Beyond the American Gothic
Sharing what Grant Wood taught me about our past…
I just experienced an incredible Aha moment. Two events that happened years apart unexpectedly collided in front of me and I was astonished by the depth of my ignorance. See that odd couple in the photo above? The ones at the farm, not the naked women frolicking on the grass. They may even seem familiar.
Let me explain.
I was looking for a photo in my digital catalogue. I opened a folder titled ‘NYC’. It contained images from a visit to the Big Apple some years ago. The majority of the images were from museum visits. My photos from the Metropolitan Museum of Art included some iconic pieces: Jackson Pollock’s action painting of 1950 Autumn Rhythm (Number 30), one of Andy Warhol’s Mao paintings, and other large-scale masterpieces.
One of the photos showed a painting that I distinctly remember stopping me in my tracks while strolling through the MET. It depicts a rural town at night. The point of view makes one think of images made with a modern drone. Your eyes are set above the tall steeple of the local church giving a bird’s eye view of the town.
At the lower left of the canvas, a dark horse at full gallop carries a figure past the church. The elongated stride and shadow of the animal make it look like a child’s…
