Letter from Yvonne: In Which I Actually Grow Fond of Those Sourpusses from American Gothic

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Dear R J and Daily Blague readers,

Help! American Gothic keeps jumping out at me! From the museum wall in Chicago, from The Daily Blague, from the book I began reading last week…someday that pitchfork is going to put my eye out.

I’ve been reading about the painting, but am still uncertain: did Grant Wood conceive it as a satire? A critique? Or was he paying tribute to a notion of “real America”, as Sarah Palin might put it? Wikipedia tells me that his fellow Iowans were insulted by this depiction, and that “One farmwife threatened to bite Wood’s ear off.” Well, my goodness! That could cause a man to retroactively adjust his intentions, at least for public consumption. It’s clear that other details of the storyline were changed, or at least allowed to become ambiguous.  Initially the man and woman were husband and wife; this was later amended to father and daughter (sometimes, with cruel precision, “spinster daughter”) — or husband and wife.

Whatever the narrative, this image has been creeping me out for over 20 years — ever since my encounter with the real thing in Chicago.

It amazes me to recall this aspect of my visit to the Art Institute: I didn’t know in advance that American Gothic was part of the AIC collection. Now that I research new things nearly to death on the internet — any trip to a major museum today would involve intense study of its website, ruthless prioritizing, and the printing out of floor plans — I forget what it was like to be young and spontaneous and just happy to be exploring.

So the element of surprise was a factor in my sighting of this painting, as were the circumstances: I was already feeling anxious and disoriented, because it was closing time — and I was thoroughly lost in the maze of galleries. Having ignored at least three increasingly emphatic “Go home now!” announcements, I was nonetheless shocked, shocked, when all the overhead lights went dark! I could still see, because the spotlights illuminating the art remained on…the effect was surreal, verging on spooky. My footsteps were echoing so loudly in the emptiness; it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen another living soul for quite a while…

I’ve been left behind! What if I’m locked in?! What if I get in trouble? Childhood fears resonate even when one is grown, don’t they? Hee.

I quickened my pace in search of an exit.

It was out of the corner of my eye that I spotted American Gothic — and I stopped walking. Now, you will think that I’m making way too much of a fuss over a painting which, as R J put it, “…we’ve all seen so many times that we can’t remember or even imagine not knowing it.” But try to imagine it glowing eerily in the darkness of a deserted museum. And, again, it was entirely unexpected, coming face-to-face with those faces…

It was a magnet. And I don’t even like the thing! I sidled up to American Gothic as though it were dangerous, and stared and stared. It’s so small!…and painted on wood! Both of those revelations were significant in terms of my perception of these farm folk: their world is even more narrow than reproductions convey; and without the textured softness of a linen canvas, they seem even more rigid. “Ominous” is probably too strong a word for the visual rhyming of the pitchfork and Gothic window (it’s also in the details of his clothing, the lines in his face, and — gah! — even the potted plant!). But in that exaggerated lighting, the man and woman — with their dour expressions — were disturbing.

My first fully-formed thought was: People like this would never, ever, smile back. A singular and highly personal observation, admittedly — but I am by nature quick to smile, and people who refuse to smile make me very nervous! (Because everybody knows that strangers who smile at you are always good, and are to be trusted immediately and wholeheartedly. Take their candy!) Anyway…I do believe that in the contemporary vernacular, the phrase is permanent bitchface.

(I grasped at a strand of hope when I noticed that a curvy tendril of hair had escaped the woman’s severe bun. Might that be symbolic of her largely-unconscious conflict between safe confinement within a drab, soul-shriveling existence, and the wish to break free? Or it could signify her desire to reject puritanical repression and express her feminine sensuality; that’d be cool. Perhaps if one leans in very close — mind the pitchfork! — and squints?…Nah, it’s just a sad loose hank o’ hair. Just another disappointment in her life. Sigh.)

About an ice age later, I snapped to and remembered a more pressing concern: getting the heck out of there. An image of myself being discovered and frog-marched through the Art Institute by a large, angry guard flashed through my mind; how especially embarrassing to be caught mesmerized in front of American Gothic! Rather than, say, Seurat’s La Grande Jatte, away from which they probably have to peel goggle-eyed viewers — so…many…dots... — all the time, but I digress.

Even after I managed to make my way outside, into fresh summer air and early evening light, I was still thinking about those faces. And they’ve come to mind often over the years, whenever I’ve found myself wondering just what kind of mean person could hold some opinion which appalls me…or could believe this or that; or could vote for Bush. They are my fellow citizens, yet I have so little in common with them — and have become dispirited, living in their America.

But as I say, that painting, and references to it, seem to pop up at odd times: most recently, in the book I began reading about a week ago. The author noted that American Gothic effectively evoked the world in which his grandparents grew up: “…a place where decency and endurance and the pioneer spirit were joined at the hip with conformity and suspicion and the potential for unblinking cruelty.” The book is Dreams from my Father, by Barack Obama, and he’s talking about the people who accepted their daughter’s marriage to a Kenyan man (in 1960); they loved and later helped raise the grandchild born from that marriage. And Barack credits them for instilling many of his most admirable traits.

What a lesson for me! When I’ve looked at Wood’s painting, I’ve always seen American insularity…and people to whom I attribute all manner of pettiness and prejudice. When Obama looks at them, he sees his family! Now I get it: his nuanced understanding of Red Staters isn’t just an abstraction parsed by a fine and expansive mind — it is a connection of the heart.

After pondering that, I’ve especially appreciated the link R J posted for his friend’s handsome and eloquent photo of an African-American man regarding American Gothic.

(By the way, I’m finding so many insightful, beautifully-crafted passages in Obama’s book to read aloud to my husband — after which we gape at each other for a moment, then shake our heads in wonder and exclaim, “This guy will be our President!“)

And finally, Praise be to Google — for now that I’ve learned a bit about the making of the painting, my disdain has given way to amusement…affection, in fact. If one shifts perspective and sees her as Grant Wood’s little sister Nan, dressed up in a costume and posing for her big brother, one feels tenderly toward that farmwoman. (Knowing that the man was actually Wood’s dentist, Dr. McKeeby, however, fails to endear him to me — but probably only because I have a root canal scheduled for after the Holidays.)

One year before Wood inflicted American Gothic upon the national consciousness, he’d painted Woman with Plant: a portrait of his mother, done in the same Dutch/Flemish Renaissance-influenced style. Hey — she’s holding that wicked plant from the American Gothic porch! Mom doesn’t look so scary; in fact she looks a bit vulnerable, and touchingly self-conscious. Apparently Wood was pleased with this work — so it must’ve been a quick skip and a jump from “my mom with a spikey plant” to “my dentist with a pitchfork”, non?

Also found a self-portrait of Grant Wood. Looking at the siblings side-by-side, I see enough family resemblance to feel that I know what she would look like if she turned her eyes to meet mine; I can now believe that she would at least turn up the corners of her mouth a little in response to my smile. A good start!

Grant died young, at 50; Nan lived 91 years, and spent her long life as the caretaker and champion of her brother’s work.

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A good week to you all.

Yours,

Yvonne