“American Gothic” is a painting by Grant Wood in 1930. The image is iconic at this stage in American history, depicting the image of a stern-faced man holding a pitchfork and a younger woman both standing in front of a white farmhouse. According to reports, the artist was inspired to create the painting when he saw the farmhouse from the window of a car in his home state of Iowa. “He decided to paint the house – built in the ‘carpenter gothic’ style, which applied the lofty architecture of European cathedrals to flimsy American frame houses – along with ‘the kind of people I fancied should live in that house” (Fineman, 2005).
The image has made significant transitions in the way in which it has been interpreted over the years, largely due to the way in which people have approached it. Although the picture is widely considered to be the picture of the ultimate example of a Midwestern farmer and his wife, there are conflicting reports that Wood intended to represent a farmer and his wife. While Fineman suggests that this interpretation was offered by Wood’s sister Nan, who posed for the female character and was perhaps embarrassed by the prospect that she would be married to a man obviously so much older than she, the true nature of this relationship is actually not as important as the individual viewer’s interpretation.
Although we may be told what a particular painting is supposed to mean, ultimately, it is up to the individual to determine what the piece means to them in particular. As John Armstrong says, “however crowded the gallery, an encounter with a work of art is always something we pursue alone – no one else can make the work matter to us. When contemplating a work of art, one of the key questions ought to be ‘what is this to me?” (Armstrong, 2000: 4-5).
The reception of this piece of art illustrates the degree of difference in perspectives a different set of eyes can introduce to the work. According to Fineman (2005), Wood entered the painting in a competition at the Art Institute of Chicago where most of the judges considered it trivial and meaningless, but one patron of the museum saw something more important. It was thanks to this patron that the work received the bronze award along with a small cash prize and that the museum acquired the piece itself. When images of the painting finally reached Iowa, the response was largely negative as Wood’s fellow Iowans were dismayed at the way in which he portrayed them, as if they were always “grim-faced, puritanical Bible-thumpers” (Fineman, 2005).
More sophisticated assessments of the painting held that it was a brilliant satire of the “rigidity of American rural or small-town life” (Fineman, 2005). Wood himself carefully fostered new ways of thinking about the painting as it became more emblematic of “American virtue and the pioneer spirit” (Fineman, 2005). Looking at the painting, all of these various interpretations are certainly justifiable and, when one is looking at the painting with these ideas in mind, it is possible to trace their origins.
However, none of these interpretations convey any true meaning to the individual unless one considers what the painting means to them. For me, the painting is representative of the restrictive ways of life of the past as fathers stood jealous guard over their daughters, often to the daughter’s detriment. While attempting to view the image as one of a farmer and his wife, I noticed that the eyes of the younger woman are looking in the direction of the man but seem to see well beyond him, as if she longed to be able to explore what she might find beyond the trees, which are hinted at in the background.
Although she is dressed very conservatively, a wisp of hair falling from her bun and the sad, slightly cross look on her face indicates to me a sense of wishing she had more options in her attire and self-expression. They are obviously posing for a picture, as seen in the man’s direct gaze at the painter, but the woman stays distracted, a step behind the man and seeming as if she would run if she thought she had a chance.
This chance is removed from her by the barbed points of the man’s pitchfork which are repeated throughout the painting as if the girl is surrounded by pitchforks that threaten harm if she steps outside her bounds. At the same time, they ensure no one enters the space the man has defined as his territory, including the space of the woman’s social world. Whether she is daughter or wife, therefore, makes very little difference. Either way, she is trapped in a world not necessarily of her own choosing and obviously longs for something else.
While a number of interpretations have been offered on this image in a variety of ways and in numerous different social periods, these can only help to inform a personal opinion about the painting rather than take the place of this personal opinion. Painting means nothing if it does not mean something to the individual viewing the piece and this requires a close examination of the image in order to fully appreciate it.
While it has been argued that the woman is the daughter rather than the wife of the farmer, in my personal exploration of the piece, I have determined that her status really doesn’t matter to the meaning of the piece. Instead, to me, the image depicts the rigid social constraints women often found themselves in even in the early 1900s. Despite living in the free world, these women were not free, often living behind metaphorical pitchforks that governed their actions, their dress and their behavior, but could not control their inner desires or dreams.
Works Cited
Armstrong, John. Move Closer: An Intimate Philosophy of Art. New York: Farrar, Straus Girous, 2000.
Fineman, Mia. “The Most Famous Farm Couple in the World.” Slate. (2005). Web.