| "Davidson
has written the first true, full-length monograph on an artist who
was one of America's best-known painters at the turn of the 20th century."-Choice
"Blakelock is an artist who provides a fascinating excursion around
the major schools and traditions of American painting of the late
nineteenth and early twentieth century. His purpose is to bring
to light a significant but relatively neglected artist through meticulous
analysis of his life and paintings, as well as the literary, sociological,
psychological, and even religious phenomena which might have served
as an inspiration. Abraham Davidson has made an excellent job of
the difficult task of combining biography and artistic analysis."-Jeanne
Chenault Porter, Penn State University
While Ralph Albert Blakelock (1847-1919) appears in every major
survey of American art, no current books exist on his life and work.
In this comprehensive study, Abraham Davidson argues convincingly
that Blakelock is one of the greatest American painters of the nineteenth
century, whose art ranges from the "romantic visionary" school reminiscent
of Albert Pinkham Ryder to, later in his tragic life, a more realistic,
physically experimental style often touching on abstraction. Davidson
examines the haunting influences of Blakelock's visits to the American
West and the Caribbean while a young man, reflected in his strikingly
original landscapes. He also explores Blakelock's connections to
various American movements, including the Hudson River School, the
Barbizon School, and Tonalism, and discusses the works he produced
while institutionalized for schizophrenia for much of the last twenty
years of his life. More than 150 black-and-white and color illustrations
reproduce many of Blakelock's paintings for the first time.
Drawing upon previously inaccessible biographical materials, including
family letters and the artist's travel notes, Davidson pays special
attention to the pre- and post-1880s and 1890s periods of Blakelock's
work, practically unknown until this study. Despite being confined
to an asylum in 1899, he continued to paint amazingly diverse landscapes
on bits of cardboard or paper, often with brushes fashioned from bits
of tree bark or his own hair. These later works "attest above all
to Blakelock's quiet, almost joyous attention to nature. . . . [and]
evoke the places and vistas that sustained [him], enabling him to
pursue and even develop his vision, despite the odds" (New York Times).
This important book restores Blakelock to his rightful place as
a major contributor to the art of his period and to the development
of American painting in general. |
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