Customer Reviews

American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life, 1765-1915 (Metropolitan Museum of Art)

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This beautifully illustrated book was published in conjunction of a major exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I bought the catalogue after seeing the exhibit and I fell in love with the paintings. The over 170 reproductions in the book depicit everyday subjects such as family life, children playing, people at work, and city life. Some of the most well known works illustrated include John Singleton Copley's "Watson and the Shark", George Caleb Bingham's "Fur Traders Descending the Missouri, Thomas Eakins' "Max Schmidt in a Single Skull", Winslow Homer's "Snap the Whip", and George Bellows' "Club Night". The text gives great explanations of all the paintings as well as important historical information. The book is divided into four time periods like the exhibit. The first section describe works that were made from 1765 to the 1830s which are mainly genre portrait paintings by artists such as Matthew Pratt and Charles Willson Peale. The second section have works which were painted from 1830 to the eve of the Civil War. Highlights in this section include rural life paintings by William Sidney Mount, frontier life paintings by Bingham, domestic scenes by Lilly Martin Spencer, and a major painting by Eastman Johnson depicting slaves entitled, "Negro Life in the South." The third section has masterpieces of the Civil War period including several by Homer. The last one deals with paintings made from the 1870s until the eve of World War I. This section shows American Impressionist works by Mary Cassatt, John Singer Sargent, and William Merritt Chase and ends with ashcan school paintings by artists such as John Sloan and Bellows. The book also has illustrations by European artists like Edgar Degas and Edouard Manet to show how European and American painters depicit genre subjects differently. If you want a book filled with great American painting by famous as well as several not so well known artists, buy it. You'll treasure them forever!

AMERICAN STORIES: PAINTINGS OF EVERYDAY LIFE, 1765 - 1915 is a catalogue that accompanied a sensitive and very popular exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Los Angeles County Museum in Los Angeles, California. For those who were unable to see this well-curated exhibition this catalogue is a rich portfolio of the treasures shared. Many of the works in this show are well known to the public from the exposure they have received in art history books, but the joy of seeing these familiar paintings grouped with images not previously known adds greatly to the appreciation of the quality of art that this country has and continues to produce.

There are four writers who each take a period of history and discuss and illustrate it with works in the exhibition. Carrie Rebora Barrett's contribution is 'Inventing American Stories, 1765 - 1830, emphasizing the works of John Singleton Copley from his famous portraits to his created allegories such as 'Watson and the Shark' and Charles Willson Peale's impressive 'The Exhumation of the Mastadon'. The next section is written by Bruce Robertson - 'Stories for the Public, 1830 - 1860' - and deals with Yankee idealism and the joys of the works of George Caleb Bingham, William Sidney Mount, Christian Friedich Mayr among others who depicted life in America from all stances. 'Stories of War and Reconciliation, 1860 - 1877' by Margaret C. Conrads features paintings of wars here and abroad, conflicts with the American Indian, the wagon trains West movement, and the wondrous paintings of Winslow Homer, Thomas Eakins and William Merritt Chase.

The final chapter of this well illustrate book is titled 'Cosmopolitan and Candid Stories, 1877 - 1915, and it is this section that many art lovers will treasure most. The works of Mary Cassatt, many more by Thomas Eakins, the sea images of Homer, and works by Thomas Anshutz, John George Brown, Frederic Remington, George Bellows and a contingency of little known but superb painters of the American life.

The book is well designed and constructed and scrupulously documented. This is a fine example of how a museum catalogue can become a gold standard of art history books. It is a fine achievement. Grady Harp, July 10

This is an unusually interesting and useful catalog from a very fine show at the Met. The illustrations are first rate as well.