LTEA 142 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Gerald Nachman, Buster Keaton, Grant Wood
Document Summary
There were depths beyond which even someone brave or foolish enough to exhibit. Grant wood could not be induced to sink to. Grand wood"s artistic credentials have been under attack since he was first exhibited. Gerald nachman: wondered why operagoers would put up with its silly and sentimental libretto. I realized it must be the american reverence for all things european and our tendency to take for granted all things quintessentially american. I thought we were over that but it"s too ingrained; we"re patriotic about everything but our art . Americans, long after they declared their political independence, retained a colonial mentality in matters of culture and intellect. Nachman felt it necessary to place his iconoclasm in proper perspective by making a bow to the prevailing icons and traditional definitions. Problem: to place a film director alongside noted authors and artists, rather than under them, is to risk eroding hierarchy. Stuart levine: studied shakespeare"s relationship to nineteenth-century americans.
