The Virtual Museum of:
Labor (topic)_____Corrine Towner______
Mount proportional reproductions or thumbnail sketches of each entire image. Use additional pages
as necessary.
Catalog Entry # 2 /4
Date: 1-29-10
Alternative Image #1:
Title: Woman Sewing by Lamplight
Artist: Jean-Francois Millet
Date: 1870-1872
Medium: oil on canvas
Image Source: _http://library.artstor.org/library
Alternative Image #2:
Title: Young Girl Picking Cotton
Artist: Earl Dotter
Date: 1982
Medium: Photomechanical print, postcard, non-projected
Black and white
Image Source : http://library.artstor.org/library
Selected Image
Title: Tobacco Country
Artist: Dorothea Lange
Date: 1938
Medium: Photography
Size: NA
Style: Documentary/ social realism
Location: Rural Georgia
Image Source: Borhan, Pierre. Dorothea Lange:
The Heart and Mind of a Photographer. Boston –
New York – London, 2002: 121.
Comprehensive description of Subject Matter and its placement in the composition
A woman sits, arms across her lap, resting her elbows on her knees in the upper central area of the
picture. She is wearing a simple, slightly smudged, lightly striped dress, has dirty bare feet and a little
gray in her hair. She is sitting in a fairly ornate wooden chair with turned spindles and carved designs.
Around her from the right to the foreground and to the left center are tobacco leaves laid out on a
wooden plank floor. Behind her, for a background, are the wooden planks and posts of a wall and
doorway.
Salient Characteristics of Expressive Form (Visual Elements and use of Principles of Design)
Emphasis and Subordination: The light dress of the woman stands out as the dominant form
at first but its contrast with her dark skin calls more attention to her expressive face. The elements of
the picture all surround her as a frame.
Value Pattern: Much of the photograph contains mid tones, with the tobacco leaves and the
door post behind her contributing lighter shades. The figure of the woman herself contains the greatest
contrast with her light dress and dark skin. Some of the darkest areas are around the woman’s feet,
around and under her chair and in the right side of the doorway.
Color: A black and white photograph may only have colors implied through shading.
Organization of Illusory Space: The background is a solid wall of planks, pulling back a bit
toward the left. The open door to the left with the curve of the tobacco leaves and her chair frame the
figure of the woman.
Directional Forces/Implied Lines: The wall behind the woman supplies vertical lines and
the planking of the floor add to the effect of a box-like space as do the horizontal lines in the wall and
chair back. The tobacco leaves all have their stems pointing toward the figure, creating a halo around
her feet.
Rhythm and Repetition: The tobacco leaves arranged to point toward the figure of the
woman are the most striking example of repetition. These possess an irregular linearity to contrast
with the somewhat more regular planks of the floor and wall. The back of the chair also has the
repeating shape of the spindles.
Comprehensive Description of Narrative and/or Context (historical, religious, biographical,
and/or mythological)
A tobacco farmer of the 1930’s sits in her chair with her crop spread out for drying or
processing. This Depression era woman is probably looking over one of her major sources of income
for the year. As a farmer she might not own the land she works but she is employed and can generally
keep or sell some of what she grows. Dorothea Lange wanted to portray her subjects as realistically as
possible while still showing something about her own understanding of society using form and
composition.
Research Sources Consulted (use MLA citation)
Style/Artist Cross Check in ArtForms (chapter title, subheading, and page number):
Chapter 22- Between World Wars, Political Protest, pp 412-413.
Description of relevant information from the textbook applied to other research and your context
summary: Not much here except as shown above.
General Background Sources for relevant content of Narrative, Context, Mythology, History,
and/or Artist Biography, etc. (Complete URL or MLA citations)
1. Davies, Denny, Hofrichter. Jacobs, Roberts, Simon. Janson’s History of Art, 7th Edition. Upper
Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2007: 1031.
2. Borhan, Pierre. Dorothea Lange: The Heart and Mind of a Photographer. A Bulfinch Press
Book, Little, Brown and Company: Boston – New York – London, 2002: 121.
3. Dorothea Lange: Photographs of a Lifetime. Essay by Robert Coles. The Aperture Foundation
Inc., New York, 1982 reprinted in 1995: 175-180.
Style and content information from Authoritative Published Source (Art Reference Book)
History of Modern Art Defines Lange as a documentary photographer and mentions her start as a
portrait photographer in San Francisco in the 1920’s. It shows the photograph “Migrant Mother”,
taken in 1936 as her most famous work. Janson’s History of Art mentions more about the
compositional details of that particular work and calls Lange’s style Social Realism as opposed to
Documentary.
Authoritative Published Source/Art Reference Book (use MLA citation)
H. H. Arnason. History of Modern Art: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, Photography 5th Edition.
Upper Saddle River New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall, Inc. 2004: 395.
Special Signifiers (Subject Matter, Focal Points, Details)
1) Important Personal Associations
This lady looks tired but satisfied as she finishes her work with her crop. She has it there in front of
her and may be counting the revenue it can bring to her- or she may be thinking of consuming it
herself over the next year or so. She is living through the depression, but has employment and her
crop is safe under cover and hers to protect. She is living in the best way she can manage and is proud
of herself.
2) Researched Associations and Iconography
There isn’t any iconography in this image. It’s obvious to associate tobacco farmers with
tobacco and 1936 with the depression.
Sources: none___________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________
Four thorough descriptions of specific interactions of Subject Matter, Form,
Narrative/Context, and/or Iconography in your image. Use complete sentences to link evidence
from personal observation with evidence from contextual research
1. The woman in “Tobacco Country” has a proud, satisfied look, but her hunched posture and
elbows that resting on her knees indicate that she is also tired from her labor.
2. The flow of the tobacco leaves surrounding her but also pointing toward her attest to her
connection to her crop and her crop’s connection to her. She seems to radiate solidity to contrast to
the tobacco leaves’ impermanence.
3. Though living through the Depression, this woman isn’t sad or destitute. She can use her
connection to the Earth, suggested by her dirty feet, to make her living.
4. This woman has a respectable position; a job she can sit down in her chair to perform. Both
she and the chair appear sturdy and worn by time but they are still able and doing their respective jobs.
Summarize and unify the evidence above using complete sentences. Develop a complex and
complete description of what theme this image and its context suggest to you about your topic.
A connection to the Earth can give strength to those who aren’t rich in material things. Having a
job to do and being in a position to see it to completion is a source of pride even in a worldwide
economic collapse. Lange’s Documentary style of photography seemed to emphasize her subject and
diminish her own personal input more than a painting of a similar subject would. A worker shown
large in this way, looking as if she has just been working her crops, seems glorified in scale, but
diminished in the details. This woman has not been cleaned up for the photograph but portrays the
dignity of the worker.
One sentence summary: 1) a relevant, significant and thematic interpretation your topic based
on 2) essential aspects of observed form and 3) researched context.
The subject in “Tobacco Country” is a proud, hard working woman shown with her crop curving
around her and her solid walls protecting her emphasizing her role as a proud worker.
Virtual Museum of ______Labor________listed by Artist, Style, Date, and Title:
#1 Jean-Francois Millet, Realism, 1860-1862, “Man with a Hoe”____________________________
#2 Dorothea Lange, Documentary, 1936, “Tobacco Country”________________________________
#3________________________________________________________________________________
#4________________________________________________________________________________