Looking Close and Seeing Far: Samuel Seymour, Titian Ramsay Peale, and the Art of the Long Expedition, 1818-1823
It is difficult to imagine a more learned account of this material. Looking Close and Seeing Far is a signal contribution to studies of American Romanticism--a lucid, exemplary account of the richness of an art of not-knowledge, of an art about failings and strivings to know a place (the American West) as much as that place itself. --Alexander Nemerov, Yale UniversityUniversity of Oklahoma art historian Kenneth Haltman... skillfully weaves a tale of science and art, of eastern sensibilities and western wonders, in this exhaustively researched volume. --Bloomsbury ReviewLooking Close and Seeing Far deepens and complicates our understanding of the art of the western surveys and the relationship between art and science in the early national period. My major concern about this eloquent and beautifully produced book is that because it addresses lesser-known artists, working in less-valued media, in a little-studied period, it will not be as widely read as it deserves to be. --Rebecca Bedell, Wellesley College --caareviews.org, September 10, 2008"University of Oklahoma art historian Kenneth Haltman... skillfully weaves a tale of science and art, of eastern sensibilities and western wonders, in this exhaustively researched volume." --Bloomsbury ReviewLooking Close and Seeing Far deepens and complicates our understanding of the art of the western surveys and the relationship between art and science in the early national period. My major concern about this eloquent and beautifully produced book is that because it addresses lesser-known artists, working in less-valued media, in a little-studied period, it will not be as widely read as it deserves to be. --Rebecca Bedell, Wellesley College --caareviews.org, September 10, 2008