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

Artwork Overview

1889–1975
The Ballad of the Jealous Lover of Lone Green Valley, 1934
Where object was made: United States
Material/technique: oil; tempera; aluminum; canvas
Dimensions:
Canvas/Support (Height x Width x Depth): 104.8 x 133.4 cm
Canvas/Support (Height x Width x Depth): 41 1/4 x 52 1/2 in
Frame Dimensions (Height x Width x Depth): 51 1/2 x 62 1/4 x 4 in
Credit line: Museum purchase: Elizabeth M. Watkins Fund
Accession number: 1958.0055
On display: Michaelis Gallery

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Images

Label texts

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.

Resources

Video

Listen to "The Jealous Lover of Lone Green Valley"
Hear a recording of the Ballad of the Jealous Lover.

Audio

Art Minute with David Cateforis
Didactic – Art Minute
Art Minute with David Cateforis
Didactic – Art Minute
Episode 21. I’m David Cateforis, with another Art Minute from the Spencer Museum of Art. There’s a murder in progress in the museum! Relax! It occurs in a painting. Your eyes are drawn to the two central figures set in a moonlit rural landscape. A woman looks up in surprise as she clutches her blood-soaked chest. A man hovers over her, his face contorted with hatred, grasping a bloody knife in his oversized hand. In contrast to this violent scene is a trio of somber country musicians in the lower right hand corner. Connecting the two scenes are swirling bands of color containing musical notes, which indicate that the murder is the subject of the song. Swirling, rhythmic lines are a stylistic hallmark of Thomas Hart Benton, who painted this picture in 1934. Benton, a Regionalist artist from Neosho, Missouri, painted what he knew best: rural midwestern life. Here he illustrates The Ballad of the Jealous Lover of Lone Green Valley, a traditional Ozark folksong. In the ballad, a man stabs his lover in a jealous rage only to discover too late that he doubted her unjustly. Benton’s evocative painting captures the essence of that tragic song. With thanks to Nancy Hernandez for her text, from the Spencer Museum of Art, I’m David Cateforis.
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Why don’t the musicians notice the murder taking place? This painting by Missouri artist Thomas Hart Benton is based on a traditional Ozark folk song called “The Ballad of the Jealous Lover of Lone Green Valley.” In the painting, the words of the song come to life behind the musicians.
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Listen to core object information.
Audio Description
Listen to core object information.
Audio Description
The artist is Thomas Hart Benton, born 1889 in Neosho, Missouri, died 1975 in Kansas City, Missouri. The title of this work is The Ballad of the Jealous Lover of Lone Green Valley, created in 1934 in the United States. The work is made with oil and tempera paint on canvas, mounted on aluminum panel.
Listen to Audio Description
Audio Description
Listen to Audio Description
Audio Description
Ballad of the Jealous Lover of Lone Green Valley is a painting with five figures depicted in a swirling, fluid style. In the center, a woman reclines on a hillside clutching her bloody chest and looking up at a shadowy man who stands over her holding a knife dripping with blood. She wears a knee-length pink dress and is barefoot. The man wears a black-brimmed hat, a red shirt, and blue jeans. Between them, the moon rises just above the horizon. An ivory whirl of musical notes leads from behind the woman past a cow and haystack to the three figures in the extreme lower right foreground. Three men sit at a table playing music, removed and oblivious to the scene behind them. One, at left, with blonde hair and a brown vest holds his hands to his mouth playing a mouth harp. The center figure wears a hat and plays a fiddle, looking out toward us standing in front of the painting. The third musician holds a harmonica in his hand resting on the table. His mouth is open slightly as if he is singing. The landscape fills the rest of the canvas, whirling up from the lower left, past the central couple, and over a hillside reminiscent of the Ozark Mountains where the artist Thomas Hart Benton is from. In the upper left a tree trunk frames a small house with a porch and a nearby outhouse.
Listen to Label Text
Audio Description
Listen to Label Text
Audio Description
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 folk song 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, along with 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.”
Listen to App Text
Audio Description
Listen to App Text
Audio Description
You are now in the exhibition This Land, which focuses on the power and grandeur of American art. First, listen to a recording of the song “The Ballad of the Jealous Lover of Lone Green Valley” as you look at the painting. (Tap the Web icon). How does the artist make the song visible? 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. Thomas Hart Benton was part of an art movement beginning in the 1920s in which artists developed a fundamental American artistic style known as Regionalism. Benton often fused historical and mythological characters into one scene. For example, in this painting Benton blends the fictional characters of the song connected to the historical musicians with a swirl of musical notes.
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