New paintings, hot off the easel, and some thoughts on art and life ...

               originally posted August 12, 2011

This post is the fourth in a series I'm calling “Gems in the Museums”, about little known paintings in museums.

Years ago when I visited the National Gallery in Washington D. C. there were two small paintings by Grant Wood, hanging at either side of a doorway.  The one shown here is called “Haying.”  Its composition – the arrangement of values - reads as pleasing from across the room, before you can see that the design is composed of many leaves of grass (to refer to another American great).

It's unfortunate that Wood is famous for “American Gothic.”  It's a painting that has become so iconicized, so satirized, so marred by sarcastic connotation that it can never be viewed as a fresh work of art.

But Wood made many other paintings that are wonderful.  They present an American rural way of life that may be largely gone, but nevertheless has power through his images.  Try Googling these:  “Stone City, Iowa,” “The Perfectionist,” or “Death on the Ridge Road.”

Like most of Wood's paintings, the two I saw at the National Gallery, “Haying” and “New Road,” are highly detailed.  But because of their beautiful design they pulled me in from across the room and made me look again.  That's what good composition does – captures your interest from a distance and makes you come closer.