Grant Wood painted American Gothic, but that painting wouldn’t necessarily jump to mind looking at this fabulous, muscular charcoal drawing. This work shines, more for its formal qualities and skillful execution than for its content of a bucolic scene with a buggy and farm in the distance. The way the road zig-zags through the middle like a space-age typeface, the bulbous, spherical hills, the amazing shading! The sky is practically an afterthought: this is all about what's on the ground, a love song to finding the extraordinary in the commonplace. Look around, Grant seems to say, this earth is breathtaking.

Further reading on how Grant made this drawing: https://glasstire.com/2021/05/04/do-art-critics-need-to-know-how-the-sausage-is-made/

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