The Painting's the Thing Wherein

EMBLEMATIC ARTWORKS
WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

Nighthawks (1942)
by Edward Hopper (1882 - 1967)

“More relative than this: the play's the thing
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king."
― William Shakespeare ~ Hamlet 2, 2, 605-06

Could it also be that the painting's the thing
wherein we'll catch the consciousness of the nation?
I recently heard a speaker designate Edward Hopper's "Nighthawks" (above), along with Grant Wood's "American Gothic," and Andrew Wyeth's "Christina's World" (below) as the most iconic paintings in the United States.

American Gothic (1930)
by Grant Wood (1891 - 1942)

Christina's World (1948)
by Andrew Wyeth (1917 - 2007)

In First Impressions: Andrew Wyeth, biographer Richard Meryman adds two names to the list. According to Meryman, by the mid 1960's, Christina's World joined not only American Gothic but also Whistler's Mother and Gilbert Stuart's Portrait of George Washington -- to become "one of America's four most indelible images."
Arrangement in Grey and Black No.1:
Whistler's Mother (1871)
James McNeill Whistler (1834 - 1903)

Portrait of George Washington (1796)
by Gilbert Stuart (1755 – 1828)

It is not unreasonable that some art critics, scholars, and connoisseurs might modify this group of five in one way or another. Still it's a fair sampling of images that collectively capture the spirit and history of the United States. I spent a few days musing over what favorites or classics I might chose. Looking at this core collection, what might I add or subtract or replace? I see such severity here, and a persistent theme of isolation: in the city, in the country, in infirmity, in old age, even in greatness.

The next thing I knew -- coincidence! -- I came across a short list of British paintings, also intended to speak for the heart and soul of a nation. In Kate Atkinson's novel Life After Life, set in World War II London, a neighborhood bomb shelter has been decorated by kindly neighbors. Perhaps the theme here is "if only we weren't at war":

"Mr. Miller, in an effort to make the cellar 'homely' (something it could never be), had taped some reproductions of 'great English art,' as he called it, against the sandbagged walls. These color plates -- The Haywain, Gainsborough's Mr. and Mrs. Andrews (how smug they looked) and Bubbles (the most sickly Millais possible, in Ursula's opinion) -- looked suspiciously as if they had been pilfered from expensive reference books on art. 'Culture,' Mr. Miller said, nodding sagely. Ursula wondered what she would have chosen to represent 'great English art.' Turner perhaps, the smudged, fugitive content of the late works. Not to the Millers' taste at all, she suspected." (279)

The Hay Wain (1821)
by John Constable (1776 – 1837)

Mr and Mrs Andrews (1750)
by Thomas Gainsborough (1727 - 1788)

Bubbles, originally titled A Child's World (1886)
John Everett Millais (1829 - 1896)

Knowing how popular these artists are, and how easily recognized their paintings, it's not surprising that several have appeared in previous Fortnightlies and Quotidians:

Hopper: Surface Dwellers
Whistler: Post Mother's Day, Raoul & Marguerite
Wood: American / British / Indiana Gothic
Andrew Wyeth: Saving the River Babies
and also his father, N. C. Wyeth: He Said She Said.
John Everett Millais: Sweet Basil, Ancestors, Love Is Not All

Had we but world enough and time, we could look at a thousand different paintings, and then a thousand more. But for today, we have eight representations -- five American standards, three British standards -- of civilization and imagination. What do these classic artworks say about which exterior and interior landscapes have embedded themselves in our memories and why? Do they depict a quest or an ideal just out of reach, a life that we crave; or one that we fear; or a realilty that we readily / resignedly accept as ours? One way or another, the painting's the thing wherein, century after century, we'll catch a glimpse of our dreams, both good and bad.

SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS ON MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Tuesday, May 28th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT ~ See related post: "Getting to the Truth"
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com

American / British / Indiana Gothic

WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS
You probably don't need me or Wikipedia to tell you that Grant Wood's American Gothic "is one of the most familiar images in 20th century American art, and one of the most parodied artworks within American popular culture. . . . one of the most reproduced – and parodied – images ever. Many artists have replaced the two people with other known couples and replaced the house with well known houses."

As you can see, this is just what my friends and I have done! First of all, in the picture above, my neighbors Katy and Peter got dressed up and posed in front of an historic Indiana frame house in our neighborhood. Then their talented daughter Emily took a photograph and added her own artistic finishing touches.

In the pictures below, I was photographing my British in - laws along with some gardening tools that they had been given on their 50th Wedding Anniversary. Inspired by that stark English sky, I suddenly had the idea to pose them just so and then juxtapose their photograph with the original.

Ron might have been having a little bit too much fun,
but Rosanne really caught the spirit!
British / American Gothic
The painting is also the inspiration behind a number of American poems, including

American Gothic
after the painting by Grant Wood, 1930

Just outside the frame
there has to be a dog
chickens, cows and hay

and a smokehouse
where a ham in hickory
is also being preserved

Here for all time
the borders of the Gothic window
anticipate the ribs

of the house
the tines of the pitchfork
repeat the triumph

of his overalls
and front and center
the long faces, the sober lips

above the upright spines
of this couple
arrested in the name of art

These two
by now
the sun this high

ought to be
in mortal time
about their businesses

Instead they linger here
within the patient fabric
of the lives they wove

he asking the artist silently
how much longer
and worrying about the crops

she no less concerned about the crops
but more to the point just now
whether she remembered

to turn off the stove.

by John Stone (b. 1936 - )
found in Where Water Begins, 1998


and this one by one of my favorite poets, William Stafford (click for a reading):

American Gothic
If we see better through tiny,
grim glasses, we like to wear
tiny, grim glasses.
Our parents willed us this
view. It's tundra? We love it.

We travel our kind of
Renaissance: barnfuls of hay,
whole voyages of corn, and
a book that flickers its
halo in the parlor.

Poverty plus confidence equals
pioneers. We never doubted.

by William Stafford, 1914 - 1993
in The Way It Is, 1999

Is it that we are reminded of ourselves when we see American Gothic? Or, as Stafford says, maybe our parents? Or, more likely, our grandparents or great-grandparents. Stafford hints at faith and endurance. Both poems express the sense we get when looking at the painting that life is just so daily, as indeed it is. Stone mentions patience and points out that even the things not visible -- the farm animals, the smokehouse -- would be mundane, entirely predictable. The worried thoughts within the minds of the farmer and the housewife are routine, quotidian.

Yet life can also be so surprisingly strange, so Gothic, like that window. The house may look ordinary, but the window does not. In the middle of my farmyard, here's art! Inside my house, here's a tapestry! Inside my barn, here's a perpetual Renaissance!

!How cute is this?
My older sister & brother dressed up Grant Wood Style!
1955 or so

SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Monday, March 14, 2011

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com

You might also enjoy my previous posts on the poetry of William Stafford:

9 January 2010
26 February 2010
11 June 2010
18 November 2010