American Gothic: A Life of America's Most Famous Painting

by Steven Biel

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American Gothic

American Gothic House

Dammit Janet

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Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 039305912X, Hardcover)

Is there anyone who has not seen the painting of the sturdy Iowa farmer with his pitchfork and his thin-lipped wife or daughter? Ever since it met the public eye in 1930, the work titled American Gothic has elicited admiration, disgust, reverence and ridicule - and has been reproduced hundreds of thousands of times, in every medium. Painted by a self-proclaimed "bohemian" who studied in Paris, the image was first seen as a critique of Midwestern Puritanism and what H.L. Mencken called "the booboisie". During the Depression it came to represent endurance in hard times through the quintessential American values of thrift, work and faith. Later, in television, advertising, politics and popular culture, American Gothic evolved into parody - all the while remaining a lodestar by which one might measure closeness to or distance from the American heartland.

(retrieved from Amazon Tue, 19 Apr 2011 14:13:30 -0400)

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"Ever since it met the public eye in 1930, the painting American Gothic has elicited admiration, disgust, reverence, and ridicule - and has been reproduced hundreds of thousands of times, in every medium."."Steven Biel explores the strangely enduring life of America's most popular painting. American Gothic has been interpreted as both a critique and a celebration of rural life, and it seems to speak so deeply to our ideas and feelings about American-ness that it is our most parodied work of art. Painted by a self-proclaimed "bohemian" who studied in Paris, the image was first seen as a critique of Midwestern Puritanism and what H.L. Mencken called "the booboisie." During the Depression, it came to represent endurance in hard times through the quintessential American values of thrift, work, and faith. Later, in television, advertising, politics, and popular culture, American Gothic evolved into parody - all the while remaining a lodestar by which one might measure closeness or distance from the American heartland."--BOOK JACKET.… (more)