Explore the Commentary and influence of this artwork.
According to Kroiz, the composition is "almost theatrically staged". Adams interpreted the barn on the left and the outbuilding to the right as the coulisses, or scenery flats, of a stage set. The painting's sense of drama is heightened by giving some of the figures others to rescue. The principal figures are painted as character stereotypes: the father is broad-shouldered and strong, while the mother and the daughter seem fearful and helpless as they look towards the father; despite the imminent danger, the two sons prioritize grabbing their pets. Adams considered the scene to be either a celebration or dismemberment of traditional American family values. Less ambiguous is the art historian J. Gray Sweeney's interpretation that Tornado over Kansas is an achievement of Curry's goal to "depict the American farmer's incessant struggle against the forces of nature."The central figures are reminiscent of paintings by Baroque artists like Peter Paul Rubens, whom Curry studied. Adams wrote that the turning father resembled Adonis in Rubens's 1635 painting Venus and Adonis, while the art historian Karal Ann Marling described the father as "Michelangelesque"; Marling also likened the mother and infant to a Madonna and Child.
Adams said no American painter before Curry depicted a tornado in such a frightening manner. One artistic precedent is the waterspout in the background of Winslow Homer's 1899 The Gulf Stream, but Adams found this "far less frightening" than Curry's tornado because the waterspout plays a secondary role to the sharks that dominate the foreground. Adams noted another "direct precedent": the tornado in L. Frank Baum's 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which also strikes a Kansas farmstead.Tornado over Kansas is viewed as a sequel to Curry's 1928 Baptism in Kansas, though the former is considered visually and psychologically more dramatic than the latter. The two works share similar settings, and in both, crowded groups of figures in the foregrounds create a sense of claustrophobia (which Curry suffered from) while the near empty backgrounds evoke agoraphobia. Further similarities can be found in their fundamental shape patterns: inverting the water tank and windmill in Baptism in Kansas results in a "spiraling form" that resembles the tornado in Tornado over Kansas.
Peter Paul Rubens tornado claustrophobia Adonis waterspout Michelangelesque Madonna and Child Venus and Adonis Baroque agoraphobia Winslow Homer coulisse Karal Ann Marling L. Frank Baum The Gulf Stream The Wonderful Wizard of Oz Baroque art Baptism in Kansas Kansas Tornado