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Destroyed yet paradoxically preserved by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79, Pompeii and other nearby sites are usually considered places where we can most directly experience the daily lives of ancient Romans. Rather than present these sites as windows to the past, however, the authors of The Last Days of Pompeii: Decadence, Apocalypse, Resurrection explore Pompeii as a modern obsession, in which the Vesuvian sites function as mirrors of the present. Through cultural appropriation and projection, outstanding visual and literary artists of the last three centuries have made the ancient catastrophe their own, expressing contemporary concerns in diverse media--from paintings, prints, an...
This book, featuring the life and works of Ralph Blakelock, situates him in the context of American art. Representing over twenty years of study and the examination of several thousand works attributed to him, Beyond Madness reveals the unusual nature of Blakelock’s life story as it offers clear parallels to his painting. Largely self-taught and supported by few patrons, Blakelock regularly struggled with the financial pressures of supporting his nine children and pursuing his art. Called both brilliant and doomed, and institutionalized on and off for the last decade of his life, he nonetheless created some of the most beloved—and some of the most frequently forged—paintings in the Ame...
This project is made possible through support from the Terra Foundation for American Art. When Elizabeth Cady Stanton penned the Declaration of Sentiments for the first women’s rights convention, held in Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848, she unleashed a powerful force in American society. In A Sisterhood of Sculptors, Melissa Dabakis outlines the conditions under which a group of American women artists adopted this egalitarian view of society and negotiated the gendered terrain of artistic production at home and abroad. Between 1850 and 1876, a community of talented women sought creative refuge in Rome and developed successful professional careers as sculptors. Some of these women have beco...
Secrets in all their variety permeated early modern Europe, from the whispers of ambassadors at court to the emphatically publicized books of home remedies that flew from presses and booksellers’ shops. This interdisciplinary volume draws on approaches from art history and cultural studies to investigate the manifestations of secrecy in printed books and drawings, staircases and narrative paintings, ecclesiastical furnishings and engravers’ tools. Topics include how patrons of art and architecture deployed secrets to construct meanings and distinguish audiences, and how artists and patrons manipulated the content and display of the subject matter of artworks to create an aura of exclusiv...
Thomas Cole (1801–1848) is celebrated as the greatest American landscape artist of his generation. Though previous scholarship has emphasized the American aspects of his formation and identity, never before has the British-born artist been presented as an international figure, in direct dialogue with the major landscape painters of the age. Thomas Cole’s Journey emphasizes the artist’s travels in England and Italy from 1829 to 1832 and his crucial interactions with such painters as Turner and Constable. For the first time, it explores the artist’s most renowned paintings, The Oxbow (1836) and The Course of Empire cycle (1834–36), as the culmination of his European experiences and o...
Much has changed in the world of self-taught art since the millennium. Many of the recognized "masters" have died and new artists have emerged. Many galleries have closed but few new ones have opened, as artists and dealers increasingly sell through websites and social media. The growth and popularity of auction houses have altered the relationship between artists and collectors. In its third edition, this book provides updated information on artists, galleries, museums, auctions, organizations and publications for both experienced and aspiring collectors of self-taught, outsider and folk art. Gallery and museum entries are organized geographically and alphabetically by state and city.
In 1811, architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe spurred American builders into action when he called for them to reject "the corrupt Age of Dioclesian, or the still more absurd and debased taste of Louis the XIV," and to emulate instead the ancient temples of Greece. In response, people in the antebellum trans-Appalachian region embraced the clean lines, intricate details, and stately symmetry of the Grecian style. On newly built public buildings, private homes, and religious structures, references to classical Greek architecture became the preferred ornamentation. Several antebellum cities and towns adopted the moniker of "Athens," styling themselves as centers of culture, education, and sophisti...
'Antiquity Recovered' presents 13 diverse essays that trace how perceptions of the past have changed over the course of three centuries of excavations. They range in subject from a reassessment of the contents of the library at Herculaneum's Villa of the Papyri, to the symbolic appearance of the ancient world in classic films.
Folk art is one of the American South's most significant areas of creative achievement, and this comprehensive yet accessible reference details that achievement from the sixteenth century through the present. This volume of The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture explores the many forms of aesthetic expression that have characterized southern folk art, including the work of self-taught artists, as well as the South's complex relationship to national patterns of folk art collecting. Fifty-two thematic essays examine subjects ranging from colonial portraiture, Moravian material culture, and southern folk pottery to the South's rich quilt-making traditions, memory painting, and African American vernacular art, and 211 topical essays include profiles of major folk and self-taught artists in the region.