Look at this painting
You know it, right? It sounds familiar. Sure it does. It is really famous.
However, you don't know the author, right?
Well, here it comes the appetizer (tapa= small Spanish dish meaning short video)
Hi. I'm Antonio García Villarán.
Kubin, what are you doing there? What do you want?
Look. The blue cat
Well, as I was saying I'm going to tell you all the secrets about this painting which I consider to be the first meme in history and I'm going to tell you why
First of all because it is anonymous like all memes we don't know who has made it
Do you know who has painted this canvas?
Does it sound familiar?
Of course when we talk about the Sistine Chapel,
 someone comes to mind right away. Who? Well, Michelangelo
Orif I tell you about the Sunflowers...
Who painted them? Van Gogh, right?
Or  what about the Guernica canvas? Who painted the Guernica? Picasso
It comes to mind right away
but we know almost nothing about this painting
How is this painting called? It is called American Gothic
Who did paint it?
It was painted by someone called Grant Wood
Grant Wood or...
 *pronounces in different ways*
Well, but as I was saying, the second reason why I think it's the first meme in history is because since it was first painted it has become viral
Everybody knows about it
and this painting is before the existance of social media
It's from the beginning of the century
And the third reason is that there have been countless interpretations of this work
You will see some of them throughout this video, not all of them because they are millions.
Some are very funny. Well,actually, almost all of them are.
But you could tell me "Antonio, no way, the first meme was the Mona Lisa"
It is falling down
Hanuman, what do you want?
Hanuman
So, you can tell me the first meme is the  Mona Lisa by Duchamp the one with the little moustache
However, it is not because everybody knows the author of this postcard
It is by Marcel Duchamp. It is in every book.
It is not anonymous.
It has become a new work itself.
Although, it is true that the Mona Lisa has also been interpreted in many ways
Here's a video where I talk about the "Mona Lisa" so you can see what I think about it.
Well, it turns out that the author of this painting is someone called Grant Wood
I've already said it before
He was born in 1891 and this work was made in 1930
He painted during the time of the Great Depression
He exhibited it in a contest, it received the bronze medal, meaning he was third place.
He received as well 300 dollars and then 300 more was added to this quantity because the Art Institute of Chicago liked his piece of work
And they decided to buy it.
So, eventually, he earned 600 dollars with this painting
Not too much, not too much
The good guy of Grant didn't expect this work to become what has become today
Since its origin it has always had a great international impact
It has been used for advertising campaigns
To make comical illustrations
I mean, for everything
However, this painter was considered an outdated painter at his time
Just imagine: It was 1930 and all the avant-gardes were kicking in
There was abstract expressionism and cubism which was already more than outdated
There was impressionism, expressionism...all together.
And now this gentleman appears doing this kind of costumbrist painting and of course
But why did this painting work so well?
Well, when I see it I have the feeling of have already seen it.
How cannot I see it before? It is inspired, for example, in the Van Eyck painting.
The Flemish painter, "The Arnolfini Marriage" which is, by the way, from 1434, so...
As you can see, the composition is very similar
However, it is in reverse position
But not only that
Portrait has  been practiced a lot along history
However, couple's portrait has been painted less
But this painting has a peculiarity that makes it very special
It is not a portrait of two famous or known people
They are two anonymous people, this means it is a generalist portrait
When you paint a portrait you usually paint someone, don't you?
Well, this is a portrait of American society at the time
It's a whole stereotype
That's why it is so successful
Also, since this portrait appeared, the criticism about it don't agree at all
Some of them say it is or it was a satire
Others said it was not. They said the purpose was to extoll the American peasant and his way of life as something ideal
However, what everyone agreed on was that it  represented perfectly the essence of the American town
And, in 1941 the Fortune  magazine published this portrait in its pages when the Second World War broke out
And they wrote down the following sentence:
“Government of the
people, by the people and for the people shall not perish from the earth.”
Just imagine you paint a small canvas about  without any kind of intention
A painting about a couple which was not even a couple. She is his sister (the sister's author). He chose his 32 year old sister to pose for the painting
And  the man who appears was  his dentist who was 62 years old
Again, critics do not agree again on deciding if they are father and daughter or a marriage...
Also, the title of American Gothic or Carpenter Gothic
 (it depends on the book you read)
It comes from the small house you can see behind them which is from Gothic style.
It was a type of construction that was made of wood in the 19th century that had pointed windows
and that's why they were called gothic houses
In fact, the history says that Grant saw this farm, which was built in 1882 and it still exists
and he liked it, he made a sketch of it and then he painted it.
Also, he took pictures of it and he included them in the painting
Now, the house has become a tourist attraction in Iowa
People go there to take selfies. If you want a good selfie you can go this house in Iowa and take one.
Regarding this painter, I've read some people saying he was simple and clumsy
I am not saying this but according to what I've read he was a bit of a redneck
He was a orphan at the age of 10, he lost his father.
Although he had humble origins, he was able to study at some schools. In fact, he spent three years in Paris
However, he didn't get to have formal or regulated studies as we called it.
There is also another anecdote which I don't know if it is made up or not
But the story is beautiful
It is said that his father used to give him burned sticks which are charcoals
So the child could amuse himself by scribbling around the farm
This man, although he managed with only one work being able to be around the biggest personalities
He did not have a very prolific career because he died soon
It is also said that during the First World War, he invested his time in decorating tanks and camouflage cannons
He didn't paint them for a canvas, he decorated them so they were camouflaged
Well, when he was in Paris and he saw the impressionists, the expressionists and all these people
He realized that was not what he wanted to do
So, he traveled a little more before returning back to the U.S
And that's how he got to see pieces of work by Durero, Vermeer, Raphael, Murillo, Van Eyck and of course they became his authentic mentors
The classics, really, the classic ones.
In fact, don't think he worked a lot on this painting
His real inspiration were Victorian photo albums
Here you could see farmers posing with their partners and with their working tools
Plus, they were always posing very serious, looking at the camera because they couldn't really move
and he simply copied this
But what did people see in this canvas?
They could see the typical Americans of that period of time
First, this painting was a mirror because it represented him
Second, it was a simple American family like most families at that time
Third,They were Puritans meaning they did not have a single flaw
At least they look like it.
Fourth: the painting doesn't have any political symbol, so it represents the entire population. No one is left out
And fifth: It represents the self-sufficiency within a family.
For these reasons, it reached and filled the heart  of all and every American citizen as well as the entire world
But of course I see much more in this painting because I've look at it closely and her face has a disconcerting  look.
I don't know if she is challenging the man or if she is the daughter telling her dad she is stuck there and she wants something else in her life.
I think she is judging him in a way, isn't she?
Also, she's in the back and he's in the front. She is in the background, she is secondary.
However, if you look closely, she has a loose lock of hair which is a symbol of freedom
She is saying something like "I want to get out of here,
 I can't stand this. I am being repressed".
However he is in front of us, he looks like defending his honor
with that tool he has with a trident shape
During Ancient Greek and Roman times the trident belonged to the God Neptune. He was the God of all waters and all seas
In this case he would be a kind of God. 
The God of the peasants.
Or the God of his house.
Also, if you look closely this trident has three very bright points
He is saying something like " do not dare to teeter my world or I'll stick this in you"
I'll stick it
So, for all these reasons and  for all the parodies made during the 40's and 50's
Well, until our days, really. They are still coming out.
Like this much
But come on, they've even made a giant hyper-realistic sculpture of the American Gothic painting in Florida
and they put heads of urban tribes, presidents...
With these videos, I always try to find out why some pieces of work become so famous
why they get where they do
And the truth is that each one has its own peculiarity
One reaches success for one thing and another for a whole different reason
I will leave you down below some links to other videos like this one of this section so you can see other examples
how fascinating
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A Sphynx cat appetizer
Well, that's all. Bye!
So warm
The other one too? Cali?
This is it.
It's my life.
Cali, what do you want?
