# American Regionalism (アメリカン・リージョナリズム)

> A movement in Depression-era America that refused the European avant-garde and painted the farming and labour of the Midwest in realist terms. Rolling hills, stylised figures and legible narrative became national imagery by way of murals, magazines and postage stamps. The classic case of a region turned into a style.

- IndexStyle No.484 — https://indexstyle.org/styles/american-regionalism
- Kind: Style · Family: American Modern Art · Era: 1930–1943
- Mood: Nostalgia, Trust, Intimacy
- Color cues: #e9e6dd / #67635d / #171615 (cues taken from reference works, not a fixed palette)

## Defining characteristics

- Compositions of rolling hills and farmland
- Stylised, plain-spoken figures
- Scenes with a clearly legible narrative
- Colour keyed to the earth

## Best used for

- Civic and cooperative identity for agriculture, regional food and public utilities, where a place has to look as though it belongs to the people who work it
- Large-format mural and packaging illustration that must tell its story from across a room

## Research method

This entry records a historical style; derive the treatment from its sources rather than a fixed recipe:

- A sturdy slab or heavy-stemmed grotesque, set in short declarative lines like a mural caption.
- A single figure or task at mid-height, the ground curving behind it in bands, the horizon high and the sky small.
- Earth pigments of ochre, umber and oxide green, printed on stock warm enough to keep the whites off white.

## What to avoid

Borrowing the rolling fields as nostalgic wallpaper: stripped of the labour that is its actual subject, the style collapses into the folksy pastiche its critics accused it of.

## Application checklist

Before calling a piece an application of this style, check it against the defining characteristics:

- [ ] Compositions of rolling hills and farmland
- [ ] Stylised, plain-spoken figures
- [ ] Scenes with a clearly legible narrative
- [ ] Colour keyed to the earth
- [ ] At least one reference work below has been studied directly
- [ ] The caution above ("What to avoid") has been addressed

## Related styles

- **Mexican Muralism (メキシコ壁画運動)** — Paints post-revolutionary history, labor, indigenous culture and visions of the future onto the vast walls of public buildings. → https://indexstyle.org/styles/mexican-muralism
- **WPA Poster (WPAポスター)** — Carries a public purpose broadly and forcefully through simple imagery and few printed colors. → https://indexstyle.org/styles/wpa-poster

## Further study

- The difference between Grant Wood and Thomas Hart Benton
- Its relation to the public mural programmes
- The critique of its nationalism

## Reference works

- Grant Wood《アメリカン・ゴシック》1930 — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Grant%20Wood%20-%20American%20Gothic%20-%20Google%20Art%20Project.jpg
- Thomas Hart Benton《America Today》壁画 — アメリカ国立公文書記録管理局 / Public domain — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:America%20Today%20-%20NARA%20-%20534340.jpg
- Thomas Hart Benton 壁画の細部（トルーマン大統領図書館）— Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 2.0 — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Detail%20of%20Thomas%20Hart%20Benton%20Mural%20-%20Harry%20S.%20Truman%20Presidential%20Library%20-%20Independence%20-%20Missouri%20-%20USA%20(27946047578).jpg

## Source of record

- Wikipedia — American Regionalism — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Regionalism

## Machine surfaces

- JSON: https://indexstyle.org/api/styles/american-regionalism
- Image-generation prompt (legally clean): https://indexstyle.org/styles/american-regionalism/prompt.txt
- MCP: https://indexstyle.org/mcp (tools: search_styles, get_style, compose_styles; prompts: image-prompt, apply-style)

## 日本語

大恐慌期のアメリカで、ヨーロッパ前衛を拒み中西部の農村と労働を写実的に描いた運動。うねる丘陵、様式化された人物、明快な物語性が、壁画・雑誌・切手を通じて国民的な図像になった。地域性を様式にした典型例。

特徴: うねる丘陵と農地の構図／様式化された素朴な人物／明快な物語の場面／土色を基調とした彩色
注意: 表面的な記号へ還元せず、時代・地域・技術・制作主体の文脈を確認する。