Grant Wood, American
We. Are. Farmers. Bum Ba-Dum Bum Bum Bum Bum., 1930
Oil on beaver board
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THROWBACK THURSDAY: MASTERPIECE #2312 (10/22/19)
Info, or perhaps links that point to more info, about this artist can be found here, here (archived if necessary), here, here, here (archived if necessary), here (archived if necessary), here (can be read in full for free on Fridays), here, here (archived if necessary), here, here, here, and here, perhaps in addition to what’s in his Wikipedia page.
/// Here’s “American Gothic” by Wood;
it’s world-famous, but misunderstood.
Thought to lampoon the life
of a farmer and wife,
that’s a daughter who next to Pa stood.
/// Grant had posed his own sister, named Nan,
by the side of a much older man—
Byron, (dentist by trade),
with a pitchfork displayed.
Their expressions the deadest of pan.
/// Central pitchfork’s three vertical tines
find an echo in other designs
like his shirt’s triple rib
and his overall bib,
and that window’s sharp arched gothic lines.
/// Dr. Byron McKeeby is who
holds that fork, (but he pitches no woo).
His investments went south;
he looks down in the mouth.
But, of course, that’s what all dentists do.
/// This iconic scene garnered much praise
from its fans from its earliest days.
Since then, endlessly mimicked,
copied, studied and gimmicked,
it has launched almost endless cliches.
/// Viewers saw them as figures of mirth,
poking fun at “the salt of the earth.”
But Grant Wood always claimed
that he hadn’t defamed
rural folk of his Iowa birth.
/// Their stoic, unblinking composure
looks like poses for a long-exposure
old daguerreotype print.
But the date is a hint.
Nineteen-thirty— their farm’s in foreclosure.
“Oil on beaver board”
/// She could tell by the way that he snored
and the fact that they no longer “scored”
when they went to their bed
that their sex-life was dead.
Her old husband was by beaverboard.