G wood American Gothic. American gothic
Gothic painting: paintings, stained-glass windows and book miniatures of the 13th-15th centuries
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Gothic- a period in the development of medieval art, covering almost all areas of material culture and developing in Western, Central and partly Eastern Europe from the XII to the XV century. Gothic replaced the Romanesque style, gradually replacing it. Although the term "Gothic" is most often applied to architectural structures, Gothic also encompassed sculpture, painting, book miniatures, costume, ornament, etc.
Gothic originated in the middle of the XII century in the north of France, in the XIII century it spread to the territory of modern Germany, Austria, Czech Republic, Spain, England. Gothic entered Italy later, with great difficulty and a strong transformation, which led to the emergence of "Italian Gothic". At the end of the XIV century, the so-called international Gothic swept Europe. Gothic penetrated into the countries of Eastern Europe later and lasted there a little longer - until the 16th century.
For buildings and works of art, containing characteristic Gothic elements, but created during the eclectic period (mid-19th century) and later, the term "neo-Gothic" is used.
Origin of the term
The word comes from Italian. gotico - unusual, barbaric - (Goten - barbarians; this style has nothing to do with historical Goths), and at first it was used as an abusive one. For the first time, the concept in the modern sense was applied by Giorgio Vasari in order to separate the Renaissance from the Middle Ages. Gothic completed the development of European medieval art, emerging on the basis of the achievements of the Romanesque culture, and in the Renaissance (Renaissance) the art of the Middle Ages was considered "barbaric". Gothic art was cult in purpose and religious in subject matter. It appealed to the highest divine powers, eternity, the Christian worldview.
Gothic in its development is subdivided into Early Gothic, Flourishing, Late Gothic.
The transition from Romanesque to Gothic painting was not at all smooth and imperceptible. The "transparent" structure of the Gothic cathedral, in which the plane of the wall gave way to openwork ornaments and huge windows, excluded the possibility of an abundant pictorial decor. The birth of the Gothic cathedral coincided with the period of the highest flowering of Romanesque painting, especially fresco painting. But soon, other types of visual arts began to play a dominant role in the decoration of temple buildings, and painting was pushed aside to secondary roles.
Gothic stained glass
The replacement of blank walls in Gothic cathedrals with huge windows led to the almost universal disappearance of monumental paintings that played such a large role in Romanesque art of the 11th and 12th centuries. The fresco was replaced by stained glass - a kind of painting in which the image is composed of pieces of colored painted glass connected by narrow lead strips and covered with iron reinforcement. Stained-glass windows appeared, apparently, in the Carolingian era, but they received full development and distribution only during the transition from Romanesque to Gothic art.
Stained glass windows of Canterbury Cathedral.
The huge surfaces of the windows were filled with stained glass compositions that reproduced traditional religious subjects, historical events, scenes of labor, literary subjects. Each window consisted of a series of figurative compositions enclosed in medallions. The stained glass technique, which allows combining the color and light principles of painting, imparted a special emotionality to these compositions. Scarlet, yellow, green, blue glasses, cut according to the contour of the drawing, burned like precious gems, transforming the entire interior of the temple. Gothic colored glass created new aesthetic values - it gave the paint the highest sonority of pure color. By creating the atmosphere of a colored air environment, the stained glass window was perceived as a source of light. Stained-glass windows, placed in the window openings, filled the interior of the cathedral with light, painted in soft and sonorous colors, which created an extraordinary artistic effect. Late Gothic pictorial compositions made in the technique of tempera, or colored reliefs, which adorn the altar and altar rounds, were also distinguished by the brightness of colors.
In the middle of the XIII century. complex colors are introduced into the colorful scale, which are formed by duplicating glasses (Sainte Chapelle, 1250). The contours of the drawing on the glass were applied with brown enamel paint, the shapes were of a planar nature.
Gothic style in book miniature
It flourishes in France in the XIII-XIV centuries. the art of book miniature, in which the secular principle is manifested.
The page has changed in the Gothic manuscript. The illustrations, sonorous in pure colors, include realistic details, along with floral ornaments - religious and everyday scenes. The use of acute-angled writing, which was fully formed by the end of the 12th century, gave the text the appearance of an openwork pattern, in which initials of various shapes and sizes were interspersed. A sheet of a Gothic manuscript with scattered plot initials and small drop caps that had ornamental branches in the form of tendrils gave the impression of filigree with inserts of precious stones and enamels.
April. Illustration of the Limburg brothers to the book of hours of the Duke of Berry.
In the manuscripts of the second half of the 13th century, a border that framed the field of the sheet became a characteristic feature. On the curls of the ornament carried out on the fields, as well as on the horizontal lines of the frame, the artists placed small figurines and scenes of an edifying, comic or genre nature. They were not always associated with the content of the manuscript, arose as a product of the miniaturist's imagination and were called "drollery" - fun. Free from the conventions of the iconographic canon, these figures began to move rapidly and gesticulate animatedly. Drollers in manuscripts, designed by the Parisian master Jean Pussel (Tue Thu. XIV century), are distinguished by their generous imagination. The artist's works betray the reasonable clarity and subtle taste of the metropolitan school.
In the late Gothic book miniature, realistic tendencies were expressed with particular spontaneity, the first successes were achieved in the depiction of landscapes and everyday scenes. The miniatures of "The Richest Book of Hours of the Duke of Berry" (c. 1411-16), which were designed by the Limburg brothers, poetically and authentically depicts scenes of social life, peasant labor, landscapes that anticipated the art of the Northern Renaissance.
Gothic art is an important link in the general process of culture; works of Gothic, full of spirituality, greatness, have a unique aesthetic charm. The realistic conquests of the Gothic are preparing the transition to Renaissance art.
Many geniuses and creators in the field of art are not recognized by critics and society during their lifetime. Over the years, they begin to be understood and felt, firmly believing that the artist or poet had his own special view of things. It was then that they began to be admired, ranked among the incredibly talented people of their era. This is exactly what happened to Wood Grant, who almost a hundred years ago depicted his vision of the lifestyle of the inhabitants of the New World in the painting "American Gothic". He was a rather complex artist, with his own character and handwriting.
A few words about the artist's childhood
Many critics and experts in the field of art believe that before analyzing a painting, especially one that caused a huge public outcry, it is necessary to study a little the creator of the masterpiece himself. This only needs to be done in order to understand the artist's motives or message. Speaking about Wood Grant, whose painting "American Gothic" still causes controversy and certain disagreements among experts in the world, it should be said that his early years were unremarkable.
He was born on a small agricultural farm on the very outskirts of the one in America. In addition to him, there were two more boys and a girl in the family. The father of the family was distinguished by a quick-tempered disposition and severity. He passed away quite early. Grant had a close and trusting relationship with his mother, perhaps because of this he grew up very sensitive, vulnerable and the most talented of all the children in the family.
Unrecognized genius
Growing up and choosing an artistic path for himself, Grant wrote a sufficient number of paintings, but his work was not properly appreciated. He was not recognized in art, often not even taking his work seriously.
About the time in which the picture was painted
American Gothic by American artist Grant Wood was painted in 1930. This time was quite difficult for a number of reasons:
- Firstly, in 1929, an economic crisis began in America, which, by the way, did not in the least interfere with the rapid steps of the state in the field of construction and industry. New, hitherto unknown high-rise buildings were being erected in the country. It was a period of innovation and technology.
- Secondly, all over the world, fascism was gaining momentum just as rapidly as industry. The new trend and ideology of Adolf Hitler was strengthened in the minds of people who strove for a perfect future.
- Perhaps it is worth adding to this list a fact that concerns the artist himself personally. Wood Grant by that time had already lived for a sufficient amount of time in France and German Munich. Some critics considered that these wanderings around the world added a lot of the European way of life to the painting "American Gothic".
After all of the above, you can try to get some idea about the artist, about his character and life. Well, when this is done, it is worth proceeding directly to the analysis of the painting "American Gothic".
It's all about the details
The canvas can only be analyzed if it is described in detail. So, in the foreground, two people are depicted: a woman and a man who is apparently much older than her. Wood Grant has repeatedly said that he tried to show the father and daughter, but it is known for certain that he portrayed his own sister and dentist Byron McKeebe. According to the artist, the latter was distinguished by a rather cheerful disposition. True, in the painting "American Gothic" he appears to be a restrained person, if not to say harsh. His gaze is directed directly into the eyes of the person looking at the canvas, and it is impossible to understand what will happen next: whether he will smile or get angry. His face is drawn in such detail that you can make out every wrinkle that abounds on him.
The woman's gaze is directed to the side, somewhere beyond the picture. A man and his daughter stand in the center, with a woman holding an elderly man by the arm. He has a pitchfork in his hands, pointing upwards, which he holds with a strong enough grip. It seems that the people portrayed by Wood Grant are trying to protect their home, against which they are painted.
The house is an old American style building. Another nuance that reveals itself upon closer examination: in the picture, everything is done by people's hands: a man's shirt, a woman's apron, and, incidentally, the mansard roof.
If you pay attention to the background of the painting "American Gothic", you get the impression that Grant Wood did not pay enough attention to it. Trees are presented in the form of geometric shapes and they are absolutely not traced, generalized. By the way, if you look closely, there is a lot of geometry in the picture: a triangular roof, straight lines of windows, pitchforks that echo the piping on the man's shirt.
The tones in which the canvas is painted can be described as rather calm. Perhaps this is the whole description of the painting "American Gothic", from which it becomes clear why many Americans saw themselves in it: almost all families living on the western and eastern coasts of the mainland had such houses.
Society assessment
The painting "American Gothic" made a splash. Some were delighted, but there were also dissatisfied. Residents considered such an image of their way of life to be a mockery of the artist, and one lady even threatened to physically kill Grant Wood. She promised to bite off his ear. Many people accused the artist of antipathy to everything new, calling him a conservative and prude, because he depicted an old house on the threshold of a new civilization. The artist himself once said about his painting: "I tried to portray these people as they were for me in the life that I knew ...".
A century later
It is worth noting that after a while the picture still remains at the peak of popularity. They make parodies of her, admire her, do not understand her. But all this did not in the least prevent "American Gothic" from becoming a kind of symbol of the way of life of those years. Almost a century later, critics were able to discern in her the unshakable spirit of American pioneers. Well, and the last thing that needs to be mentioned: Grant Wood was able to "hook" a huge number of people with his masterpiece, forcing the public to discuss, argue about the painting "American Gothic".
Grant DeVolson Wood (1891-1942)- a famous American realist artist, or in another way - a regionalist. He became widely known for his paintings of rural life in the American Midwest.
First, a little about the artist himself. Grant was born to a farmer in a small town in Iowa. Unfortunately, for a long time he could not paint. His Quaker father - that is, a member of a religious Christian sect - had a prejudiced negative attitude towards art. Only after his death, Wood was able to take up painting. He attended the University of Chicago School of Art. Then he made four trips to Europe, where he studied various directions for a long time.
His first works related to Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. The most famous of them - "Grandmother's house in the forest" (Grandmother "s house inhabit a forest, 1926) and" View of the Bay of Naples "(The Bay of Naples" s View, 1925).
Two completely different works, flawlessly executed in the presented style. If "Grandma's House in the Woods" is written in a sandy scale and filled with light and warmth, then the second landscape literally blows cold. Trees bent in the wind are depicted on the canvas, which the master painted in dark - black, blue and dark green - colors. Perhaps, like other authors who paint in the style of post-impressionism and strive to portray the monumentality of things, Wood wanted to show the greatness of the storm, before which even trees bow.
A little later, the artist got acquainted with the painting of German and Flemish masters of the 16th century. It was then that Wood began to paint realistic, and in some places even exaggerated realistic, landscapes and portraits. Regionalism, to which the master turned, is a direction, the main idea of which is the artistic work of the “essence” of an ethnocultural region. In Russia there is an analogue of this term - "localism" or "pochvennichestvo".
The depiction of rural life in the American Midwest is probably associated with the famous portrait of a woman and a man with a pitchfork in front of a house. And not in vain, because it was Grant Wood who wrote this famous painting - "American Gothic" (American Gothic, 1930). The artist could hardly have imagined that his work would become one of the most recognizable and parodied in American art.
It all started with a small white house in the Gothic carpentry style, which he saw in the city of Eldon. Grant wanted to portray him and the people who could live there. The prototype of the farmer's daughter was his sister Nan, and the model for the farmer himself was the dentist Byron McKeebe. The portrait was put up for competition at the Art Institute of Chicago, where it remains to this day.
Plot
Somewhere in the vastness of Iowa, a house is lost, the architecture of which is a classic example of carpentry Gothic. In the late 19th century, this style formed the face of the Midwest. Wanting to somehow decorate their simple houses, provincial craftsmen decorated them with elements in a neo-Gothic Victorian mood.
A man and a woman are depicted in the background of the house. According to one version, this is a married couple, according to another - a daughter with a father. The artist's sister Nan especially insisted on the second. She agreed to pose, made an effort to prepare the right costume, and Wood eventually wrote her out so that she looked much older than her age. In order to "knock off" several years, Nan in all interviews asserted that the woman on the canvas is precisely the daughter, not the wife.
Photo source: wikipedia.org
Dentist Byron McKeebee posed for the man. The face of the 62-year-old man, according to Wood, seemed to be made up of long, straight lines. The good-natured McKeebee agreed to become a model, asking only to make sure that his acquaintances did not recognize him. But, alas, everything turned out quite the opposite.
Wood reproduced a lot in the guise of the characters from childhood memories of his parents: his father had round glasses; the patch on the apron was taken from the mother's old clothes; the brooch was bought by Wood in Europe for his mother; the spire of the church as a reminder that the parents - exemplary Presbyterians - met in the church.
Interestingly, in real life, both models were cheerful, active, and even younger. But for history, they remained in the images that Wood invented for them. And yet the artist gave up slack. In one of his letters, he indicated: "I let one strand break out to show, in spite of everything, the humanity of the character."
"Appraisal" (1931). Photo source: wikipedia.org
The composition and technique Wood borrowed from the masters of the Northern Renaissance, whose work he apparently saw during his trip to Europe. At the same time, the puritanical restraint corresponds to the popular in the 1920s "New Materiality".
Context
The painting was first exhibited in the year of its creation - in 1930. It happened at the Chicago Institute of Art, where the canvas is to this day. In the year of his debut, the artist received a prize of $ 300 for the painting. News about the exhibition spread American Gothic, making it recognizable in every corner of the country. Almost immediately, the painting became a source for cartoons and parodies.
Some - for example, Gertrude Stein, one of the critics who immediately appreciated Wood's painting - viewed the painting as a satire on the blinkeredness of the inhabitants of one-story America. Others saw it as an allegory of the unshakable spirit of the Americans, whose spirit was not broken by the Great Depression. When asked about the essence of the canvas, Wood answered: "I did not write satire, I tried to portray these people as they were for me in the life I knew."
Tourists pose in front of the house depicted in the painting. Photo source: nytimes.com
The people of Iowa didn't like American Gothic. It was advised to hang her in an oil mill, so that the milk sour faster with such sour faces. Someone threatened to bite off the artist's ear.
The fate of the artist
Wood himself was one of the same villagers from Iowa. His father died when Grant was 10 years old, so his mother gave him an apprentice early enough. Already in childhood, he mastered some of the techniques with which he later earned money: working with wood, metal, glass, etc.
Self-portrait. Photo source: wikipedia.org
Wood admitted that the best ideas came when he milked a cow. In essence, he was more of a craftsman than an artist. After graduating from the University of Chicago School of Art, Wood made silver jewelry, and even a long trip to Europe could not radically change his career. Yes, he saw how the masters of the Northern Renaissance worked, and took over from them; yes, he got acquainted with contemporary trends and trends in European art. Nevertheless, he remained and deliberately strengthened the provincialism and realism of his work. Wood was one of the organizers of the regionalism movement popular in the Midwest. Community representatives chose scenes from the lives of ordinary Americans for their creativity.
Massively parodying and replicating Wood began after a gradual recovery from the Great Depression. American Gothic, with its severity, steadfastness and puritanism, began to appear in theater, cinema, and even pornography.
Sources:
Encyclopedia Britannica
Art Institute Chicago
The New York Times
Steven Biel "American Gothic"
Photo for the announcement on the main page and lead: wikipedia.org
This painting is not widely known in Russia, but throughout the world it is considered to be a classic of American art.
The author of the picture is Grant Wood. The artist was born and raised in Iowa, where he later taught painting and drawing. All his works are executed with incredible precision down to the smallest detail. But his most famous painting, American Gothic, has become a truly national landmark.
The history of the painting began in 1930 when the author accidentally saw a neo-Gothic house in a small town in the state of Iowa. Later, he portrayed a family that, in his opinion, could live in this house. It is noteworthy that the heroes depicted have nothing to do with either this house or each other. The woman is the artist's sister. The man is his dentist. Wood painted portraits from them separately.
Why Gothic? Pay attention to the attic window. In those days, it was popular among rural carpenters to weave various Gothic motifs in the construction of residential buildings.
Perhaps this is the most replicated image, only the lazy one did not come up with a parody of this picture. However, at one time the picture was perceived differently. After the publication of a reproduction of this painting in one of the local newspapers, angry letters fell on the editorial board. The people of Iowa did not like the way the artist portrayed them. They accused him of making fun of the rural population. Despite all the attacks, the popularity of the painting grew rapidly. And during the years of the Great Depression, this picture became, in fact, an expression of the national spirit.
A monument to the painting was erected in Chicago. Enterprising authors of sculptures released the heroes to the big city, taking a suitcase with them.
The painting made popular the small town of Aldan, Iowa, with a population of nearly 1,000. The house still stands in the same place, attracting tourists from all over the world.
Parodies of the painting "American Gothic".
