Thornton 1 Anisha Thornton Professor Walsh ENG 101 10.31.

11 American Gothic Essay In 1930, grant wood painted American gothic, which won him 300 dollars at the Art Institute of Chicago as well as fame. The painting is a of a woman and a man with a gothicstyled home behind the pair. An article called American gothic, grant wood (1930) says that wood received his inspiration for several artworks on his trips to Europe. It appears he was fond of the European gothic style, because he is known for using it often in his works. The word gothic has several meaning, two of which are belonging to the Dark Ages and portentously gloomy or horrifying. Why would an American from Iowa be so fascinated by this style? Gothic style architecture, according to an article called the evolution of European gothic architecture, originated from 12th-century France and became gothic during the later part of the renaissance. To identify a gothic building, one has to look for a pointed arch, a fan-like vault and/or a flying buttress. Since the renaissance period took place in Europe, many of the buildings famous to that period, such as the Notre dame de Paris and St Stephens cathedral (many of the gothic structures are indeed churches) are found in European countries. Perhaps wood was fascinated by these buildings because they were so unlike the ones he had at home. The styles of American architecture consisted of modernist, formalist, and structuralism designs. These designs were all rectangular and boxy, completely different from the gothic style of points. Could it be out of boredom of the same architecture that he was born and raised in that Grant Wood decided to paint pictures of this new (or rather old) style of architecture? To answer this, we would have to look back into the time of the painting, 1930. In this year, America was in her second year of the Great Depression and many of Americans were starving, jobless, and completely unhappy. But what of the America dream? The dream where a man could have a wife, two kids, a white picket fence and a dog? This is what wood is showing in his work; the unachievable American dream that so many people go after but are unable to attain. The great depression was perhaps, in woods theology, a wake up call about this dream americans are chasing.

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http://www.architecture-student.com/architecture/the-evolution-of-gothic-architecture/ http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2002/may/18/art http://architecture.about.com/cs/historicperiods/a/timeline.htm http://drake.marin.k12.ca.us/academics/comacad/decades%2000/1930's/The%20Great%20Depre ssion.html