Customer Reviews

New Hampshire's Cornish Colony (NH) (Images of America)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In the late nineteenth century, an American cultural center that arose in New Hampshire Village became known as the Cornish Colony. A summer retreat of the famous sculptor Augustus St. Gaudens, the Colony became the center of an American renaissance that lured notables in the arts, literature, music, and theatre such as Maxfield Parish, Paul Manship, Witter Bynner, Walter Damrosch, Isadora Duncan, Marie Dressler -- and even President Woodrow Wilson. From the 1880s to the 1920s, the Colony comprised an elite center of cultural communication but in the remainder of the twentieth century it was largely ignored by cultural historians. Fortunately, especially for lovers of the arts and history who live far from New England, Fern Meyers and James Atkinson have collected a stunning set of photographs that evoke the ambiance of a community of artists inspired by a setting in the high hills alongside the broad Connecticut River. Their detailed comments encapsulate the history and ethnography of the Colony with an intimate view of residents' personalities and activities at work and play. Men and women artists are given equal time, and even children get a share in the description of their pageants and plays, one of them directed by Ethel Barrymore. A delightful collection of photographs depicts a remarkable group of talented individuals and families in "the Gilded Age" of American culture. Highly recommended for cultural historians, critics, and all lovers of the arts.