' style. When I initially described the painting, the impresion that it had on me was that it was trying to convey the: miserable, religious and austere life of the puritan 'founding fathers' of America. What really made the painting have a gothic feel about it for me is the chilling expressionless faces of the two characters depicted. It really made me think of historic events such as the Salem Witch Trials and the much more fictional epic film that is, Sleepy Hollow.

After doing some research into the painting (I'm not going to lie the research was limited to Wikipedia) I discovered that the painting was not as old as I believed it to be. I think I put a date on the picture as being set at somepoint in the 1600s, but actually the painting was set in the 1800s. How can you tell? The tunic that the woman is wearing.. apparently. This may sound pretty dull to most of you but this sadly did interest me, appealing to my history nerd side.
The man in the painting, was actually the artist's dentist in real life. I think this shows the artist's sense of humour- turning an everyday frightening character into a supernatural gothic one!
Another interesting fact about the painting is that the woman in the painting is meant to be the man's spinster daughter, not his wife. It is ambiguous as to whether this was originally the artist's intention but apparently the woman who posed for the painting was embarassed to be presented as being married to a man twice her age.

Thought I'd end this post with a bit of humour. The characters in 'American Gothic' make an appearance in the Rocky Horror picture show. See if you can spot a certain man and woman...