American Visions: The Epic History of Art in America Hardcover | Pages: 648 pages

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Title	:	American Visions: The Epic History of Art in America
Author	:	Robert Hughes
Book Format	:	Hardcover
Book Edition	:	First Edition
Pages	:	Pages: 648 pages
Published	:	April 22nd 1997 by Knopf (first published January 1st 1997)
Categories	:	Art. History. Art History. Nonfiction. North American Hi.... American History

Relation Toward Books American Visions: The Epic History of Art in America

Writing with all the brilliance, authority, and pungent wit that have distinguished his art criticism for Time magazine and his greatly acclaimed study of modern art, The Shock of the New, Robert Hughes now addresses his largest subject: the history of art in America.

The intense relationship between the American people and their surroundings has been the source of a rich artistic tradition. American Visions is a consistently revealing demonstration of the many ways in which artists have expressed this pervasive connection. In nine eloquent chapters, which span the whole range of events, movements, and personalities of more than three centuries, Robert Hughes shows us the myriad associations between the unique society that is America and the art it has produced:

"O My America, My New Founde Land"  explores the churches, religious art, and artifacts of the Spanish invaders of the Southwest and the Puritans of New England; the austere esthetic of the Amish, the Quakers, and the Shakers; and the Anglophile culture of Virginia.

"The Republic of Virtue"  sets forth the ideals of neo-classicism as interpreted in the paintings of Benjamin West, John Singleton Copley, and the Peale family, and in the public architecture of Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Latrobe, and Charles Bulfinch.

"The Wilderness and the West"  discusses the work of landscape painters such as Thomas Cole, Frederick Church, and the Luminists, who viewed the natural world as "the fingerprint of God's creation,"  and of those who recorded America's westward expansion--George Caleb Bingham, Albert Bierstadt, and Frederic Remington--and the accompanying shift in the perception of the Indian, from noble savage to outright demon.

"American Renaissance" describes the opulent era that followed the Civil War, a cultural flowering expressed in the sculpture of Augustus Saint-Gaudens; the paintings of John Singer Sargent, Mary Cassatt, and Childe Hassam; the Newport cottages of the super-rich; and the beaux-arts buildings of Stanford White and his partners.

"The Gritty Cities"  looks at the post-Civil War years from another perspective: cast-iron cityscapes, the architecture of Louis Henri Sullivan, and the new realism of Thomas Eakins, Winslow Homer, the trompe-l'oeil painters, and the Ashcan School.

"Early Modernism" introduces the first American avant garde: the painters Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartley, Joseph Stella, Charles Demuth, Charles Sheeler, and Georgia O'Keeffe, and the premier architect of his time, Frank Lloyd Wright.

"Streamlines and Breadlines"  surveys the boom years, when skyscrapers and Art Deco were all the rage . . . and the bust years that followed, when painters such as Edward Hopper, Stuart Davis, Thomas Hart Benton, Diego Rivera, and Jacob Lawrence showed Americans "the way we live now."

"The Empire of Signs"  examines the American hegemony after World War II, when the Abstract Expressionists (Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, et al.) ruled the artistic roost, until they were dethroned by Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, the Pop artists, and Andy Warhol, while individualists such as David Smith and Joseph Cornell marched to their own music.

"The Age of Anxiety"  considers recent events: the return of figurative art and the appearance of minimal and conceptual art; the speculative mania of the 1980s, which led to scandalous auction practices and inflated reputations; and the trends and issues of art in the 90s.

Lavishly illustrated and packed with biographies, anecdotes, astute and stimulating critical commentary, and sharp social history, American Visions is published in association with a new eight-part PBS television series. Robert Hughes has called it "a love letter to America."  This superb volume, which encompasses and enlarges upon the series, is an incomparably entertaining and insightful contemplation of its splendid subject.

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Original Title:	American Visions: The Epic History of Art in America
ISBN:	0679426272 (ISBN13: 9780679426271)
Edition Language:	English
Literary Awards:	Ambassador Book Award for American Studies (1998)

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Ratings: 4.25 From 490 Users | 30 Reviews

Discuss Epithetical Books American Visions: The Epic History of Art in America

Read the whole book in college, and watched the movies. They're actually quite good. I find myself still thinking about them 10 years later.

I used this as a textbook in my classes. Actually I showed the films and the book was recommended.Hughes was a man of definite opinions with a sardonic sense of humor. The book is an uneven survey (not to mention biased). Better than dry textbooks for stimulating discussion and this was a discussion class. For a good balanced survey of American Art I would recommend either Mendelowitz or Craven.

This is a really good History of America, through her art, architecture and people. Hughes helpfully situates American in wider History and shows fine sensitivity to the various strains of influence and life that make up America; a place indeed of many visions.

Fantastic overview of American art. Someone from somewhere else (Australia) had to write it, even though Hughes was the art critic for "Time" magazine. No high faluting theory here, well written witty prose sets a context and provides understanding of those blotches on the wall that are "modern art". Hughes has the right attitude, not quite sneering at manifestos issued to an -ism adherents, but informative and conversational. A huge gorgeous doorstop of a book, enjoyed over many nights.

A wonderful, epic history of art in America. It is strong through most of th book, but the last chapters on recent impressionism and abstract art fall off a bit. Well -illustrated as well.

great overview

An illuminating book by an Australian author who also hosted the brilliant television series which this book expands on in a scholarly but accessible manner. The illustrations are vivid and very true to life, but if you get the chance rent the tv series, they're thrilling. The book is available at a very affordable price from various sites listed right here on goodreads.