30) Persophone by Thomas Hart Benton. Benton was the greatest of the American regionalists, and this is his finest painting. Here is the story of Persophone and Hades, a wholly mythological subject in the European tradition. But the painting is equally American, The female figure recalls pin-up calenders of the middle twentieth century, and the landscape is pure Americana. American Gothic may receive all the glory as the apex of regionalist art, but as anyone can see; it is relatively undeserving.
Nelson Museum of Art
Threaded Mode