The Picturesque Rural Landscape

As a dominant style of American art during the 1930s, Regionalism offered realistic depictions of small-town and rural America. Included in this set are two prints by Isaac Sanger, the New York Graphic Arts Division’s professional printmaker who worked closely with the artists employed by the Division. These urban-based artists depicted an exacerbated nostalgia for rural life that erases much of the nuanced vision of the preeminent Regionalists. Picturesque landscapes instead create an imagined rural America. Most of the works here are woodcuts, a technique largely absent from American Regionalism prior to the FAP. These prints are offset by a photograph of the peeling and decaying facade of a rural church by the Farm Security Administration (FSA) photographer Walker Evans, who depicted the actuality of the experienced countryside.