American Gothic is a painting by Grant Wood in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. Wood's inspiration came from what is now known as the American Gothic House, and his decision to paint the house along with "the kind of people I fancied should live in that house." The painting shows a farmer standing beside a woman that has been interpreted to be either his wife or his daughter.[1][2] The figures were modeled by the artist's sister and their dentist. The woman is dressed in a colonial print apron evoking 19th-century Americana, and the couple are in the traditional roles of men and women, the man's pitchfork symbolizing hard labor, and the flowers over the woman's right shoulder suggesting domesticity. The plants on the porch of the house are mother-in-law's tongue and geranium, which are the same plants as in Wood's 1929 portrait of his mother, Woman with Plants.[3]
It is one of the most familiar images in 20th-century American art, and has been widely parodied in American popular culture.
In August 1930, Grant Wood, an American painter with European training, was driven aroundEldon, 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.[4] 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."[5]At the time, Wood classified it as one of the "cardboardy [sic] frame houses on Iowa farms" and considered it "very paintable".[6] 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."[1] 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,[7] Dr. Byron McKeeby (1867–1950) from Cedar Rapids, Iowa.[8][9] 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 Grant seems to confirm in his letter to a Mrs. Nellie Sudduth in 1941. [1] [10]
The three-pronged hay fork is echoed in the stitching of the man's overalls, the Gothic window of the house, and the structure of the man's face.[11] However, Wood did not add figures to his sketch until he returned to his studio in Cedar Rapids.[12] 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.
《美国哥特式》（或译“美式哥特”）是格兰特·伍德绘画的一幅油彩画，现藏于芝加哥艺术学院。格兰特·伍德的灵感来源于现在被称作为“美国哥特式”的房屋，亦来源于一种想法。格兰特·伍德想绘出一间房子[1] ，这间房子要拥有“我所喜爱的那一种人才应该住进那间房子”的意图。这幅画作展现了一位老农民站在他的单身女儿身旁的场景[2]。作品中的人物形象以画家的姐妹和他们的牙医为原型。画中的女子身着一件有着19世纪美国乡村风格的美洲殖民花纹的围裙，画中的男子手握着一个三叉钉耙，这象征着艰苦的劳动；位于女子右肩膀处的一盆鲜花则表明他们十分爱家。
这幅画作是20世纪美国美术中最为常见的画面之一，也是在美国流行文化中最经常被隐射的美术作品之一。
《美国哥特式》与《自由女神像》，《芭比娃娃》，《野牛镍币》和《山姆大叔》并称为美国文化的五大象征。
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