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| Daughters of Revolution |
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| American Gothic |
GRANT WOOD RECONSIDERED
By Richard Carreño
[WritersClearinghouse News Service]
Posted 21 August 2014
Cincinnati, Ohio
Cincinnati arts lovers are understandably thrilled that American Gothic, the iconic portrait of two stone-faced Midwestern homesteaders, will be displayed at the Cincinnati Art Museum this month, thanks to a loan from the Art Institute of Chicago. The signature work of Grant Wood, the enigmatic mid-20th century regionalist from Iowa, has become America's answer to the Mona Lisa. As with Leonardo's best-known portrait, everyone thinks they know Grant's 1930 painting. Everyone has seen a reproduction, or a parody knock-off. And everyone sort of likes it. But why?
The answer to that lingering conundrum — one that I've wrestled with over the years — will likely be revealed when American Gothic is paired, in late August, in an exhibit titled 'Conversations Around American Gothic,. with Grant's other great work, Daughters of Revolution, one of the many jewels of Cincinnati Art Museum's permanent collection. Think of Daughters as a pictorial road map to American Gothic: Its satirical narrative of mincing, tea-swigging old biddies can serve as a key to unraveling the rigorous, complex character study in Gothic. Together, this duality results in an unexpected epiphany, chipping away maybe — just maybe — at the Wood enigma.
What's revealed, at least, in part, is a Depression-era artist (1891 - 1942) who was a powerful societal critic of anti-Roosevelt Farmland, USA. As Midwest author Sinclair Lewis did for literary satire, Wood stepped forward — if sometimes only tentatively — as a regional critic. Using modern art as his form, in Gothic and Daughters, we witness Wood Unplugged.