American Gothic

I have been looking at the painting, American Gothic by Grant Wood, for about fifteen minutes and the idea of referential mania continues to pulse through my mind. I have seen this painting before, but as Dr. Sexson said I haven't actually "seen" this painting before.

It is an interesting painting and I continue to ask myself questions about what every part of it means. Why is the man looking at the painter? Or I suppose the better question is why is he looking at us? And why is she looking away? How are they related?
Why are the blinds closed on all the windows? Why the pitchfork? Are there even answers for these questions?

Along with the theme of referential mania, there is an interesting pattern with the pitchfork. The pitchfork has three points branching from one common standard. Similarly, his overalls have the same pattern. It is also repeated in the windows and on his face. I did not see this pattern myself, but it is an interesting repetition if anything. The idea of referential mania can take over any piece of work, but maybe that is the purpose of any work of art, piece of literature, and physical structures as well. It is a true exercise of the brain and causes us to make connections through seemingly unrelated entities. For example, this painting could be linked to the Great Depression, since it was painted in 1930 and the look on their faces isn't exactly one of joy. If we weren't trained to look into the deeper meaning of works, then we would simply have a disturbing piece of art in the American Gothic. But, maybe there is nothing wrong with that.

Another interesting idea that comes from this painting is the theory that "a picture is worth a thousand words."

We talked about this picture in class and I think we could truly come up with a thousand words to describe what could be possibly happening in this scene. All of these words could be justified by the reactions of different individuals throughout this picture.The caption reads, "The new electronic interdependence recreates the world in the image of a global village."
This statement is almost entirely true. Obviously, we can never get rid of storytellers because the hold a crucial role in our world and a well told story can be much more vivid than a picture or painting. But simply from this picture I could make an educated guess at where this picture was, what tribe these people are in, and what the story being told is.

Dr. Sexson said something to the effect of "what you can remember, is what you can recreate." If this is true, does it mean that what you can create, is what you believe? I clearly have never met any of these people in the picture, but I can create an elaborate backstory for all of these people if I truly believe it is true. A lot of our early memories are fabrications of events that people tell us have happened. So these events didn't actually happen, but yet we believe they did so we can recreate them. So if we have the ability to do this, are we inside or outside of this box that inherently traps us and our imaginations?