Synopsis
This lavishly illustrated book, surprisingly the first on the subject, explores the tremendous scope, richness, toughness, sensibility, and liveliness of the American realist tradition. Sixteen varied sections discuss and display the finest and most influential work of different groups, schools, and periodsbeginning before the Revolutionary War and including American Impressionism, the Ashcan School, Precisionism, American Scene painting, Urban Realism, Photorealism, and today's Postmodern Realism - and provide convincing proof that the American realist legacy occupies an unparalleled position in world art. In this important critical synthesis, Edward Lucie-Smith discusses the work of the pioneering masters of American realism, such as Thomas Eakins, Mary Cassatt, Charles Sheeler, Thomas Hart Benton, Georgia O'Keeffe, Edward Hopper, and Andrew Wyeth. He adds a major new dimension in his examination of the work of contemporary realist painters: those recently acknowledged as major figures, among them Isabel Bishop, Alice Neel, and Fairfield Porter, and those such as Wayne Thiebaud and Leon Golub, whose reputations and contribution only currently are coming to full appreciation. He includes as well younger artists like Eric Fischl and Jeff Koons, who have achieved star status within this innovative tradition. The book thus carries the story of American realism right up to the present, showing how it continues to flourish today as strongly as it has in the past. A magnificent volume, with more than one hundred color plates, American Realism both celebrates and reveals the power of a great American legacy.
KLIATT
Lucie-Smith, a noted writer, poet and art critic, has delivered a brilliant synopsis of realism in American painting. In this lavishly and intelligently illustrated volume, he surveys "conceptual" and "perceptual" realism in American painting from Copley to Koons, dividing the painters into no less than 16 separate and carefully defined and analyzed categories. "Conceptual" realism, according to the author, takes inventory of what the artist sees; it can be theatrical, focused, and intense, as were the urban and social realists of the 1930s. "Perceptual" realism, in contrast, is based more on sight and light, as was the art of Vermeer as well as the art of the photorealists. (Lucie-Smith's explanation of American realism is never far from the tradition of the European masters-Vermeer, David, Corot-as well as the Hellenic sculptors.) While the text is skillfully written and most approachable, it does require a degree of familiarity with the general history of Western art. If Lucie-Smith states that "Double Nude" by American William Beckman is "a modern version of Dürer's 'Adam and Eve,'" for example, this book does not picture the Dürer, as a text on art history might, so that a student could see and compare the two works. The author assumes the reader can make the connection without further aid. The many graphic nudes from the works of the 1960s also require sophistication from the reader. Category: The Arts. KLIATT Codes: A*-Exceptional book, recommended for advanced students and adults. 1994, Norton, Thames & Hudson, 240p. illus. index., Moore; Brookline, MA