Why American Gothic Actually Became Iconic

Everybody knows Grant Wood's American Gothic, but do you know why it's so popular? Find out why!

#arthistory #art

[leahheim]

So I studied Gothic lit in college, and one of the things we talked about was Freud’s uncanny—when something is so familiar, but also unfamiliar. This whole painting is like the epitome of that for me, having grown up in the American Midwest. And yes, the nationalism point is spot on, and I don’t know if that’s intentional, but to me it’s the aggressive American nature of this painting that makes it so uncanny. It sees something in America that isn’t immediately obvious, and it’s something that’s dark and difficult to describe—pride and violence and shame and sheer coldness. The painting is familiar enough to look exactly like home, and unfamiliar enough to look like a nightmare. The perfect uncanny.

[michaeljdauben]

I never really saw anything creepy about this painting. To me it always seemed to represent a sort of romanticized vision of America. A country of stoic, hardworking, independent people. The man shows his age, and has been working hard all his life, but he still stands straight and tall, his hand on the pitchfork still strong. The embodyment of how we wanted to see ourselves (at that time) as a people.

[barnacles]

"American Gothic" has been one of my favorite paintings since I was a child, and I'm now 60, lol. Perception is everything in art, and is different for everyone, rather it be music, painting or poetry. I have had numerous conversations with family and friends over the years, and the most repeated thing of why they liked it was the couple reminded them of a person in their family or a friend. I had an uncle, that could have been the man's double, that worked as a carpenter and owned a small farm. I never saw the woman as his daughter, but rather his wife, and not until recent years studying the painting online did I realize the house was only one story and still stands today. It's like hearing the proper lyrics for a song then it changes the whole meaning, lol. Why did it become such a liked painting? My same uncles house was a white two-story farmhouse with an exact type of window in the eve of the front of the home. The porch had solid wood gothic gingerbread. I never saw my uncle without bib overalls, and usually had a hat that looked like they type they wore on trains. He had sheds in the back, and a big pond we used to fish in. He was very successful and always very serious. No one to talk gibberish and was old school believer in working hard and taking care of yourself. This painting keeps him alive in my mind, but being an artist myself, Grant Wood will always be a favorite of mine. I truly admire his work....

[DouggieDinosaur]

The tree above the woman's head is Bob Ross's afro.

[knarf_on_a_bike]

To me, it's always been an extremely violent painting. Not just the pitch fork, but that window. I saw a stained glass church window. Whatever that stern man was protecting, he was doing so with God's blessing - and there are few things more unstoppable than anyone doing God's work.

An absolute masterpiece!

[SevenUnwokenDreams]

Thank you for making this video. That painting always creeped me out as a child, and it still does. The man looks like he is hiding something back in that house, and he is trying to intimidate the viewer so we don't pry. His daughter looks like she's been sheltered but she knows that what's being hidden in that house is something dark. She wants to break free but she just can't. That's the story in my mind, anyway.

[jeff__w]

_Everything_ about the painting is about myth-making.

Nan Wood Graham, Grant’s sister, had been married to a real estate broker and investor for several years before she appeared as the “daughter” in her homespun apron (fashioned by Nan with rickrack torn from one of her and Grant’s mother’s dresses) in the painting—Wood’s _Portrait of Nan_ probably portrays her as something closer to the way she actually looked. Byron McKeeby, the severe “father, ” was a Cedar Rapids dentist—he was actually quite affable and dapper in real-life. He’s holding a theater-prop pitchfork upside-down—one would usually hold a pitchfork with the tines _down_ to avoid jabbing oneself. (Instead of the pitchfork, McKeeby’s preferred occupational technology might have been the dental X-ray—he brought the first one to town around the turn of the century.)

So, if Wood “drew inspiration from [his] immediate environment”—and Wood was no hayseed country bumpkin, he grew up in Cedar Rapids, Iowa’s second largest city—it was an inspiration that drew on the archetype—or maybe stereotype—of the plain, no-nonsense American yeoman farmer, in other words, not anything _real_ but whatever that environment portrayed these “sturdy Iowa folk” to be. In fact, according to one site, at _American Gothic’s_ premiere public exhibition, “Iowans saw it as a caricature of rural life and were angry at being portrayed as ‘pinched, grimacing, fanatical puritans’.” (One letter to the _Des Moines Sunday Register, _ from the wife of an Iowa farmer, said: “We have at least progressed beyond the three-tined pitchfork stage.”)

I’m not so sure the painting “embodie[s] a sincere and patriotic reflection of America” so much as it embodies some sort of reflection of a sincere and patriotic _myth_ of America. Grant Wood gave the country what it wanted to see about itself and, in doing so, created an American icon.

[ThePopUpHr]

“Get off my lawn” the portrait. Great video

[VoodooAngel]

This painting has always spoken to me because I am Iowan but also because the gentleman looks so similar that it could be my Papaw standing there. But I see something else, too represented by that lovely window. Iowa farmers tend to be successful due to the very good growing conditions and massive top soil in Iowa. The window in the house is not typical. It is a very beautiful and expensive element in the house. The farmer may look very stern but a look at the window indicates that he is able to provide a comfortable and lovely home for his daughter.

[musungu]

This was actually the first time i saw this painting. Thanks for the video, cheers from Italy!

[curiousworld]

I don't know about 'corn-fed, Midwestern, all-American values', but I think, like Thomas Hart Benton before him, Grant Wood was painting (with his own, personal intent) what he knew, what he saw, in a style that happened to be 'easy' to understand. Of course, both artists' training was influential - critics can be so reductive. I love the painting; it reminds me of old, tintype or daguerreotype photography, where the subjects had to hold still for a time, and so, rarely are smiling. I once drew a very detailed impression of what I called 'If I Could Build a House', which took direct inspiration from this painting - including the floor plan. :)

[refugeinthewind]

My Sundays begin with looking for a new video from you. You never fail to open my mind. Thank you!❤

[jakegarvin]

The painting just screams "So, you're going to have my daughter home by 11, *Right?*

[patriciafeehan]

So much goes on in this painting and it has a story to tell.
Gothic means Church at the center of the painting you notice a church window, the plain daughter has tried to decorate the house with fancy lace curtains, the potted plants failing on the porch - She even tried a new hairdo, but it too seems to fall, then she pinned a beautiful broach to her collar.
She seeks freedom from him but will not leave her father out of religious loyalty. My interpretation. There are still things in this painting that have not been discovered or understood. American Gothic

[melindadouglas]

I just saw this painting at the Art Institute in Chicago. We were told the man in the painting was the dentist of the artist. It was impressive to see in person.

[FreddyDude]

I love this painting. I always saw the father and daughter looking serious but confident. I see it as a statement, the more ornate gothic window symbolising a hidden cultural richness to middle america, unseen by the urbanites who only accepted european high society as culturally rich. In a way turning things around and making the metropolitan cities look backwards for ignoring and moking rural people. As a european (portugal), I do see it as a uniquely american style, to me there's no myth. Great video that made me consider different interpretations and opened my eyes a little more. Thank you.

[sweetpepino]

This video really opened my eyes to what this painting is actually potentially about, and unlocked a deep appreciation for it. As a kid I'd see it on TV shows and think it was just some famous painting of an old farmer and his wife that was unintentionally creepy. Now I'm seeing how subtly sinister and dramatic it all is. In spite of the fact it's seemingly a commissioned painting of him and his prosperity, he's taken every step to pose in a threatening and closed off manner. In some way he obscures everything personal to him, you're barely even allowed to see his house let alone inside it.
To me what changes this whole painting is the daughter's expression. It's so poignant yet inscrutable, it tells me there's something deeper to this story beyond being a simple front, but I can't tell what. Is there a dark secret in that house? Does she feel repressed by her overbearing father? Is she just sick of standing there being painted? Her face carries the immense weight of something, but we will never know what. The man will take his secrets to the grave, and you with him if you trespass into his life. He is the master of this domain.

[ivratsdargy]

I never saw the man as looking at the viewer, but looking past them, staring blankly out toward an empty countryside. He's not trying to protect his farm, but moreso reflecting on that it's all there is to him, as well as his family. He seems unaware of his daughter, as if she walked up from behind to just casually call him back inside for dinner or something. To me, it just reflects a feeling that i think a lot of Americans can relate to in one way or another: "This is all i have, all I *will* have, nothing more, nothing less"

[josephwalsh]

This painting looks much more Gothic than specifically American. Change the clothes and it could be a painting
of small farmers almost anywhere in Europe. The figures resemble the stiff columnar statues on the portico
of many Gothic cathedrals and the Gothic window in the background reinforces it.

[ampleparkingTV]

I first saw this painting when I was nine: my aunt had a print of it in her kitchen. It stayed with me forever, leaving a really eery impression even as a child.