In Grant Wood's lithograph, a farmer rests from toil, having installed a very long row of fence posts that form a path to a distant barn. The stylized landscape of rolling hills is orderly, and the smiling figure, his shovel a symbol of his labor, seems satisfied and optimistic. Created at the end of the 1930s, the decade of the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, and countless farm foreclosures, Wood's image is an idealized view of a seemingly happier time.
Gallery label from American Modern: Hopper to O'Keeffe, August 17, 2013–January 26, 2014 .