YALE UNIVERSITY ART GALLERY
Thomas Hart Benton was an American regionalist painter of the 1930s. He placed the subjects of his work, people of the small towns of the Midwest and South. Thomas Hart Benton was born in Neosho, Missouri, the son and grandnephew of a United States congressman. He studied at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1907. He traveled to Paris for five years examining new trends and understanding cubism. He returned to the United States in 1912, advocated by his friend Stanton M. Wright. In 1916 Benton sent his work to the Forum Exhibition of American Painting. However he had a hard time to determine the clash he felt between no objectivity and realism in his painting.
Between 1919 and 1924 Benton made studies for his projected series of mural decorations based on American history. From 1924 to about 1931 he traveled through the Midwest and the South, taking close note of the people he met and incorporating these observations in his paintings.
Benton's murals generally show his distress for the collection of figures and design, as in his paintings done in 1931 for New York City's New School for Social Research. In the New York murals a rhythmic movement sweeps through scenes of ordinary American folk shown purposefully at various activities--eating, dancing, or working. Benton's energetic, turbulent style is intended to suggest the vigor of the American people. (Online biography) Benton produced a scene of America's productive capacities in his scenes of mining, farming, and lumbering. Benton wished to democratize art, to make it both intelligible and available to the general public (hence the large mural series). He planned a pictorial history of the United States in 64 panels, a project never completed. He was one of the most eloquent spokesmen for the major trend in American art during the 1930s--an art of a specifically American subject matter, done in a variety of naturalistic modes rather than in the European modernist styles of the previous decade. (1 online biography)
When the Stock Market crashed in 1929 and America engaged in World War II, Thomas Hart Benton painted “Weighing Cotton” in 1939 to show images of that time period. This painting was made for the impression of hard work. It serves as a mural on images based on American subject matter and to show realistic representation of the early 1900’s. Weighing Cotton is an oil and tempera on canvas mounted on wood panel. The historical work captured everyday people doing a hard day of work. The mural was said, “to have found expression in art that focused on native subject met the landscape of life in the Midwest and the South and Benton articulated a personal vision of the American Heartland.”
Regionalism refers to the work of a number of rural artists, mostly from the Midwest, who came to prominence in the 1930s.Not being part of a coordinated movement, Regionalist artists often had an idiosyncratic style or point of view. What they shared, among themselves and among other American scene painters were a humble, anti-modernist style and a desire to depict everyday life
Thomas Hart Benton used curves and shapes conveys. Through color and composition the artist established a time of slavery. The function it serves is to display a time period when America was in the Great Depression. It was made secular reasons. The symbolism the work contained were workers in the 1930’s who were mostly poor and were common to find working in the field at that time.
The message I interrupted was southern workers making a living. The worker exhibited doing hard work. The message communicated in this painting is the occupation of the public. The cultural, political, economic, social or religious influence on the life of the artist and the community in which he/she worked was to show real impressions in his art work. The style of the work reflect the time or culture in which it is made was murals of rural America In the 1930.Weighing Cotton was vision of the artist to reflect a time period when America was struggling. I see a large cotton plantation in a rural southern town with old and young worker contributing to the cotton picking. The composition appears to show blacks doing daily task. What stands out the most when I first approaching the work was the worker and their effort in teamwork? The artist use color oil on a canvas, the colors are very soft a give the appearance that it was a hot hazy afternoon.
Thomas Hart Benton was an American regionalist painter of the 1930s. He placed the subjects of his work, people of the small towns of the Midwest and South. Thomas Hart Benton was born in Neosho, Missouri, the son and grandnephew of a United States congressman. He studied at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1907. He traveled to Paris for five years examining new trends and understanding cubism. He returned to the United States in 1912, advocated by his friend Stanton M. Wright. In 1916 Benton sent his work to the Forum Exhibition of American Painting. However he had a hard time to determine the clash he felt between no objectivity and realism in his painting.
Between 1919 and 1924 Benton made studies for his projected series of mural decorations based on American history. From 1924 to about 1931 he traveled through the Midwest and the South, taking close note of the people he met and incorporating these observations in his paintings.
Benton's murals generally show his distress for the collection of figures and design, as in his paintings done in 1931 for New York City's New School for Social Research. In the New York murals a rhythmic movement sweeps through scenes of ordinary American folk shown purposefully at various activities--eating, dancing, or working. Benton's energetic, turbulent style is intended to suggest the vigor of the American people. (Online biography) Benton produced a scene of America's productive capacities in his scenes of mining, farming, and lumbering. Benton wished to democratize art, to make it both intelligible and available to the general public (hence the large mural series). He planned a pictorial history of the United States in 64 panels, a project never completed. He was one of the most eloquent spokesmen for the major trend in American art during the 1930s--an art of a specifically American subject matter, done in a variety of naturalistic modes rather than in the European modernist styles of the previous decade. (1 online biography)
When the Stock Market crashed in 1929 and America engaged in World War II, Thomas Hart Benton painted “Weighing Cotton” in 1939 to show images of that time period. This painting was made for the impression of hard work. It serves as a mural on images based on American subject matter and to show realistic representation of the early 1900’s. Weighing Cotton is an oil and tempera on canvas mounted on wood panel. The historical work captured everyday people doing a hard day of work. The mural was said, “to have found expression in art that focused on native subject met the landscape of life in the Midwest and the South and Benton articulated a personal vision of the American Heartland.”
Regionalism refers to the work of a number of rural artists, mostly from the Midwest, who came to prominence in the 1930s.Not being part of a coordinated movement, Regionalist artists often had an idiosyncratic style or point of view. What they shared, among themselves and among other American scene painters were a humble, anti-modernist style and a desire to depict everyday life
Thomas Hart Benton used curves and shapes conveys. Through color and composition the artist established a time of slavery. The function it serves is to display a time period when America was in the Great Depression. It was made secular reasons. The symbolism the work contained were workers in the 1930’s who were mostly poor and were common to find working in the field at that time.
The message I interrupted was southern workers making a living. The worker exhibited doing hard work. The message communicated in this painting is the occupation of the public. The cultural, political, economic, social or religious influence on the life of the artist and the community in which he/she worked was to show real impressions in his art work. The style of the work reflect the time or culture in which it is made was murals of rural America In the 1930.Weighing Cotton was vision of the artist to reflect a time period when America was struggling. I see a large cotton plantation in a rural southern town with old and young worker contributing to the cotton picking. The composition appears to show blacks doing daily task. What stands out the most when I first approaching the work was the worker and their effort in teamwork? The artist use color oil on a canvas, the colors are very soft a give the appearance that it was a hot hazy afternoon.
Resources for writing: encyclopedia of world
Important links: http://www. biography/thomas-hart-benton/.com; artcyclopedia.com/artist/thomasbenton
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