
Nature and Culture
American Landscape and Painting 1825-1875
Novak(Author)
Oxford University Press Inc
3rd Edition
Published on 30. November 2006
Book
Hardback
352 pages
978-0-19-530586-9 (ISBN)
Description
In this richly illustrated volume, featuring more than fifty black-and-white illustrations and a beautiful eight-page color insert, Barbara Novak describes how for fifty extraordinary years, American society drew from the idea of Nature its most cherished ideals. Between 1825 and 1875, all kinds of Americans--artists, writers, scientists, as well as everyday citizens--believed that God in Nature could resolve human contradictions, and that nature itself confirmed
the American destiny. Using diaries and letters of the artists as well as quotes from literary texts, journals, and periodicals, Novak illuminates the range of ideas projected onto the American landscape
by painters such as Thomas Cole, Albert Bierstadt, Frederic Edwin Church, Asher B. Durand, Fitz H. Lane, and Martin J. Heade, and writers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Frederich Wilhelm von Schelling.
Now with a new preface, this spectacular volume captures a vast cultural panorama. It beautifully demonstrates how the idea of nature served, not only as a vehicle for artistic creation, but as its ideal form.
"An impressive
achievement."
--Barbara Rose, The New York Times Book Review
"An admirable blend of ambition, elan, and hard research. Not just an art book, it bears on some of the deepest
fantasies of American culture as a whole."
--Robert Hughes, Time Magazine
the American destiny. Using diaries and letters of the artists as well as quotes from literary texts, journals, and periodicals, Novak illuminates the range of ideas projected onto the American landscape
by painters such as Thomas Cole, Albert Bierstadt, Frederic Edwin Church, Asher B. Durand, Fitz H. Lane, and Martin J. Heade, and writers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Frederich Wilhelm von Schelling.
Now with a new preface, this spectacular volume captures a vast cultural panorama. It beautifully demonstrates how the idea of nature served, not only as a vehicle for artistic creation, but as its ideal form.
"An impressive
achievement."
--Barbara Rose, The New York Times Book Review
"An admirable blend of ambition, elan, and hard research. Not just an art book, it bears on some of the deepest
fantasies of American culture as a whole."
--Robert Hughes, Time Magazine
Reviews / Votes
...test[s] the the accepted perimeters of art history * TLS *More details
Edition
3rd Revised edition
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Edition type
Revised edition
Illustrations
66 s/w Photographien bzw. Rasterbilder, 8 farbige Abbildungen
66 halftones, 16 colour plates
Dimensions
Height: 236 mm
Width: 165 mm
Thickness: 25 mm
Weight
726 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-530586-9 (9780195305869)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
02/2007
3rd Edition
OUP eBook
€27.49
Available for download
Person
Barbara Novak is Helen Goodhart Altschul Professor of Art History Emerita at Barnard College and Columbia University. She is the acclaimed author of American Painting of the Nineteenth Century ("surely the best book ever written on the subject"-Hilton Kramer, The New York Times Book Review) and Nature and Culture ("awesomely good"-Anatole Broyard, The New York Times). She has been a Commissioner of the
Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery for the last twenty-five years.
Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery for the last twenty-five years.