"Author Larry Len Peterson accompanies 560 spectacular color illustrations with introductory essays to each Part, along with accompanying profiles of 120 artists to provide a unique view of the artists' historical and cultural milieu-a view at once panoramic and intimate. In the end, Western American art is not one art. It has many regions, styles, and forms, telling a complicated American story. It is a crazy quilt of Americana as diverse as country music. It's never one thing and can be joyful, sad, and everything in between-captured rather than painted. Touching through time, Western American art makes hope and the West rhyme." -- Dust jacket.