Description
Book SynopsisThis volume examines the ways in which artists and critics such as Winslow Homer, Thomas Eakins and Thomas Anshutz, sought to forge a new identity for America during the era of growth and change dubbed the "Gilded Age" because of its leaders' taste for opulence.
Trade Review“Homer, Eakins, and Anshutz is an important contribution to the field of nineteenth-century American art history. Randall Griffin argues that nationalistic concerns in art led to a perceptible shift in subject matter in painting. The new paintings displayed a remarkably large range of subjects, as evidenced by works as different as Thomas Eakins’s Swimming Hole and Winslow Homer’s beloved Adirondack pictures. As Griffin describes in cogent detail, they all bear on or issue out of the question of how ‘American-ness’ can be construed in relation to the enormous weight of European influence and artistic traditions.”
—Anthony Lee,Mount Holyoke College
“Griffin has prepared a rare gem. He combines insightful expert opinion with enough general information so that his book will interest the non-specialist.”
—P.J. Trimpe Choice
“Randall Griffin’s well-written and accessible study.”
—Martin A. Berger CAA Reviews
“Homer, Eakins, and Anshutz: The Search for American Identity in the Gilded Age does several things well.”
—Martin A. Berger CAA Reviews
Table of ContentsContents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Refashioning "America" in Art
2. Negotiating Identity After the Civil War in the Paintings of Winslow Homer
3. A Burst of Unsettling Imagery
4. Finding the Old World at Home
5. Winslow Homer, Avatar of Americanness
6. When America Became Other in the Adirondack Scenes of Winslow Homer
7. Postscript: A Return to American Themes
Bibliography
Index
