Regionalism
Regionalism is a realist modern art movement that was at its peak in the 1930s. It is said to invoke the “simplicity and wholesome integrity of pre-industrial America” during a tumultuous period in American history during the Depression. [1] Sometimes also referred to as American scene painters, regionalist artists forewent glamour and romance for a more realist style. Rejecting modernism completely, Regionalist painters often depicted more simple views of the American heartland and portraits of American folk culture. Regionalists such as Grant Wood, John Steuart Curry, and Thomas Hart Benton promoted an indigenous art, which was not to depend on the influences of European artistic trends. Some even claimed that Regionalism was "anti-colonial" in that is was liberated from artistic traditions imported from other places and was said to lack any dependence on European guidance, and so the realistic nature of Regionalist paintings was a counterpoint to the European abstractionism that was en vogue. [2] Most regionalist artists left the major art cities like New York for their midwestern roots, Iowa, Missouri, and Kansas being the main bases, giving the wider Regionalist movement a flavors of distinct, mostly rural, regions. [3]
The Great Depression
The height of the Great Depression coincided with that of the Regionalist movement in the 1930s. The America of this time was one in complete economic turmoil, and the country faced insecurity, both cultural and financial, and so shifted parts of the American art scene into one based on more homespun traditions by evoking nostalgia for pre-industrial rural America. Paintings done in the Regionalist tradition resonated with a country yearning for reassurance and validation of its worth and power in the wider world, and artists like Thomas Hart Benton, Grant Wood, and John Steuart Curry found it easy to transition from a Euro-centric art world to finding inspiration at home. Artists, Regionalists announced, should paint what is around them, illustrating the national mood of the time. Different artists tackled this from different angles, often choosing to portray pastoral serenity to take the country’s mind off of the hardship, or favoring the imagery of Americans in scenes that could easily be found in the country's Midwestern heartland.
Grant Wood focused on rural themes, working with images of farmers and the rural American Midwest. He is best known for his 1930 painting American Gothic, depicting a farmer and his daughter. Their dress harkens back to the 1800s; they are a domestic and hardworking pair, as evidenced by the pitchfork and stern faces. It was meant to show off a distinctly American scene. Much of Wood’s work invokes nineteenth century Americana, comforting images of simpler times which was comforting during the chaos of the Depression era.
John Steuart Curry, depicted life in his home state of Kansas, and used life there as a backdrop for the essence of American Life. His 1929 piece Tornado Over Kansas shows a farmer facing an approaching tornado while his family run for cover, in a classic case of man versus nature. He painted scenes one could very easily see by traveling to the Midwest, showing what life was like for many Americans. Wood also touted the importance or paying attention to the difficulties farmers faced with the economic and natural disasters like the dust bowl, a period of sever dust storms in the Midwest in the 1930s which wreaked havoc on many farms, that they had to endure.
The final artist in the Regionalist triumvirate is Thomas Hart Benton, one of the most influential American artists of the 1930s. He began his prolific career in American regionalist art with murals, very popular in public places at the time, with their basis in the American character and every day life in the United States. Benton declared himself an “enemy of modernism.” His 1934 piece The Ballad of the Jealous Lover of Lone Green County shows a hilly rural landscape with country-folk type characters who act out an Ozark folk song of the same name.
Nationalism
Thomas Hart Benton, one of the most well known painters of the Regionalist era, was the center of criticism and controversy surrounding the movement. Because the style was born out of the Depression and evoked a certain national pride in depicting, often celebrating, scenes of Americana, critics labeled Benton and his style as nationalistic. Although Benton and others would go on to question extreme patriotism in their work, the regionalist style would insist on American art for and by Americans. [4] As Thomas Hart Benton said of the shift in focus to the domestic over the international, "It follows that no American art can come from those who do not live an American life, who do not have an American psychology, and who cannot find in America justification for their life." [5]
Benton’s mural, A Social History of Missouri, which covered four walls of the state capitol building, celebrates the history of his home state and is aimed at an audience of laymen. This mural shows a clear stance of patriotism and spirit, as the painting is of ordinary, everyday people depicted heroically, as brave pioneers and "community builders." [6] The portion of the mural below shows scenes of the pioneer and early settlement days of Missouri, and Huckleberry Finn, an American folk hero, even makes an appearance in the center. [7]
Work Cited
1. Dennis, James M. Renegade Regionalists: The Modern Independence of Grant Wood, Thomas Hart Benton, and John Steuart Curry (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1998), 51.
2. Dennis, Renegade Regionalists, 53.
3. http://xroads.virginia.edu/~ma98/haven/wood/depreg.html
4. Dennis, 55
5. Dennis, 57
6. Miller, John E. "Rose Wilder Lane and Thomas Hart Benton: A Turn Towards History during the 1930s," American Studies, Vol. 37, No. 2, (Fall 1996):, 84
7. Miller, "Rose Wilder Lane and Thomas Hart Benton," 85.