Etcher, a Dutch painter once contemplated that “Without atmosphere a painting is nothing.” (Rugger and Billinge 25). Apparently, several painters have focused on the atmosphere of the spots or environment that they chose to draw on their paintings. Some of them, however, found themselves mysteriously attached to the atmospheres of the settings they visited. Among them are the two famous nineteenth-century painters; Grand Wood and Ben Shahn. These two icons Wood for American Gothic painting and Shahn for Rural Rehabilitation Client
photo made certain atmosphere the bases of the of their works, and it is through their unique styles of choosing an environment that they not only drew the attention of their devotees but also that of the general public. The purpose of this research is to ascertain similarities and differences between the Wood’s painting and Shahn’s photo and the unique features of Wood’s work that makes it a high and more favored target of the parody than Shahn’s work.
Grant Wood was born in 1892 in a small town of Lowa (Wood 397). Wood painted archaic American visions of small hamlets nestling on the rounded hills around a beacon of a white church. Wood a self-promoting leader and antimodernist was an elusive figure and was very fond of European arts. Wood always dreamt of stories of Washington Irving, and ever imagined of a comforting small-town world enclosed yet easy to be the nocturnal stage mayhem. In 1930, wood gave completed a great masterpiece of his time, American Gothic (Wood 398). Since its exhibition, the painting has gathered considerably surprising fame and is still parodied and used in American culture. The picture is one of the highly recognized Americas as well as all-time global art.
The art pieces, Rural Rehabilitation Client and American Gothic, seem entirely different in appearance but both depict lives in deep depression although the depression in American Gothic is no fully underway as pictured Rural Rehabilitation Client. The two arts created just five years apart, relate in the subject as well as in time both with Wood’s showing farmers in 1930 while Shahn’s shows recipients of a federal help program in Arkansas in 1935 when depression was at its highest point (McKiernan 527). Taking the two arts together, it’s possible to assume that perhaps the photo was taken as a study of the painting, with only one salient difference between the two works is the change of the positions of the wife to the right or the left and the ages of the of the figures in the arts.
The physical similarities are evident at first glance as both works showing a man and seemingly his wife, in their rural settings wearing what seems to be his and her best attire and standing in front of their home. The figures all have similar continence, similar clothes, and same facial expression. A close examination of Wood’s work indicates that the participants in his art are older and are in a more posh setting, with the picture of their home nicely painted with large beautifully decorated windows towards the background (Lloyd Smith 163). The couples are also in relatively more exceptional clothing with the husband wearing an oversized woolen court and the wife wearing an embellished black dress. The couples standing in relatively longer distance from their house implies that they have a big land and they can stand far from their home but still be on their ground. Also, the farmer holding pitchfork is a difference denoting empowerment.
On the other hand, Shahn’s photograph the wife is standing to the right of her husband; she is not glancing directly at the husband with her head slightly hanging down conveying a feeling of dejection (McKiernan 529). The couple in the slouched immediate front of their wood cabin. This is an indication that they have very little to the extent that whenever they try to move few steps ahead, they would be off their land. In this art, the couples are in the middle of a depression and are pressed so hard.
Perhaps the main reason why Wood chose to paint the couples on their farm was that he wanted to show that farming constituted a significant part of America (Husch 145). It was America’s nature of imperialism and their way of making civilization from the harsh wilderness of the west. It is important to note that in other parts of the world, was not owned by just the ordinary people, but rather by the tsars and the lords. A more in-depth analysis of the painting gives more excellent details that reveal about specific issues in at the time in regards to life in the farms.
The first and most observable are the facial expressions of the couples. The seriousness in the face of the farmers that evokes dark or grim effect in the audience is surprising, apparently with such lovely, peaceful, and spacious house and property, the couples are expected to be cheerful (Crow 129). However, even if the farmers are eliminated from the picture, there still would not be favorable emotions due to the paintings of the sky, the unusual color of a firmament blue sky. The lighting of the background of the pictures is essential in revealing the mood of the work (Nascimento et al 81). Over here, there are wisps of clouds of smoke, the dense imagery of the nineteenth-century city-life and industrialization which were slowly ruining the farm-life and farmers in this painting are definitely feeling the encroachment of the industrialization (Da Pieve et al 12). For this painting to be considered as a classic one, it must go beyond city versus rural concept. This painting is a symbol of the early characteristics of political and social upheavals that were to be brought in the subsequent centuries.
Further inspection of the image reveals that there are differences to the woman’s left that are worth noting. First are the plants rising above her shoulders that are not seen anywhere else in the picture. Also, on an accurate view, one would probably notice that the door or the wind above the shoulder of the woman has its blinds up. Moreover, other than the windows from the building that are at the center of the image having their shades down. Also, the barn located on the right side of the man is lacking windows. There is a loosely hanging curl of hair that is coming out slowly coming out of the wife’s tight bun which is opposite of the man and out of his view. It is no doubt that these deviations stand for the hidden truth that the man is unaware of. Although the farmer wants to keep her wife in a certain way, whichever way it is, the woman is quietly disregarding him and hides some truth from him (Da Pieve et al 16). The woman is getting herself to view the outside world. The loose hair is an indication that the man is slowly and unnoticeably losing hold of her wife.
When focusing on the man, the first thing to notice is the pitchfork he is holding. However, an overall focus on the farmer, underneath his suit, it is noticeable that a design similar to the pitchfork he is holding has been sewn onto his clothing. That doesn’t mean just en there, on examination of his shirt, there are three vertical strips that emerge above where the three prongs end. Also, the man is tightly holding the pitchfork with the fists of the right hand as if he’d use it as a weapon should need to arise. The trident and the pitchfork have a similar design that resembles the symbol and the weapon of Greek ocean god. This painting seems to be suggesting that the man is viewed as a god in his home, although the rising feminism tides can sweep away his authority (Da Pieve et al 21). His is standing with confidence to show that everything, for which is the woman, in this case, is the woman, is in control. The hands of the woman are not visible in the picture suggesting that she cannot do anything in the presence of the man.
Another striking observation about the picture that is incredibly odd is the roundness of nature, the trees for this matter. The shape is profoundly unnatural, and to some extent does not seem to be a tree even though it does not look very much different from the secret spectators in the image. Also, a look at the trees on the left confirms that the trees are on the left side of the woman. However, at this point, the trees are not just above the woman’s shoulder but also above her head, apparently, she is part of the group of the onlookers. The head of the man, however, is above the trees, literally, his head is in the clouds.
This is an interpretation that the secret of this woman disobedience is not the only occurrence. There is a great number like her that are starting to go against the odds of traditions. The man who symbolizes other authoritarian men who keep women the way they have always been doing not seem to notice the decline of his power (Da Pieve et al 25). The unstable rule of men is expressed throughout the painting. All the structures are set in vertical planks except for the horizontal planks that rises above the shoulders of the woman, which perhaps is blocking the wind vane so that the viewers cannot be able to predict the direction of the wind implying that nobody is certain about the future, which is the exact thing that women desire, to change the past oppressive traditions (Punter 12).
Ben Shahn’s photography is an interpretation of the inability of farmers to fall back on their crops following the 1935 severe specks of dust and winds that swept every farms and field leaving them bare. During this period, with a way to find work or to find sources of income, many farms were shut down rendering countless families homeless and hungry (Rosi et al 5259). Shahn used his photo to depict every day’s desperations that farmers went through in America as a result of adverse and terror repercussions that had been incited by the great depression.
The structures in the Rural Rehabilitation Client run in the horizontal direction indicating hopelessness. They show that even though the lives of the farmer and his wife will move forward, the will be no upward movements or betterment of the living standard. The sheer depression experienced by the victims of great depression had shattered their hope, and they did not think of any better life (Rosi et al 5260). Although the two images convey useful information, Rural Rehabilitation cannot match the American Gothic which was excellently presented in the drawing.
In conclusion, in as much as the two arts are famously known for the depression they represent, the American gothic remains an all-time icon of paintings in the history of America. It is the perfect example of regionalism movement that advocated for the strong opposition of oppressive European rule as represented by the man. The art depicted the American subjects in the rural settings who rendered free labor in the European farms. The painting has been incorporated into the popular culture of America, and the couple has formed an excellent parody subject. The title of the painting itself implies that the home of a man is like his church as contemplated in the gothic architecture.
Works Cited.
Crow, Charles L. “Fear, Ambiguity, and Transgression: The Gothic Novel in the United States.” A Companion to the American Novel, 2012, pp. 127–146, doi:10.1002/9781118384329.ch8.
Da Pieve, F., et al. “Casting Light on the Darkening of Colors in Historical Paintings.” Physical Review Letters, vol. 111, no. 20, 2013, doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.111.208302.
“Grant Wood: The Regionalist Vision.” Art Journal, vol. 43, no. 4, 2008, pp. 397–399, doi:10.1080/00043249.1983.10792262.
Husch, Gail. “Painting the Dark Side: Art and the Gothic Imagination in Nineteenth-Century America.” American Historical Review, vol. 110, 2005, pp. 144–157, doi:10.1111/j.1542-734X.2004.148_24.x.
Lloyd Smith, Allan. “Nineteenth-Century American Gothic.” A New Companion to the Gothic, 2012, pp. 161–175, doi:10.1002/9781444354959.ch11.
McKiernan, Mike. “Ben Shahn Death of a Miner (1949).” Rural Rehabilitation Client (Oxford, England), vol. 59, no. 8, 2009, pp. 526–537, doi:10.1093/occmed/kqp110.
Nascimento, Sérgio M. C., et al. “The Colors of Paintings and Viewers’ Preferences.” Vision Research, vol. 130, 2017, pp. 76–84, doi:10.1016/j.visres.2016.11.006.
Punter, David. “A New Companion to the Gothic.” A New Companion to the Gothic, 2012, doi:10.1002/9781444354959.
Rosi, Francesca, et al. “Noninvasive Analysis of Paintings by Mid-Infrared Hyperspectral Imaging.” Angewandte Chemie - International Edition, vol. 52, no. 20, 2013, pp. 5258–5261, doi:10.1002/anie.201209929.
Rüger, Axel, and Rachel Billinge. “The Design Practices of the Dutch Architectural Painter Bartholomeus van Bassen.” National Gallery Technical Bulletin, vol. 26, no. 2005, 2005, pp. 23–42.
