Hiding in Plain Sight - James Maroney Inc.

Dennis, however, sees a problem. After describing how the introduction of machinery
and the trend to larger farm size and greater yields contributed to the farm crisis that
followed hard upon the prosperity of the 1920s, and how, in the years 1931-35, the Iowa
farmers were struggling desperately with the Depression and its harsh effects, Dennis
frames an excellent question: he wonders why, if Wood were intent upon glorifying the
rural landscape, his paintings of agrarian scenery were so “painfully paradoxical.”
Dennis does not draw from this excellent observation that the difficulty lay not with
Wood, as someone “driven by loyalty to the regionalist principle of interpreting…an
idealistic vision of the landscape that poeticized [the] agrarian myth” 59 but with his own
assessment of Wood’s purpose.
Wood’s idea in Arbor Day may have been to simply play a pun on his surname. Wood is,
of course, what trees—arbors—are made of. And, if one’s name were Wood, one could
go prospecting for the word and find it everywhere, in a wide variety of uses and see
meaning in each, according to one’s bias. For a man in the middle of his life, still
conflicted about his sexuality, the choices were many and rich in double entendre:
“In the middle of the journey of our life, I came to myself within a dark
wood where the straight way was lost.”
Dante (1265-1321), The Inferno, canto I, l. 1
“Is not old wine wholesomest, old pippins toothsomest, old wood burn
brightest, old linen wash whitest? Old soldiers, sweethearts, are surest
and old lovers are soundest?
John Webster (ca. 1580- ca. 1625) Westward Hoe
“Demetrius: Or, if thou follow me, do not believe but that I shall do thee
mischief in the wood.
Helena: Ay, in the temple, in the town, and in the field you do mischief.
Fie, Demetrius: Your wrongs do set a scandal on my sex. We cannot fight
for love as men do. We should be wood and were not made to woo.”
William Shakespeare (1564-1616), A Midsummer Night’s Dream
“Two evils, monstrous either one apart
Possessed me, and were long and loath at going:
A cry of Absence, Absence, Absence, in the heart,
And in the wood the furious winter blowing.”
John Crowe Ransom (1884-1974), Winter Remembered
I shall be telling this with a sigh
59 Dennis, op. cit., pp. 201-206
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