The Influence of The Great Depression
The Great Depression of the 1930’s was the longest and steepest economic downturn in the history of Western industrialized world. Most of the country’s banks failed, consumer spending drastically decreased, while unemployment rates increased. President Franklin D. Roosevelt created relief and reform programs that helped restore the failing economy. One of which was the WPA (Works Progress Administration) project under the Emergency Relief Appropriations Act. Financed artists make murals, sculptures, and other artworks in public buildings creating roughly million jobs. The Great Depression influenced an era of intense artistic experimentation. The government once again played a large role in art during this era, but differently than previous because the government’s motive was to help its people gain employment not to enforce ideals. Many people in this era were doing anything to break tradition out of spite of the war. This caused art in this era to be more abstract.
Title: Abandoned
Artist: Millard Sheets
Date: 1933
Location: California
Millard Sheets’ Abandoned depicts a farm devastated by the abandonment of the owners caused by the economic crisis of the Great Depression. Sheets’ makes use of this era’s abstract style seen in the skewed image originating in the bottom right-hand corner. The painting utilizes mostly small brush strokes establishing a polished finish. I personally like the contrast in color of the horses and the rest of the background, my eyes were drawn to the horses and then the rest of the painting.
Title: The Birthplace of Herbert Hoover, West Branch, Iowa
Artist: Grant Wood
Date: 1931
Location: Minneapolis
Grant Wood’s The Birthplace of Herbert Hoover, West Branch, Iowa, a rural city landscape in the Midwest on an autumn day. This painting exhibits another style of the Depression era known as Regionalism who wanted to capture the ordinary life of middle classes. Paintings of this style as this one make use of geometric shapes and angles. I personally like the slightly cartoon style of the painting.
Title: In the Crowd
Artist: Mabel Dwight
Date: 1931
Location: New York
Mabel Dwight’s In the Crowd depicts the despair of six people through a method called lithograph. Dwight was one of the artists employed by the WPA program mention earlier. The lithograph being black and white, adds to the sadness expressed in the crowd. This piece has a hint of abstraction, most clearly seen in the man in the right-hand side, in the elongated facial structures. I personally like the style of shading used for In the Crowd, it powerfully adds to the emotions of the image.
Work Cited
“Digital History.” Digital History. N.p., n.d. Web. 5 Apr. 2014. <http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=8&psid=2513&filepath=http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/primarysources_upload/images/in_the_crowd_l.jpg>.
“Wikipedia.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 5 Apr. 2014. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grant_Wood#Paintings>.
“» Millard Sheets: The Early Years.” RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 5 Apr. 2014. <http://art-for-a-change.com/blog/2010/02/millard-sheets-the-early-years.html>.
nlrood 
Great Post! I also chose to write about the influence the Great Depression had on art during the early modern era. To think if the FDR administration didn’t created the WPA there would be very little art to come out of the early modern era; I am glad that they understood how important artwork is to a countries history. I really liked the flow of your blog. The picture you chose, Abandoned, by Sheets is beautiful, and I really like that one because it really shows how abstract art was popular during this time. I like that he chose almost all white horses and darker colors for the rest of the painting; it really shows the chaos of an abandoned farm, as the horses are running around without guidance. I can’t imagine growing up during the Great Depression; it was such a hard time on so many people. Did you come across any of the mural work that was done during the Great Depression that artists were tasked to do through the WPA? The murals include history of the state in which they were painted in; they were painted in post offices, universities, or other government type buildings. They are pretty incredible.
Here is a video on a mural of an Illinois Post Office. Enjoy.
Your connection to the Great Depression was great! The abstractness of these works were also similar to the connections I made to the influences of African American art. Your descriptions of the styles used in your first piece was the best I saw. Your aesthetic appreciation wasn’t as in depth but I still saw your appreciation of the works.
Nice work! I enjoy how different each of the pieces you chose are from each other without straying from the theme. I find the third one particularly iconic. The people look so dour, and the elongated faces and dark color scheme, and even the title help to get the point across. (If you’ll pardon the bad joke, “why the long face?”)
The second painting almost seems a bit surreal in its effort to show a happy and normal middle class family. Do you think this ideal, mixed with the New Deal’s huge economic boosting attempt may have influenced the incredible materialism we saw in the 1950s?