American Sublime: Landscape Painting in the United States 1820-1880
The Hudson River School and their successors were the first  American artists to create a specifically "American" type of  artwork an artwork that celebrated the awe-inspiring panoramas  of the untamed American landscape and incorporated deep feelings  of national identity. This catalog accompanies an exhibition  that travels both to Great Britain and to the United States and  includes over 113 stunningly dramatic and truly "sublime"  American landscapes. The book is divided into eight thematic  sections and includes two scholarly essays. In the first,  Barringer (history of art, Yale) compares the tradition of  landscape painting in America and Britain, while in the second,  Wilton (senior research fellow, Tate Gallery, London) explores  the concept of the sublime and the formation of a pictorial  language that Americans would come to embrace and identify as  uniquely their own. While the essays and catalog entries are  well written and informative, providing a geographic and  historical context for the artwork, it is the stunning  illustrations (including several two-page foldouts) that dazzle  the eye and imagination. Recommended for all libraries. Kraig  Binkowski, Delaware Art Museum, WilmingtonCopyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.