Regionalism (art)

This sense of nationalism stemmed from artists' rejection of modern art trends after World War I and the Armory Show.

During the 1930s, these artists documented and depicted American cities, small towns, and rural landscapes; some did so as a way to return to a simpler time away from industrialization, whereas others sought to make a political statement and lent their art to revolutionary and radical causes.

American Regionalism is best known through its "Regionalist Triumvirate" consisting of the three most highly respected artists of America's Great Depression era: Grant Wood, Thomas Hart Benton, and John Steuart Curry.

They believed that the solution to urban problems in American life and the Great Depression was for the United States to return to its rural, agricultural roots.

Wood wrote that Regional artists interpret the physiography, industry, and psychology of their hometown and that the competition of these preceding elements create American culture.

[9] Wood wrote about Curry's style and subject matter of art, stating "It was action he loved most to interpret: the lunge through space, the split second before the kill, the suspended moment before the storm strikes.

By the 1940s, Regionalism and Social Realism were placed on the same side of the debate as American Scene Painting, leaving only two camps, that were divided geographically and politically.

American Scene Painting was promoted by conservative, anti-Modernist critics such as Thomas Craven, who saw it as a way to defeat the influence of abstraction arriving from Europe.

American Scene painters primarily lived in rural areas and created works that were realistic and addressed social, economic and political issues.

During this time families around the United States were having to ration food, their sons were sent to fight overseas, and war bonds were being sold by the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

Taking inspiration from President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Four Freedoms: State of the Union Address from January 1941, Rockwell would create this work that would be used as propaganda.

It would be transformed into prints and appear in four issues of the Saturday Evening Post during 1943, and would be used by the U.S. Department of the Treasury to encourage the selling of war bonds.