Curriculum Materials: Art in America
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Image 19 Grant Wood Questions: |
Look Questions Teacher Answer Key
1. What is the focal point/main subject of this painting? What in the picture led you to your answer?
2. This is the birthplace of the 31st president of the United States, Herbert Hoover. What clues tell you that this painting shows Hoover's birthplace later on in his life? (The sign, tour guide, and engraved pink rock indicate that Hoover was already famous by the time this was painted.) Where are the visitors at this tourist attraction? For whom is the tour guide pointing the way? (You - the viewer!)
3. Grant Wood's STYLE can be compared to American FOLK ART because of the way he simplified forms. What forms did he simplify in this painting? (Trees and shrubs are solid round shapes rather than irregular as they are in nature, and the houses look like boxes.)
4. Grant Wood created PATTERN in this painting by repeating lines and forms. Where do you see repeated lines? (The leaves of the trees and shrubs are made up of regular repeated lines. Tiny repeated lines make up the lawn.) Where do you see repeated forms that make pattern? (Tree tops, tree trunks and shadows lining the road on the right, rounded forms of the shrubs to the left of the bridge, haystacks in the BACKGROUND on the left.)
5. What time of year is it in this painting? (Late summer.) How can you tell? (Lush greens, but some leaves are beginning to turn fall colors.) What time of day is it? (Morning.) How can you tell? (Shadows indicate the sun is at an angle. Bright light indicates the sun is growing stronger rather than fading into evening sunset.)
6. What PERSPECTIVE techniques did Grant Wood use to create the illusion of depth? (SCALE - objects closest to the viewer appear largest and those farther away appear smaller and closer to the horizon line; Overlap - objects closest to the viewer overlap and partially hide objects in the distance; LINEAR PERSPECTIVE - objects recede along imaginary lines that meet at a point on the horizon line.)
7. Grant Wood was a
GENRE painter. He was
interested in painting scenes from everyday life in the
midwestern United States. What is "everyday" about the scene
in this painting? (Chickens in the yard, children
playing, laundry on the clothesline.) What is not
"everyday"? (The tour guide and sign.)
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