GrantWood’sAmericanGothicisapaintingthat’spuzzledgenera...

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Grant Wood’s American Gothic is a painting that’s puzzled generations who’ve stopped to wonder at the real meaning behind it. We all know it: a serious-looking couple in front of their gothic-arched wooden house—in a style called Carpenter’s Gothic, for which the painting is named.

It was painted in 1930, when US artists were inspired to paint realist scenes of rural America during the Depression in a style that became known as Regionalism.

The couple are identified either as a farmer and his wife, or as a daughter with her unsmiling and over-protective father. Wood’s sister, Nan, who posed for the picture, always insisted the two were father and daughter, perhaps finding the age gap too improper. The relationship has always remained interestingly conflicting.

Unlike her elder companion’s fixed stare, the woman glances off to the side. Her expression is actually difficult to determine. She looks sorrowful, or perhaps uncomfortable, though her straitlaced primness (拘谨保守的古板) is weakened by an escaping coil of hair at the back of her neck. As if holding guard against those anticipated intruders (侵入者)—probably, protecting his daughter-wife’s virtue, though she doesn’t seem particularly happy about it—the man holds a pitchfork in a soldier-like fashion. And that is what lends the work its uneasy (不协调的) comedy. Everything about it is an artful set-up.

First of all, Nan never actually posed with the man in the picture, nor are they in any way related. Wood had spotted the house during a drive to the town of Eldon in Iowa. It immediately gave him an idea. “That idea was to find two people who, by their straitlaced characters, would be suitable for such a home,” he later explained. The couple were actually painted separately, and neither sitter was painted in front of the house. The farmer, as you might have already guessed, isn’t actually a farmer, but a certain Dr Bryon McKeeby, a wealthy dentist from Cedar Rapids, where Wood lived with his mother and sister. The couple’s clothing too has been carefully handpicked by the artist.

In addition, both their faces, Nan’s in particular, have been thinned and lengthened, as has the famous gothic window and roof. And, if you look carefully, you might even detect something funereal about the scene, beyond the tombstone features of the couple. It’s suggested by the woman’s primly buttoned black dress, and in the man’s smart black overcoat.

Some thought the work mercilessly laughed at the lifestyle in the Midwest. Meanwhile, some critics praised the painting as a cutting small-town satire (讽刺). Still others saw the painting as honoring the Midwest and its strong values.

Regarding the painting’s comic tone, Wood himself gave contradictory accounts. “There is satire in it,” he once said, “but only as there is satire in any realistic statement.” Perhaps it is this ambiguity that has made the painting the most symbolic in US history.

58. What is uncertain about American Gothic?

A. The identity of the models. B. The characters’ relationship.

C. How the painting got its name. D. Where the background house was.

59. What indicates the woman’s straitlaced primness?

A. Her glancing off to the side.

B. Her carefully buttoned black dress.

C. The determination in her expression.

D. The escaping coil of hair at the back of her neck.

60. What can be inferred from the last paragraph?

A. Ambiguity is an essential part of any good painting.

B. It is beyond doubt that the painting has a comic tone.

C. The statement that Wood himself gave clarifies nothing.