Sources Of Country Music Essay

The art piece The Sources of Country Music was painted by the regionalist artist Thomas Hart Benton, in which he portrays the different styles of country music that were part of the lives of rural Americans of that time. Benton created this art piece in 1975 for the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. This painting is quite big as it is 72 x 120 inches (Thomas). The media that Benton used for this piece was acrylic paint on canvas (Thomas). Benton portrays real life scenes, in which were brought to life, by using various artistic elements such as line, shape, unity, and color. There are multiple things going on in this painting, but all of the characters seem to come together in this painting by most of them facing toward each other bringing the viewers focus toward the middle, unifying the work. Another noticeable thing about this painting is that it looks as

He drew different scenes of actual country music life such as a southern choir singing and holding hymns which portrays a religious aspect of southern women at the time. There are fiddler players and square dancers which portray country past times as this was a form of entertainment for people in the south. There is also a singing cowboy which is an iconic symbol for country music. There are also barefoot ladies playing an instrument showing a sense of them being carefree and a banjo player which depicts the music of African-Americans of that time. Benton portrayed the different aspects of country music very well in this painting. One gets the sense of confusion at first with so much going on in the painting, but once the scenes are broken down individually, one can differentiate all that is going on. Even with a lot going on in this painting, Benton still managed to do a good job of bringing all the scenes together, making them all work good together and play off of each other, in turn, depicting a real life description of country