Description
Book SynopsisProvides evidence that Walt Whitman's engagement with the visual arts extended beyond photography into painting, printmaking, and sculpture. Discussing Whitman's gradual emergence as an American, democratic, and radical figure, this book is of interest both to Whitman specialists and to readers seeking an introduction to Whitman's role as a poet.
Trade Review“Bohan demonstrates a far greater and more sustained network of associations linking Whitman with nineteenth-century visual culture than has previously been known. Along with tracing Whitman’s connection to artists and art institutions, Bohan surveys all of the known paintings and sketches done of Whitman during his lifetime.”
—Kenneth M. Price,University of Nebraska, Lincoln
“Ruth Bohan’s Looking into Walt Whitman is a deeply researched, well-written, and beautifully illustrated book, including more than 100 color and black-and-white images, some of which have never been published before.”
—William Pannapacker Walt Whitman Quarterly Review
“Writing in lucid, accessible prose, Bohan provides extended analyses of the multiple connections between Whitman and the visual arts both during his life and in the three decades following his death. In addition to being meticulously researched, the book is beautiful, with glossy pages richly embellished with color and black-and-white illustrations.”
—Yelizaveta P. Renfro American Literary Realism
Table of ContentsContents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part 1
Imaging Whitman: The Nineteenth Century
1. The “Gathering of the Forces” in Brooklyn
2. Masks, Identity, and Representation
3. Visual Self-Fashioning and Artistic (Re)Assessment
4. Reception and Representation in the 1880s
5. Thomas Eakins and the “Solitary Singer”
Part 2
Whitman and the Modernists: The Twentieth Century
6. Marsden Hartley’s Masculine Landscapes
7. Robert Coady and The Soil
8. Joseph Stella’s Brooklyn Bridge
Bibliography
Index
