Picturing old New England : image and memory / edited by William H. Truettner and Roger B. Stein ; with contributions by Dona Brown ... [and others].

Format:

Book

Government document

Contributor:

Truettner, William H.

Stein, Roger B.

National Museum of American Art (U.S.)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Art, Modern.

Exhibitions.

New England--In art--Exhibitions.

New England.

Art, American--New England--Exhibitions.

Art, American.

Art, Modern--19th century--New England--Exhibitions.

Art, Modern--20th century--New England--Exhibitions.

Genre:

Catalogs.

Physical Description:

xv, 239 pages : illustrations (some color), color maps ; 32 cm

Place of Publication:

Washington, D.C. : National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution ; New Haven [Conn.] : Yale University Press, [1999]

Summary:

When we think of New England, we envision village greens surrounded by neat, white-framed houses; tall elms and church spires; country stores; Yankee farmers; sailing ships; rocky coastlines; brilliant autumn foliage. Despite the fact that there is a New England of cities, factories, and an increasingly diverse ethnic population, it is the Old New England that Americans have always treasured, finding in it a kind of "national memory bank". This beautiful book examines images of Old New England created between 1865 and 1945, demonstrating how these images encoded the values of age and tradition to a nation facing complex cultural issues during the period.

The book begins with an introduction by Dona Brown and Stephen Nissenbaum that provides a historical background to the era. Then William Truettner, Roger Stein, and Bruce Robertson turn more directly to New England images and discuss a variety of artistic efforts to historicize the past. They show that paintings of the Revolutionary War, of harvest scenes, or of genteel old New England towns served, for example, to provide reassurance to urban dwellers after the Civil War, to counteract the effects of modernism, and to encourage a sense of community during the Depression. They also examine paintings of coastal New England and favorite haunts of tourists and artists such as Winslow Homer and Marsden Hartley. The many images of Old New England, say the authors, represent shared cultural beliefs -- ways of seeing the present in terms of a mythical past.

Notes:

"Published on the occasion of the exhibition Picturing Old New England: Image and Memory, organized by the National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, and shown at National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., April 2-August 22, 1999"--T.p. verso.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 230-235) and index.

ISBN:

0300079389

0937311480

0937311472

OCLC:

39739700