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Show • The Regfonalist movement was one answefto domestic sentiment; Regionalists focus on visual narratives relev~o the " average" American (particularly those in rural, small towris of the Midwest). • Work ethic, hometown values and familiar scenes III. Regionalism • Primary characteristics of the movement o Most popular c. 1930s o Rejected city life and rapidly developing technology; Regionalist subject matter favors scenes of rural life and manual labor. o The so-called "Regionalist Triumvirate" • Grant Wood in Iowa (most famous for his American Gothic, 1930) • Thomas Hart Benton in Missouri • John Steuart Curry in Kansas • Regionalism as Social Realism o Fighting "beautiful art'' with the ugly realities of contemporary life. o Focusing on concrete experience, rather than philosophical ideals • With fond memories of his childhood on the neighborhood farm in Nebraska, Nichols continued to be influenced by his affection for his native Midwest. "Farm life was all I knew for the first 20 years of my life. In painting these canvases, I felt again the vastness of endless skies, experienced again the penetrating cold of Nebraska's winters, lived again as farmers live ... In spirit, I am very much a farmer," Nichols has said. Dale Nichols, Mail Wagon in Snowy Landscape, for the Saturday Evening Post, 1942 Dale Nichols, House and Garden cover, December 1937 Dale Nichols, The End ofthe Hunt, 1934 .( |
