American Gothic, Eldon, Iowa, Estados Unidos (American Gothic) - Grant Wood

American Gothic, Eldon, Iowa, Estados Unidos (American Gothic) - Grant Wood
The Art Institute of Chicago, Estados Unidos
Óleo sobre madeira - 78x65 - 1930

American Gothic is a 1930 painting by Grant Wood in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. Wood was inspired to paint what is now known as the American Gothic House in Eldon, Iowa, along with "the kind of people I fancied should live in that house." It depicts a farmer standing beside a woman who has been interpreted to be his sister.
The figures were modeled by Wood's sister Nan Wood Graham and their dentist Dr. Byron McKeeby. The woman is dressed in a colonial print apron evoking 19th-century Americana, and the man is holding a pitchfork. The plants on the porch of the house are mother-in-law's tongue and beefsteak begonia, which are the same as the plants in Wood's 1929 portrait of his mother Woman with Plants.
American Gothic is one of the most familiar images in 20th-century American art and has been widely parodied in American popular culture. In 2016–17, the painting was displayed in Paris at the Musée de l'Orangerie and in London at the Royal Academy of Arts in its first showings outside the United States.
In August 1930, Grant Wood, an American painter with European training, was driven around Eldon, Iowa, by a young painter from Eldon, John Sharp. Looking for inspiration, Wood noticed the Dibble House, a small white house built in the Carpenter Gothic architectural style. Sharp's brother suggested in 1973 that it was on this drive that Wood first sketched the house on the back of an envelope. Wood's earliest biographer, Darrell Garwood, noted that Wood "thought it a form of borrowed pretentiousness, a structural absurdity, to put a Gothic-style window in such a flimsy frame house." At the time, Wood classified it as one of the "cardboardy frame houses on Iowa farms" and considered it "very paintable". After obtaining permission from the Jones family, the house's owners, Wood made a sketch the next day in oil on paperboard from the house's front yard. This sketch displayed a steeper roof and a longer window with a more pronounced ogive than on the actual house, features which eventually adorned the final work.
Wood decided to paint the house along with "the kind of people I fancied should live in that house." He recruited his sister Nan (1899–1990) to model the woman, dressing her in a colonial print apron mimicking 19th-century Americana. The man is modeled on Wood's dentist, Dr. Byron McKeeby (1867–1950) from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Nan, perhaps embarrassed about being depicted as the wife of a man twice her age, told people that her brother had envisioned the couple as father and daughter, rather than husband and wife, which Wood himself confirmed ("The prim lady with him is his grown-up daughter") in his letter to a Mrs. Nellie Sudduth in 1941.
Elements of the painting stress the vertical that is associated with Gothic architecture. The three-pronged pitchfork is echoed in the stitching of the man's overalls, the Gothic window of the house, and the structure of the man's face. However, Wood did not add figures to his sketch until he returned to his studio in Cedar Rapids. He would not return to Eldon again before his death in 1942, although he did request a photograph of the home to complete his painting.
Wood entered the painting in a competition at the Art Institute of Chicago. One judge deemed it a "comic valentine", but a museum patron persuaded the jury to award the painting the bronze medal and $300 cash prize. The patron also persuaded the Art Institute to buy the painting, and it remains part of the museum's collection. The image soon began to be reproduced in newspapers, first by the Chicago Evening Post and then in New York, Boston, Kansas City, and Indianapolis. However, Wood received a backlash when the image finally appeared in the Cedar Rapids Gazette. Iowans were furious at their depiction as "pinched, grim-faced, puritanical Bible-thumpers." Wood protested that he had not painted a caricature of Iowans but a depiction of his appreciation, stating "I had to go to France to appreciate Iowa."
Art critics who had favorable opinions about the painting, such as Gertrude Stein and Christopher Morley, also assumed the painting was meant to be a satire of rural small-town life. It was thus seen as part of the trend toward increasingly critical depictions of rural America, along the lines of Sherwood Anderson's 1919 Winesburg, Ohio, Sinclair Lewis's 1920 Main Street, and Carl Van Vechten's 1924 The Tattooed Countess in literature.
Yet another interpretation sees it as an "old-fashioned mourning portrait... Tellingly, the curtains hanging in the windows of the house, both upstairs and down, are pulled closed in the middle of the day, a mourning custom in Victorian America. The woman wears a black dress beneath her apron, and glances away as if holding back tears. One imagines she is grieving for the man beside her..." Wood had been only 10 when his father had died and later had lived for a decade "above a garage reserved for hearses," so death was on his mind.
However, with the onset of the Great Depression, the painting came to be seen as a depiction of steadfast American pioneer spirit. Wood assisted this transition by renouncing his Bohemian youth in Paris and grouping himself with populist Midwestern painters, such as John Steuart Curry and Thomas Hart Benton, who revolted against the dominance of East Coast art circles. Wood was quoted in this period as stating, "All the good ideas I've ever had came to me while I was milking a cow." Kelly Grovier sees it as a portrait of Pluto and Proserpina, the Roman gods of the underworld.

The Dibble House

Nan Wood Graham e o Dr. Byron McKeeby




Grant DeVolson Wood, pintor norte americano, nasceu em Anamosa, Iowa a 13 de Fevereiro de 1891 e faleceu a 12 de Fevereiro de 1942. Grant Wood, ficou conhecido pelo facto de nas suas obras representar a vida rural americana, mais propriamente a vida do Midwest americano.
A sua família mudou-se para Cedar Rapids após a morte do seu pai seu pai em 1901. Pouco tempo depois, Wood para ajuda a família começa a trabalhar como aprendiz numa loja de ferramentas, conciliando este trabalho com os estudos. Entre 1920 a 1928 fez quatro viagens à Europa, onde estudou vários estilos de pintura, especialmente o impressionismo e pós-impressionismo. Mas foi o trabalho de Jan Van Eyck que mais o influenciou passando a assumir a clareza desta nova técnica e a incorporá-la nas suas novas obras.
A obra Gótico Americano (American Gothic), foi pintada em 1930, é um óleo sobre tela e encontra-se em Chicago, no Art Institute of Chicago.Na obra American Gothic, Wood representa uma simples casa de campo de estilo neogótico que encontrou no Iowa do Sul, a Casa Dibble, que o impressionou. Ele realizou esta obra a partir da imagem de que se lembrava. Utilizou a sua irmã e o seu dentista como modelos para o casal que representaria um agricultor e a sua filha de meia idade. Este retrato foi pintado em 1930, na época da Grande Depressão e a obra pode ser interpretada nesse contexto. Durante a Grande Depressão muitos agricultores foram expulsos das suas terras, deixando-os sem escolha a não ser mudarem-se para a cidade e juntarem-se aos restantes desempregados tentando encontrar trabalho. O casal de American Gothic pode ser interpretado como um homem e uma mulher diante da possibilidade de serem forçados a abandonarem as suas terras. Olhando atentamente para o homem é evidente que ele não tem intenção de deixar a sua fazenda. Atrás dele, a mulher de meia-idade parece não estar tão confiante como o homem. Ela está preocupada e está fora de foco, pois ela não está a olhar directamente para o espectador, olha para um ponto indefinido, na esperança de uma mudança positiva.
Com esta obra, Wood foi acusado de satirizar os naturais do Midwest, mas o artista afirmou que tinha feito o quadro como uma homenagem à dignidade puritana e simples que encontrava na América das pequenas cidades. Por residir muito tempo no Iowa, Wood foi um dos expoentes do Regionalismo, uma forma de realismo comum no sul dos E.U.A. durante os anos 30, baseada na ideia de acabar com a dependência cultural dos artistas americanos em relação à arte europeia.O seu estilo de linhas rígidas, firmemente delineadas e modeladas, foi inspirado no Gótico e nos mestres primitivos do Renascimento, que Wood estudou na Europa, nos anos 20. Esta composição de Wood, Gótico Americano, tem sido utilizada para diversas sátiras à vida rural ou mesmo citadina dos americanos, assim como é hoje tido como um ícone artístico conhecido a nível mundial.

Nota do blog: Data e autoria das imagens não obtidas.

Nighthawks, Nova York, Estados Unidos (Nighthawks) - Edward Hopper

                                                     
Nighthawks (Nighthawks) - Edward Hopper
Nova York - Estados Unidos
The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Estados Unidos
OST - 84x152 - 1942

Nighthawks (literalmente, "Aves da Noite", "Gaviões da Noite" ou "Falcões da Noite") é uma pintura de 1942 de Edward Hopper que retrata pessoas sentadas num restaurante do centro da cidade durante a noite. É considerada a obra mais famosa de Hopper, assim como uma das mais reconhecidas da arte americana.
Alguns meses depois de ser concluído foi vendido ao Art Institute of Chicago por $3,000 e tem permanecido lá desde então.
Hopper começou a pintá-la imediatamente após o ataque a Pearl Harbor, num Domingo a 7 de Dezembro de 1941. Após o evento, houve um sentimento generalizado de tristeza por todo o país, um sentimento que é retratado na pintura. A rua está vazia fora do restaurante e no interior nenhuma das três pessoas no balcão está aparentemente olhando ou conversando com os outros, todos estão perdidos nos seus próprios pensamentos. Dois são um casal, enquanto o terceiro é um homem sentado sozinho, de costas para o espectador. O trabalhador do restaurante, olhando por cima do seu trabalho, parece estar a olhar para fora da janela, para trás dos clientes. O canto do restaurante é de vidro curvado ligado em ambos lados. O clima será quente, com base nas roupas usadas pelos clientes. Não há sobretudos em evidência e a blusa da mulher é de manga curta. Do outro lado da rua são o que parecem ser janelas abertas numa segunda loja. A luz do restaurante abunda pela rua fora apanhando até uma das janelas do outro lado da rua. Este retrato da vida urbana moderna, como o vazio ou a solidão é um tema comum em todo o trabalho de Hopper. É nitidamente delineada pelo fato de que o homem de costas para nós parece mais solitário por causa do casal sentado ao lado dele. Se olharmos com mais atenção, fica evidente que não há maneira de sair da zona do bar, como as três paredes formam um triângulo que cria uma espécie de armadilha que encurrala os clientes. É também notável que o bar não tem porta visível para o exterior, o que ilustra a ideia de confinamento e aprisionamento. Hopper negou que tinha a intenção de o comunicar em Nighthawks, mas admitiu que "inconscientemente, provavelmente estava a pintar a solidão de uma grande cidade." Na altura da sua produção, as luzes fluorescentes tinham acabado de ser desenvolvidas, talvez por isso a luz que está a contribuir para o jantar está lançando um brilho estranho sobre o mundo exterior, quase breu preto. Um anúncio para os cigarros "Phillies" é destaque em cima do restaurante.
O termo "falcão da noite" ou "gaviões da noite", é usada figurativamente para descrever alguém que fica acordado até tarde, e é um nome compartilhado com a família real de pássaros chamados (naturalmente) Falcões. A cena foi supostamente inspirada por um restaurante (já demolido), em Greenwich Village, lar de Hopper no bairro de Manhattan. O lote agora vago, é geralmente associado com o local que é conhecido como ex-Mulry Square, no cruzamento da Seventh Avenue South, Greenwich Avenue e West 11th Street. No entanto, segundo o The New York Times, isso não pode ser o local do jantar, que inspirou a pintura, porque um posto de gasolina esteve a ocupar o lote durante 1930 a 1970.
Upon completing the canvas in the late winter of 1942, Hopper placed it on display at Rehn's, the gallery at which his paintings were normally placed for sale. It remained there for about a month. On St. Patrick's Day, Edward and Jo Hopper attended the opening of an exhibit of the paintings of Henri Rousseau at the Museum of Modern Art, which had been organized by Daniel Catton Rich, the director of the Art Institute of Chicago. Rich was in attendance, along with Alfred Barr, the director of the Museum of Modern Art. Barr spoke enthusiastically of Gas, which Hopper had painted a year earlier, and "Jo told him he just had to go to Rehn's to see Nighthawks. In the event it was Rich who went, pronounced Nighthawks 'fine as a Homer', and soon arranged its purchase for Chicago." The sale price was $3,000. The painting has remained in the collection of the Art Institute ever since.
The scene was supposedly inspired by a diner (since demolished) in Greenwich Village, Hopper's neighborhood in Manhattan. Hopper himself said the painting "was suggested by a restaurant on Greenwich Avenue where two streets meet." Additionally, he noted that "I simplified the scene a great deal and made the restaurant bigger."
This reference has led Hopper aficionados to engage in a search for the location of the original diner. The inspiration for this search has been summed up on the blog of one of these searchers: "I am finding it extremely difficult to let go of the notion that the Nighthawks diner was a real diner, and not a total composite built of grocery stores, hamburger joints, and bakeries all cobbled together in the painter's imagination." A Bickford's Restaurant a few blocks from Greenwich Avenue has been proposed as one possible location."
The spot usually associated with the former location is a now-vacant lot known as Mulry Square at the intersection of Seventh Avenue South, Greenwich Avenue, and West 11th Street, about seven blocks west of Hopper's studio on Washington Square. However, according to an article by Jeremiah Moss in The New York Times, this cannot be the location of the diner that inspired the painting as a gas station occupied that lot from the 1930s to the 1970s.
Moss located a land-use map in a 1950s municipal atlas showing that "Sometime between the late '30s and early '50s, a new diner appeared near Mulry Square." Specifically, the diner was located immediately to the right of the gas station, "not in the empty northern lot, but on the southwest side, where Perry Street slants." This map is not reproduced in the Times article but is shown on Moss's blog.
Moss comes to the conclusion that Hopper should be taken at his word: the painting was merely "suggested" by a real-life restaurant, he had "simplified the scene a great deal," and he "made the restaurant bigger." In short, there probably never was a single real-life scene identical to the one that Hopper had created, and if one did exist, there is no longer sufficient evidence to pin down the precise location. Moss concludes, "the ultimate truth remains bitterly out of reach."
Starting shortly after their marriage in 1924, Edward Hopper and his wife Josephine (Jo) kept a journal in which he would, using a pencil, make a sketch-drawing of each of his paintings, along with a precise description of certain technical details. Jo Hopper would then add additional information about the theme of the painting.
A review of the page on which Nighthawks is entered shows (in Edward Hopper's handwriting) that the intended name of the work was actually Night Hawks and that the painting was completed on January 21, 1942.
Jo's handwritten notes about the painting give considerably more detail, including the possibility that the painting's title may have had its origins as a reference to the beak-shaped nose of the man at the bar, or that the appearance of one of the "nighthawks" was tweaked in order to relate to the original meaning of the word:
Night + brilliant interior of cheap restaurant. Bright items: cherry wood counter + tops of surrounding stools; light on metal tanks at rear right; brilliant streak of jade green tiles 3/4 across canvas--at base of glass of window curving at corner. Light walls, dull yellow ocre door into kitchen right.
Very good looking blond boy in white (coat, cap) inside counter. Girl in red blouse, brown hair eating sandwich. Man night hawk (beak) in dark suit, steel grey hat, black band, blue shirt (clean) holding cigarette. Other figure dark sinister back--at left. Light side walk outside pale greenish. Darkish red brick houses opposite. Sign across top of restaurant, dark--Phillies 5c cigar. Picture of cigar. Outside of shop dark, green. Note: bit of bright ceiling inside shop against dark of outside street--at edge of stretch of top of window. In January 1942, Jo confirmed her preference for the name. In a letter to Edward's sister Marion she wrote, "Ed has just finished a very fine picture--a lunch counter at night with 3 figures. Night Hawks would be a fine name for it. E. posed for the two men in a mirror and I for the girl. He was about a month and half working on it."