Homer, Eakins, and Anshutz

The Search for American Identity in the Gilded Age Randall C. Griffin

Publish Date: 3/23/2004
Dimensions: 7 x 9
Page Count: 192 pages

Illustrations:

Hardcover ISBN: 978-0-271-02329-8

Hardcover Edition: $~~69.95~~
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Winner of the 2005 Vasari Award presented by the Dallas Museum of Art for the finest art history book authored by a scholar in Texas

“Homer, Eakins, and Anshutz is an important contribution to the field of nineteenth-century American art history. Randall Griffin argues that nationalistic concerns in art led to a perceptible shift in subject matter in painting. The new paintings displayed a remarkably large range of subjects, as evidenced by works as different as Thomas Eakins's Swimming Hole and Winslow Homer's beloved Adirondack pictures. As Griffin describes in cogent detail, they all bear on or issue out of the question of how 'American-ness' can be construed in relation to the enormous weight of European influence and artistic traditions.” —Anthony Lee, Mount Holyoke College

“Griffin has prepared a rare gem. He combines insightful expert opinion with enough general information so that his book will interest the non-specialist.” —P.J. Trimpe, Choice

“Homer, Eakins, and Anshutz: The Search for American Identity in the Gilded Age does several things well.” —Martin A. Berger, CAA Reviews

Randall Griffin’s book examines the ways in which artists and critics sought to construct a new identity for America during the era dubbed the Gilded Age because of its leaders’ taste for opulence. Artists such as Winslow Homer, Thomas Eakins, and Thomas Anshutz explored alternative “American” themes and styles, but widespread belief in the superiority of European art led them and their audiences to look to the Old World for legitimacy. This rich, never-resolved contradiction between the native and autonomous, on the one hand, and, on the other, the European and borrowed serves as the armature of Griffin’s innovative look at how and why the world of art became a key site in the American struggle for identity.

Not only does Griffin trace the interplay of issues of nationalism, class, and gender in American culture, but he also offers insightful readings of key paintings by Eakins and other canonical artists. Further, Griffin shows that by 1900 the nationalist project in art and criticism had helped open the way for the formulation of American modernism.

Homer, Eakins, and Anshutz will be of importance to all those interested in American culture as well as to specialists in art history and art criticism.

Randall C. Griffin is Associate Professor of Art History at the Southern Methodist University and the author of the exhibition catalogue, Thomas Anshutz: Artist and Teacher (1994).

Contents

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. Refashioning "America" in Art

2. Negotiating Identity After the Civil War in the Paintings of Winslow Homer

3. A Burst of Unsettling Imagery

4. Finding the Old World at Home

5. Winslow Homer, Avatar of Americanness

6. When America Became Other in the Adirondack Scenes of Winslow Homer

7. Postscript: A Return to American Themes

Bibliography