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Homer, Eakins, and Anshutz: The Search for American Identity in the Gilded Age
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Homer, Eakins, and Anshutz: The Search for American Identity in the Gilded Age
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by Randall C. Griffin, Winslow Homer, Thomas Eakins, and Thomas Pollock Anshutz
Sales Rank : 1649230
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Hardcover: 192 pages
Publisher: Pennsylvania State University Press April 2004
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0271023295
ISBN-13: 978-0271023298
Product Dimensions:
9.3 x 7.3 x 1 inches
Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
Book Description
Randall Griffin's book examines the ways in which artists and critics sought to construct a new identity for America during the era dubbed the Gilded Age because of its leaders' taste for opulence. Artists such as Winslow Homer, Thomas Eakins, and Thomas Anshutz explored alternative "American" themes and styles, but widespread belief in the superiority of European art led them and their audiences to look to the Old World for legitimacy. This rich, never-resolved contradiction between the native and autonomous, on the one hand, and, on the other, the European and borrowed serves as the armature of Griffin's innovative look at how and why the world of art became a key site in the American struggle for identity.
Not only does Griffin trace the interplay of issues of nationalism, class, and gender in American culture, but he also offers insightful readings of key paintings by Eakins and other canonical artists. Further, Griffin shows that by 1900 the nationalist project in art and criticism had helped open the way for the formulation of American modernism.
Homer, Eakins, and Anshutz will be of importance to all those interested in American culture as well as to specialists in art history and art criticism.
About The Author
Randall C. Griffin is Associate Professor of Art History at the Southern Methodist University and the author of the exhibition catalogue, Thomas Anshutz: Artist and Teacher (1994).
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