Hiding in Plain Sight - James Maroney Inc.

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patterns, horses, etc. We will later get into my interpretation of these symbols, one at a time. Next, I divided Wood’s work into three categories (A, B and C) and, since my taxonomy was designed to comprise all works, I have forced a letter designation onto each of the 183 works listed in my inventory: Type Description Count % A No symbols 135 75% B Malevolent images of women or mid-western stereotypes 14 7% C Manifestly homoerotic and/or misogynistic imagery 34 18% Total 183 100% By my count, only 25% of all Wood’s works contain symbols, 14 ‘soft’ and 34 manifestly homoerotic or misogynistic. Sorting the work by date reveals that, with the exception of some corn and an isolated chicken or barn, symbols do not appear before 1925-26 and if they chance to, they do not rise to the level of interest that is the subject of this paper. Between 1925-29, just prior to Wood’s final Return from Bohemia, two inchoately “C” subjects appeared. Between 1929-31, “C” subjects built momentum, until the period from 1931 until his death in 1942, when 40% of his output was “B” or “C” work. Consequently, allowing only for the two important exceptions just mentioned, we shall confine our exploration of symbols to Wood’s post-1929 work and ignore roughly three-quarters of his life’s output. 39 § 39 In 1924-26, Wood had a very brief fling with surrealism or with, as the one work is described, Orphism. (See Garwood, op. cit., p. 83) 22
Chapter III Sojourn in Munich: Wood Absorbs the Dark Humor of the Verist Branch of the Neue Sachlichkeit Painters and Brings it, Undercover, Home to Iowa W ood made three trips to Europe between 1920 and 1926, traveling extensively to Italy and Paris, where he studied briefly at the Académie Julian. The focus of all his work up to, and during, this time was a misbegotten breed of Impressionism, decorative and insipid, yet popular in America. All Wood’s biographers agree that, at the close of this period, he abruptly changed his style. But precisely what influences worked most significantly upon him to occasion the change remains open to question. On his last trip to Europe, in 1928, Wood traveled to Munich to supervise the production of Memorial Window, because, he said, the state of craftsmanship in leaded glass there was superior to what he could find in America. At the Alte Pinakothek, he first saw the Late Gothic and Northern Renaissance painters Hans Memling, Hans Holbein, Lucas Cranach, and Albrecht Durer. He also, for the first time, experienced Renaissance and Gothic architecture. Dennis makes a fleeting reference to the Neue Sachlichkeit or “New Objectivity” painters, who at the time of Wood’s visit, were working in opposition to German Expressionism and who, like Wood, would finally reject Impressionism. To make the point that their work influenced Wood, Dennis provides a comparison between one or two of Wood’s commissioned portraits and a portrait by George Schrimpf. In Kinsey’s view, Wood was drawn to the “clarity, expressive contours, decorative details, smooth surfaces and rich coloristic effects” of the Late Gothic and Northern Renaissance and she joins in the majority opinion that it was this influence that finally “transformed Wood, from a bohemian who experimented with a variety of styles and subject matter, to an avowed Iowa Regionalist.” 40 Corn also mentions that while in Munich, Wood “may have chanced upon” paintings by the Neue Sachlichkeit; she compares Wood’s mature style to a portrait by Christian Schad and reports that Wood liked “the apparel and accessories of the figures” from the Gothic period and that he was particularly impressed by the “crystalline realism” of the 40 Joni L. Kinsey, Cultivating Iowa: an Introduction to Grant Wood, in Milosch, op. cit., p. 22 23
Page 1 and 2: Hiding in Plain Sight: Decoding the
Page 3 and 4: Summary The image we have today of
Page 5 and 6: Introduction I n Return from Bohemi
Page 7 and 8: sensibility prevented him from mock
Page 9 and 10: Foreword: Art Historical Methodolog
Page 11 and 12: Unlike Robert Hughes, who applied t
Page 13 and 14: to categorize him according to his
Page 15 and 16: Remember that symbolism’s goal is
Page 17 and 18: e sufficiently obsessed to want to
Page 19 and 20: insistently inflicted upon itself.
Page 21: Chapter II The Author’s Methodolo
Page 25 and 26: Prior to his departure for Munich,
Page 27 and 28: conveyed her tenderness—and the p
Page 29 and 30: Window, 1927-29, we first see “an
Page 31 and 32: Plants—Oedipal, generational, inc
Page 33 and 34: excavating a deep, dark hole. 58 A
Page 35 and 36: Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two
Page 37 and 38: pastures. As such, Haying and The N
Page 39 and 40: Chapter V Xenophobia in 20 th Centu
Page 41 and 42: The hand pump, with 4 appearances,
Page 43 and 44: anatomically intriguing throat in V
Page 45 and 46: feathers, unmistakably similar to t
Page 47 and 48: historians, as was H. W. Janson, an
Page 49 and 50: At this late stage in his career, W
Page 51 and 52: The years 1932-33 were characterize
Page 53 and 54: with gin. The success of female imp
Page 55 and 56: I aver that Wood’s fascination wi
Page 57 and 58: claim descent. 88 That interpretati
Page 59 and 60: of the fence, without which we woul
Page 61 and 62: anthropomorphizing the contours of
Page 63 and 64: hand pump, chickens, hands, horses,
Page 65 and 66: left-leaning artists all over the w
Page 67 and 68: the catalyst required for making su
Page 69 and 70: keep out blacks, Jews, Catholics an
Page 71 and 72: dispensing it. The dilemma was that
Page 73 and 74:
explain Nan’s extravagantly wavy,
Page 75 and 76:
the ascendance of both Nazi and Sta
Page 77 and 78:
that his outward life and work did
Page 79 and 80:
Obviously, certain lines like “Ga
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