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Thomas Hart Benton

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"Thomas Hart Benton" is a revealing and immensely watchable biography of an artist who probably reached more Americans than any other. As Ken Burns ably proves, Benton's work captured the spirit and history of the average American man and woman.

Combining samples of Benton's work, interviews with art critics, family, friends and enemies as well as footage of Benton himself, Burns presents a perfectly balanced approach to an artist's life and his statement of America as a struggling, vibrant land.

You don't have to like Benton's art to like this film. In fact, several of the critics Burns interviewed for this one-hour documentary dismiss Benton as a serious artist. However, what they say about Benton is as revealing as the praise of critics who revere him. Perfectly balanced and entertaining.

I originally came across this video at the public library, and have checked it out so many times, I finally decided to buy a copy. I show it to my art appreciation classes for two reasons. Very few Americans know who Thomas Hart Benton was, and what he contributed to American Art. Also, he was a friend and mentor to Jackson Pollock. The documentary is very well done, and enjoyable to watch. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in American Art and artists of the 20th Century.

What is remarkable is what a cohesive story this truly comprehensive bio of THB makes. As all documentarians do, Burns clearly had to help along/trace out the narrative thread, but the brilliance of this particular film is that the story of it just seems to emerge on its own.

Also, the story of THB's death is particularly moving. The entire film is a great intro to THB and is accessible for any audience. Even those who feel distanced from the "aloof" world of art will really enjoy this film. This film opened my eyes to actually appreciate art. Previously I was turned off completely by what I saw (and indeed often still see) as pretension.

SUMMARY: The film traces THB's childhood and early training, his time of formal training in Europe and life in NY. After that, THB rejected the elitist world of the NY art scene and instead went back to Missouri and became one of the triumvirate of American Regionalists (John Stueart Curry and Grant Wood were the other two--FYI GW painted American Gothic, the most famous American painting of a farmer and his daughter, though most people think it's his wife. Anyway, THB's work is in much the same vein--Americana). In his work, THB tried to capture America and all its ambivalences. That's why I say it's honest. Though critics might say he was too "Pollyanna"-ish, I would disagree, and I think you will after seeing this film.

I cannot recommend this film enough. Anyone who is interested in the concept of "America" (you know, the optimism, hope, dream, nightmare, utopia, distopia, democratic promise, dark underbelly--all the contradictory impulses within the myth of America) will find this a vital part of that dialogue.

This documentary clarified some things for me. My father told me about all of the Thomas Hart Benton paintings in the town he grew up in, Neosha, Missouri. In fact, one of his closest childhood friends was painted playing baseball in one of the Neosha paintings. What my father failed to tell me was that Benton was from Neosha, which certainly explains why he favored the town with his art. Not that it was unusual for Benton to place his work in small Midwestern towns (though Neosha really is more of a Southern town).

So, because of my father's stories of his childhood, I was always attuned to his art, even though for some reason I never learned much about his life. I knew that he was related to the famous senator Thomas Hart Benton, possibly the most famous senator of his time not to be one of the Great Triumvirate, Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and John C. Calhoun. Had there been a quartet of great senators instead of the trio, Benton would have been included. I had my interest in Benton's art, if not his life, intensified when I was a student at Yale and took a drive one day to the New Britain Museum of American Art in New Britain. My then-wife and I went through the first part of the museum, thought that that was all, turned a corner, and discovered a new and huge wing. the portion that most impressed me was a display of a series of huge Benton paintings in a series called "The Arts of Life in America." The size and scope of the paintings were just overwhelming. I loved the energy and personality that radiated from the paintings and I instantly became a bigger fan of his work than I had previously been. What I liked was that his was a unique and entirely personal vision. He was not beholding to particular schools or movements. He reminds me of Walt Whitman in that he is determined to present American life in all its diversity and complexity, both good and bad. So just as Whitman tried to depict every kind of person in American society -- at one point putting himself both in the shoes of an escaped slave and the slave hunter -- so Benton put images of a KKK rally in his Indiana painting for the Chicago World's Fair.

The documentary shows the range of Benton's work and the highlights of his life, as well as the public reaction to his work. You certainly will come away from it with a good sense of what Benton was able to achieve in his work. It is also a great example of Ken Burns work just before becoming a household name with his landmark THE CIVIL WAR. I love that in total Burns's documentaries tell the story of America. There are still some areas that he needs to cover. First and foremost, Burns should do a history of religion in America. If he were to do that, he would have pretty much summed up everything that the country was about. This documentary might be one of the smaller pieces of the great puzzle depicting American life and history. But he has perhaps twenty-five or thirty years of work left in him. When he is done we'll have the single best body of work depicting what American was all about.