Author Description

In this provocative new survey. David Bjelajac punctures the idea of a uniquely. American way of seeing or style of representation instead he sifts painting, sculpture, architecture, and photography into the larger mix of material culture. From the earliest European contact with Native Americans to the Postmodern theme parks of Disney. Bjelajac documents a visual history of American art characterized by conflict and diversity. Though broadly chronologist, the book is structured around such unifying themes as the animating power of religious imagery in the seventeenth centory the cultivation of republican virture in the eighteenth, and the split in national identity in the Civil War era. The final chapters document the emergence of a divergent modemism, the populism and public art of the Depression years. Abstract Expressionism, and the pluralistic Art of the 1990's, Famous works by established artists such as Charies Bulfinch. Benjamin West. James Abbott McNeil Whistter, Mathew Brady, Georgia O'Keeffe, and Jeft Koons are freshly interpreted next to vernacular objects and imagery-a masonic apron earthern ware mug, a satirical Cartoon labor union paster. Dismissing the conception of art as a stately evolution of styles or *-isms* the author presents America's visual culture as an arena in which conflicting notions of class, gender, race and regional allegiance are fought. Stepping outside traditional art-historical discourse, he launches boldly into the realms of politics religion, science, literature, and popular culture in order to analyze individual artworks within their specific historical contexts. Incorporating generous quotations from primary sources. Bjelajac pays close attention to how contemporary artists, audiences, and beholders from different backgrounds have conceived of specific works, the nature of art and the artist's rote in American society. Book jacket.