Opinion on American Gothic Painting

I have seen this image, but don’t know the tittle. I have seen it in movies, cartoons, and parodies of the painting. The painting is a male and female who most likely live on farmland. The male is holding a pitchfork, both of them look very serious but looking in different directions. They may either be just posing for the painting or waiting for intruders to leave their property. The male and female look bothered with something, they are not happy. They are wearing old-fashioned clothes, very traditional American clothes. They look healthy but the male looks older than the female, maybe her father or an older husband at the time.

They look like typical suburban American people at the time. The top of their house looks a little like a church but they are definitely farmers. The painting represents the typical American family/folk in a certain time period and area. The painting is famous because it’s the reality of suburban American life at that time, and this may be controversial. No one likes to hear/see the truth. I did not know the name of the painting so I googled, “famous American paintings”. It was the first photo that came up, so I clicked on it and found out the artist and the painting’s name.

I googled the name of the painting and got many websites that have material on it. The artist’s name is Grant Wood native of Chicago. The painting is of a farmer and his daughter posing in posing in front of their house, whose window and tracery had an American gothic style, which inspired the name of the painting, “American Gothic”. The models were the artist’s sister and dentist. Wood was accused of creating in this work a satire on the intolerance and strictness that the limited nature of rural life can produce. He sold this painting to the Art institute in November of 1930.