Thomas Hart Benton
Dear users, your tune for today should be Johnny Cash (who I adore!).
One can almost hear the music streaming from the canvas—sounds of various string instruments and a chorus of voices. This is not a random grouping of musicians, dancers, and singers; rather, the painting highlights key contributors to the birth and evolution of American country music. The substantial mural, which seems to pulsate with a unified rhythm, was completed by Regionalist artist Thomas Hart Benton in his characteristic fluid style at the age of 85. The Sources of Country Music features sixteen nearly life-sized figures and was commissioned by and hangs in the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, Tennessee.
Benton, who grew up in Missouri and is known for his depictions of everyday life in the Midwest, had a lifelong love of country music, listening to it since childhood. His vision for the mural was that "it should show the roots of the music - the sources - before there were records and stars." As illustrated in the painting, American country music is a blend of many elements and influences. It is rooted in folk songs that arrived with English and Scotch Irish settlers and were adapted to the American landscape and culture. Initially, the tunes were only accompanied by fiddles, but over time, banjos from the Deep South, dulcimers from Appalachia, and guitars linked to the Western plains were added. Likewise, different song styles became integrated, including ballads, Gospel hymns, blues melodies, and Western songs. Barn dances and square dances also played a role in the evolution of country music as did river music (represented by the steamboat) and railroad songs (symbolized by the locomotive).
Famed country music singer Tex Ritter approached Benton about painting the mural but died before it was completed and is immortalized as the singing cowboy in the foreground. Benton was reviewing the completed mural and deciding whether to rework the engine when he died of a heart attack, leaving the painting unsigned.
- Martina Keogan
P.S. And here's a different face of America with 10 unexpected paintings of New York.
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