If you decide to buy THE CIVIL WAR AND AMERICAN ART as a gift for some lucky person, be prepared to receive effusive thanks for a thoughtful and beautiful gift. If you are thinking of it as a gift to yourself, that too will bring long-lasting rewards. The book is of such quality it should appeal beyond the camps of Civil War buffs and lovers of American Art.
What impresses most is how successfully all elements of the book converge.
First and foremost is the text. Eleanor Jones Harvey's thesis is a simple one: "The Civil War had a profound and lasting impact on American Art, as it did on American culture. Both genre painting and landscape painting were fundamentally altered by the war and its aftermath." As well, she demonstrates how photography--the third of her areas of interest--was newly empowered as an art form.
Harvey's writing occupies pages 1 through 241 of this large book. Each generous page measures 12 1/2 by 9 15/16 inches, allowing double-column formatting of the text. The prose is wonderfully clear, a pleasure to dip into, blessedly free of academic jargon and devoid of esoteric pleading. Harvey conveys a mountain of essential facts and observations without halting the forward momentum of her narrative and argument. This is no mean feat. She uncovers layers of meaning within 77 paintings and photographs of the era. Among the works closely analyzed are thirteen Civil War related paintings by Winslow Homer, an artist who will grow larger in your estimation thanks to the findings of Harvey's eye and mind.
Additional documentation includes a section of Notes (32 pages); a Bibliography of over 300 sources and references (20 pages); a Catalog listing the 77 works featured in the Exhibition currently on view at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC, through April, 2013 (the show will travel to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC, May-September, 2013); and a list of the 123 Figure Illustrations found throughout this well designed book. A helpful Index rounds out the volume. Overall the illustrations of works of art are of fine quality, yet, unavoidably, they are imperfect substitutes for the originals. The reproductions of the paintings cannot convey the overwhelming beauty of the luminous landscapes of Frederick Church, Albert Bierstadt and Sanford Gifford. The genre paintings, even when reproduced in full-page spreads, cannot reveal all the small but important details the artist included. Missing too is the emotional pull of actual vintage albumin prints on the walls of the exhibition. All of which is to say something obvious: If you can, please try to get yourself to one of the two museum venues -- there to enjoy a complete experience.
THE CIVIL WAR AND AMERICAN ART is co-published by the Smithsonian American Art Museum and Yale University Press. It is printed and bound by Artegrafica in Verona, Italy. If you want a sense of the superb production values applied to the making of the book, please see the photographs I've uploaded to the "Customer Images" section found in the upper left corner of this webpage.
Note: Only the hardcover is available for purchase here on Amazon. A softcover version, identical in every way to the hardcover except for the binding, is available at the bookstores at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and also from each museum's online bookstores (Google: SAAM Bookstore or MetMuseum store) at a $45.00 list price. That's more than Amazon's hardcover price; with a museum membership discount, it's about the same.
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Reviewed in the United States on December 15, 2012
What impresses most is how successfully all elements of the book converge.
First and foremost is the text. Eleanor Jones Harvey's thesis is a simple one: "The Civil War had a profound and lasting impact on American Art, as it did on American culture. Both genre painting and landscape painting were fundamentally altered by the war and its aftermath." As well, she demonstrates how photography--the third of her areas of interest--was newly empowered as an art form.
Harvey's writing occupies pages 1 through 241 of this large book. Each generous page measures 12 1/2 by 9 15/16 inches, allowing double-column formatting of the text. The prose is wonderfully clear, a pleasure to dip into, blessedly free of academic jargon and devoid of esoteric pleading. Harvey conveys a mountain of essential facts and observations without halting the forward momentum of her narrative and argument. This is no mean feat. She uncovers layers of meaning within 77 paintings and photographs of the era. Among the works closely analyzed are thirteen Civil War related paintings by Winslow Homer, an artist who will grow larger in your estimation thanks to the findings of Harvey's eye and mind.
Additional documentation includes a section of Notes (32 pages); a Bibliography of over 300 sources and references (20 pages); a Catalog listing the 77 works featured in the Exhibition currently on view at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC, through April, 2013 (the show will travel to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC, May-September, 2013); and a list of the 123 Figure Illustrations found throughout this well designed book. A helpful Index rounds out the volume. Overall the illustrations of works of art are of fine quality, yet, unavoidably, they are imperfect substitutes for the originals. The reproductions of the paintings cannot convey the overwhelming beauty of the luminous landscapes of Frederick Church, Albert Bierstadt and Sanford Gifford. The genre paintings, even when reproduced in full-page spreads, cannot reveal all the small but important details the artist included. Missing too is the emotional pull of actual vintage albumin prints on the walls of the exhibition. All of which is to say something obvious: If you can, please try to get yourself to one of the two museum venues -- there to enjoy a complete experience.
THE CIVIL WAR AND AMERICAN ART is co-published by the Smithsonian American Art Museum and Yale University Press. It is printed and bound by Artegrafica in Verona, Italy. If you want a sense of the superb production values applied to the making of the book, please see the photographs I've uploaded to the "Customer Images" section found in the upper left corner of this webpage.
Note: Only the hardcover is available for purchase here on Amazon. A softcover version, identical in every way to the hardcover except for the binding, is available at the bookstores at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and also from each museum's online bookstores (Google: SAAM Bookstore or MetMuseum store) at a $45.00 list price. That's more than Amazon's hardcover price; with a museum membership discount, it's about the same.
Verified Purchase
"A powerful layer of meaning inflected by the Civil War"
By Michael J. Ettner on December 15, 2012
If you decide to buy THE CIVIL WAR AND AMERICAN ART as a gift for some lucky person, be prepared to receive effusive thanks for a thoughtful and beautiful gift. If you are thinking of it as a gift to yourself, that too will bring long-lasting rewards. The book is of such quality it should appeal beyond the camps of Civil War buffs and lovers of American Art.By Michael J. Ettner on December 15, 2012
What impresses most is how successfully all elements of the book converge.
First and foremost is the text. Eleanor Jones Harvey's thesis is a simple one: "The Civil War had a profound and lasting impact on American Art, as it did on American culture. Both genre painting and landscape painting were fundamentally altered by the war and its aftermath." As well, she demonstrates how photography--the third of her areas of interest--was newly empowered as an art form.
Harvey's writing occupies pages 1 through 241 of this large book. Each generous page measures 12 1/2 by 9 15/16 inches, allowing double-column formatting of the text. The prose is wonderfully clear, a pleasure to dip into, blessedly free of academic jargon and devoid of esoteric pleading. Harvey conveys a mountain of essential facts and observations without halting the forward momentum of her narrative and argument. This is no mean feat. She uncovers layers of meaning within 77 paintings and photographs of the era. Among the works closely analyzed are thirteen Civil War related paintings by Winslow Homer, an artist who will grow larger in your estimation thanks to the findings of Harvey's eye and mind.
Additional documentation includes a section of Notes (32 pages); a Bibliography of over 300 sources and references (20 pages); a Catalog listing the 77 works featured in the Exhibition currently on view at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC, through April, 2013 (the show will travel to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC, May-September, 2013); and a list of the 123 Figure Illustrations found throughout this well designed book. A helpful Index rounds out the volume. Overall the illustrations of works of art are of fine quality, yet, unavoidably, they are imperfect substitutes for the originals. The reproductions of the paintings cannot convey the overwhelming beauty of the luminous landscapes of Frederick Church, Albert Bierstadt and Sanford Gifford. The genre paintings, even when reproduced in full-page spreads, cannot reveal all the small but important details the artist included. Missing too is the emotional pull of actual vintage albumin prints on the walls of the exhibition. All of which is to say something obvious: If you can, please try to get yourself to one of the two museum venues -- there to enjoy a complete experience.
THE CIVIL WAR AND AMERICAN ART is co-published by the Smithsonian American Art Museum and Yale University Press. It is printed and bound by Artegrafica in Verona, Italy. If you want a sense of the superb production values applied to the making of the book, please see the photographs I've uploaded to the "Customer Images" section found in the upper left corner of this webpage.
Note: Only the hardcover is available for purchase here on Amazon. A softcover version, identical in every way to the hardcover except for the binding, is available at the bookstores at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and also from each museum's online bookstores (Google: SAAM Bookstore or MetMuseum store) at a $45.00 list price. That's more than Amazon's hardcover price; with a museum membership discount, it's about the same.
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Top reviews from other countries
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