- published: 14 Oct 2013
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Grant DeVolson Wood (February 13, 1891 – February 12, 1942) was an American painter born four miles (6 km) east of Anamosa, Iowa. He is best known for his paintings depicting the rural American Midwest, particularly American Gothic, an iconic painting of the 20th century.
Grant Wood was born in rural Iowa in 1891; his mother moved the family to Cedar Rapids after his father died in 1901. Soon thereafter he began as an apprentice in a local metal shop. After graduating from Washington High School, Wood enrolled in The Handicraft Guild, an art school run entirely by women in Minneapolis in 1910 (today it is a prominent artist collective in the city.) He was said to have later returned to the Guild to paint American Gothic. A year later Wood returned to Iowa, where he taught in a rural one-room schoolhouse. In 1913 he enrolled at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and performed some work as a silversmith.
From 1922 to 1928, Wood made four trips to Europe, where he studied many styles of painting, especially Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. But it was the work of the 15th-century Flemish artist Jan van Eyck that influenced him to take on the clarity of this technique and to incorporate it in his new works.
Etranges visions perdues dans mon sommeil
L'homme est assis, violemment immobile.
Il trempe sa lame dans la médiocrité,
Et dans le sang la pointe immaculée
Ivre mort, suspendu aux lèvres du mépris
Il compose et un long sillon coule.
Il écorche l'esquisse jusqu'à en fléchir la trame
Il tapisse mon corps de ses mucosités
A l'ornière ruisselle l'éclat de ma structure viscérale
Le prisme et ses reflets ne renvoient que des cendres
Les bases sont fondées.
Ma part d'ombre t'appartient,
Tu porteras mes chaines
L'oeuvre inachevée, tableau de mon âme déconstruite
Ma part d'ombre t'appartient désormais.
Tu restes aveugle, tes mains tracent avec le mauvais sang
Ta signature sera celle de mon irréversible perte,
A laquelle je suis enchainé
Le mauvais guette, à l'affût de l'usure du temps,
Qui le laissera paraître
Et prendre le dessus lorsque l'écorce s'effritera.
Tu peux bruler ma langue, écorcher mes paupières,
Je saurai malgré tout