In the current issue of The Weekly Standard, Paul Cantor — who writes for the magazine and is a professor of English at the University of Virginia — reviews the book American Gothic: A Life of America’s Most Famous Painting by Steven Biel.
Cantor’s review is useful because he fills out details about the painting’s creator. In fact, the title of Cantor’s piece is “American Classic: Grant Wood and the meaning of his art.” There quite a bit of criticism of the Hate America crowd that supposedly sneers at the painting. It’s hard to take that seriously, since you can always find some nut who hates anything, but I do object to this attitude. You know, Shakespeare’s a dead, white male elitist and shouldn’t be taught in the classroom. Bullshit. By all means, you should read James Baldwin and August Wilson too, but I hate this notion that we ought to agree with a work to like it.
You see this all the time, from the Left and the Right. People hate characters because they don’t like the way they act. Huh? A character does and says the things necessary to the story. You can’t hate a character because you don’t like the way they behave. “American Gothic,” like so many other works of art, just is. You can read what you like into it. You can love it as an expression of the American heart. You can hate it as corny. You can see it as political commentary. You can spoof it as a joke. In the end, it’s just paint on a canvas. When you’re done deciding what it means, it will still be there, waiting for the next interpretation. That’s what makes it great.
I used to hate High Noon, because I saw Will Kane as whiny and weak, and the story seemed like an over-obvious parallel to the Blacklist. Same for On the Waterfront as an rational for testifying before the House Un-American Activities Committee. I made the mistake of disliking the apparent motives of those films. The creator of the work may have his or her intentions. But the work is what it is. Meaning is fluid.
I think that’s what makes “American Gothic” such a great work of art. Cantor seems a little concerned that we’re not getting the right things out of it. But please do read his review and revisit a great painting.