American Gothic — Grant Wood

One of the most famous paintings in 20th-century American culture.

‘American Gothic’ (1930) by Grant Wood. Oil on beaverboard. 78 x 65 cm. Art Institute of Chicago. Image source Wikimedia commons

Some paintings achieve their place in history by appearing in an ideal context that fixes them in the collective imagination and makes them break the barriers of their potential.

This is how some paintings become true icons of popular culture. They are artworks that anyone can recognize, whether they are art lovers or not.

Few paintings, however, have achieved such a feat. Some from the Renaissance have earned it, being a good part of such a select list, although there are cases of almost all periods.

There are also 20th-century works that have reached the top of our collective imagination. An illustrative example is American Gothic, the best-known work of the American painter Grant Wood, which is already part of popular culture not only in the United States but worldwide.

Painted in 1930, its creation took place during one of the worst periods in the history of the United States.

The Great Depression, which had begun a year earlier and would last for ten years, was a time of perpetual crisis in which American values were shaken to their foundations. What had brought the country to the top seemed to be crumbling, and no one knew what the future held for the…