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Grant Wood: An American Master Revealed
Book by James M. Dennis, James S. Hornes, Helen Mar Parkin, Joslyn Art Museum, Davenport Museum of Art, Worcester Art Museum
112 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 1995
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May 10, 2021
The book describes the influences on Wood’s art and some of the more technical aspects of his work. Wood made three visits to Europe to study painting. He regarded these trips not as “training” but “as a valid way to get perspective by foreign travel.” As I understood it, Wood adapted European styles to fit what came to be known as his “regionalism” approach. The book illustrates these influences in some of Wood’s paintings.
The best part of this book was the reference to Wood’s essay, “The Revolt Against the City,” which describes the motivations for Wood to strike out on with his own style, in reaction to east coast Americans copying European painting and, middle Americans in turn who looked “wistfully eastward for culture,” especially for writers, musicians, and artists.* Much of the essay was a wholesale rejection of East Coast painting as an inauthentic, reflecting a colonial spirit that was beholden to Europe. In his belief that it was Middle America that represented “the truly American spirit,” and its central virtue, self reliance. For Wood, middle America is the Real America.** In the words of Thomas Hart Benton, it’s the only place in America that was not “provincial.”
Wood’s regionalism reflects Middle America. Painters paint about a subject that they know best. With Wood's regionalism, it's largely about farm life, the central feature of “our Midwestern scene.” Reacting to the common impression of Easterners, the farmer, Wood says is no oaf. He is “a little unit of his own” who doesn’t dwell in literature or art, or talk about oneself, which is seen as “a childish weakness.”
The take away for me from this essay is the strength of Wood’s reaction to the disdain that is felt by those who live in Middle America and love everything about their life there. The idyllic farm life of the Wood era has long given way to large-scale agriculture, but the attachment of people from middle America to their lifestyles and surroundings is still strong now as it was then.*** This may especially explain why Trumpism resonates in the heartland: It’s a culture war between those who are happy where they are and resent being regarded as peasants or hicks. Those terms display a good amount of tribal provincialism by those who regard themselves as exceptional (the so-called cultured and elite) and who are intolerant and disrespectful of people and their lifestyles that are different.
* “Gertrude Stein,” Wood writes, “comes to us from Paris and is only a seven-day wonder.”
** “I lived in Paris a couple of years myself and grew a very spectacular beard that didn’t match my face or my hair, and read Mencken and was convinced that the Middle West was inhibited and barren….I joined a school of painters in Paris after the war who called themselves neo-meditationists. They believed an artist had to wait for inspiration very quietly, and they did most of their waiting at the Cafe du Dome or the Rotunde, with brandy. It was then that I realized that all the really good ideas I’d ever had came to me while I was milking a cow. So I went back to Iowa.”
*** I like the Wood paintings of rural Iowa. I don’t know anything about artistic technique, but their content evoke Norman Rockwell-like, nostalgic scenes that still exists now, decades and decades later. They are something to love.
The best part of this book was the reference to Wood’s essay, “The Revolt Against the City,” which describes the motivations for Wood to strike out on with his own style, in reaction to east coast Americans copying European painting and, middle Americans in turn who looked “wistfully eastward for culture,” especially for writers, musicians, and artists.* Much of the essay was a wholesale rejection of East Coast painting as an inauthentic, reflecting a colonial spirit that was beholden to Europe. In his belief that it was Middle America that represented “the truly American spirit,” and its central virtue, self reliance. For Wood, middle America is the Real America.** In the words of Thomas Hart Benton, it’s the only place in America that was not “provincial.”
Wood’s regionalism reflects Middle America. Painters paint about a subject that they know best. With Wood's regionalism, it's largely about farm life, the central feature of “our Midwestern scene.” Reacting to the common impression of Easterners, the farmer, Wood says is no oaf. He is “a little unit of his own” who doesn’t dwell in literature or art, or talk about oneself, which is seen as “a childish weakness.”
The take away for me from this essay is the strength of Wood’s reaction to the disdain that is felt by those who live in Middle America and love everything about their life there. The idyllic farm life of the Wood era has long given way to large-scale agriculture, but the attachment of people from middle America to their lifestyles and surroundings is still strong now as it was then.*** This may especially explain why Trumpism resonates in the heartland: It’s a culture war between those who are happy where they are and resent being regarded as peasants or hicks. Those terms display a good amount of tribal provincialism by those who regard themselves as exceptional (the so-called cultured and elite) and who are intolerant and disrespectful of people and their lifestyles that are different.
* “Gertrude Stein,” Wood writes, “comes to us from Paris and is only a seven-day wonder.”
** “I lived in Paris a couple of years myself and grew a very spectacular beard that didn’t match my face or my hair, and read Mencken and was convinced that the Middle West was inhibited and barren….I joined a school of painters in Paris after the war who called themselves neo-meditationists. They believed an artist had to wait for inspiration very quietly, and they did most of their waiting at the Cafe du Dome or the Rotunde, with brandy. It was then that I realized that all the really good ideas I’d ever had came to me while I was milking a cow. So I went back to Iowa.”
*** I like the Wood paintings of rural Iowa. I don’t know anything about artistic technique, but their content evoke Norman Rockwell-like, nostalgic scenes that still exists now, decades and decades later. They are something to love.
February 20, 2017
Nice short biography of Grant Wood with beautiful color plates. Enjoyed the story behind some of the paintings. The book also gave info on the painting process Grant Wood used.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews