America: the New World in 19th-century painting

Abstract

This is a survey of American art spannning a whole century, from the close of the 18th century until World War I. Classified by genre, these works demonstrate both the continuity and the breaks in the development of 19th-century American art and question the established art-historical narrative of American painting. In addition to beautiful reproductions of the paintings, ten essays by scholars from both sides of the Atlantic analyse topics ranging from landscape painting, European influences, the relationship between photography and painting , and American painters in Italy, to the art of the post-Civil War era. Illustrated biographies include a portrait and several other works by each artist, a chronology of historical, cultural and social events, maps, and a dictionary of American painting in the 19th century.