The Ballad of the Jealous Lover of Lone Green Valley, Thomas Hart Benton

Exhibition Label:
"This Land," Mar-2014, Kate Meyer
Down on her knees before him
She humbly begged for life
But into her snowy bosom
He plunged the fatal knife.
“Oh, Edward, I forgive you,
Although this be my last breath.
For I never have deceived you,”
Then she closed her eyes in death.
-Excerpt from the ballad
In Ballad of the Jealous Lover, musicians bring to life a folksong of violence and betrayal, suggesting the power of folk music and vernacular storytelling in the American imagination. In the ballad, Edward stabs his lover in a jealous rage only to discover too late that he has doubted her unjustly.
Benton, Grant Wood from Iowa, and John Steuart Curry from Kansas became known as Regionalist artists, producing imagery that was typically Midwestern in subject, but archetypically “American” in content. Benton observed and mythologized the heroes, outlaws, tragedies, and traditions of American folk life, finding universal themes in local culture. His interests can be appreciated as part of a national phenomenon that took place amidst the crisis of the Great Depression, when many sought out a usable interpretation of America’s past. This resurgent interest in American history and folklore provided assurance that the nation possessed the ability to rebound from tragedy. Benton argued that Regionalist art “symbolized aesthetically what the majority of Americans had in mind - America itself.”

Archive Label 1994:
Together with Grant Wood and John Steuart Curry, Thomas Hart Benton dominated the Regionalist movement which celebrated rural America and its citizens. Benton, a native Missourian, sought inspiration for his subject matter by traveling around the country during the Great Depression, visiting coal mines, wheatfields, and even religious revival meetings.

Benton made numerous sketches for this work, some of which are in the Spencer Museum's collection. The painting is part of a series inspired by popular folksongs. This one begins "It was down in a lone green valley/ Where the roses bloom and fade...." In the foreground, three musicians play the ballad while behind them the final confrontation is enacted between the murderer and his innocent sweetheart. Benton's distinctive swirling bands connect the two groups and suggest both rolling hills and the vibrating chords of music. Benton furthers the allusion to the folk song by including musical notes.

Apart from the fiddler, who Benton said represented "a genuine Ozark fiddler from Jasper, Arkansas," his models for the figures are relatives and students of the artist. Benton's sister-in-law Lucy Piacenza is the tragic victim, and the young Jackson Pollock posed for the man playing the jaw (sic) harp.