The USA [antikvár]

PREFACE THE USA: A HISTORY IN ART is an informal sketchbook designed to show how the United States looked to artists who created its image in their own way, beginning in prehistoric times and continuing to the modern period. It is not a formal history of the United States. It is not a definitive work on the economics, politics, or any phase of American history or culture — not even art. Not all of the exceptional events, important personages or turning points in the history of the American people could possibly be covered in any one work, let alone one centered on the visual approach, and no attempt has been made to do so. The purpose of this book is rather to evoke the spirit, the movement, the energy and restless drive of the people who settled, fought for, and nurtured the growth of this great country. It is a mosaic of impressions of the USA as recorded by talented eyewitnesses, a broad variety of experiences that make the history and culture of the United States unique. Running through the mosaic are two interwoven elements, one the reflection of life as each individual artist saw it, the other the spirit of the era in which he lived and worked. The very first men and women to occupy the continental United States began a visual tradition that has continued for more than 2,000 years. The first Americans, referred to by Columbus as Indians in his erroneous belief that he had reached India, left a record of their culture etched on rocks sacred to them, in the caves that they occupied, and in the many varieties of portable art and artifacts such as arrow points, knives, necklaces and effigies of birds, animals, flowers and people, all created before the European discovery of America. The explorers and settlers who came in from the East also left a distinct visual record of the past. During the past 500 years in the history of the continent, the past two centuries in the history of the USA itself, painters, sculptors, etchers and lithographers have documented, sometimes realistically, sometimes imaginatively, the changing life styles and the impacts of great events they themselves experienced or observed. Tragedy, triumph, compassion, heroism and views of the human comedy are seen through the eyes of the artists, themselves sensitive, passionate people. These artists, working within their own chronological perimeters, recorded significant events in our history, as well as the men and women who made those events significant. Their efforts show what the country and its people looked like in the various periods of its growth. The interested observer will find sudden insights into the succeeding cultures, revealed in unexpected detail: a band of slaves escaping through a swamp, politicians having a drink together on the eve of an election, George Washington at home with his family, a trapper moving his family down river in a canoe, a painted Indian with his painted horse, a steelworker portrayed on the day he took out his first citizenship papers. Nor did the artists neglect the mainstream of US history: the farmers who stood firm against the British at Lexington and Concord, General Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans, Admiral Perry's ships approaching the coast of Japan, a sailor sacrificing his life for that of Lieutenant Stephen Decatur, the young Marquis de Lafayette at the age of 24, conferring with his friend George Washington. All of the artists who painted the canvases reproduced in this book were Americans except for those visiting Europeans in the early chapters, a Frenchman and a German soldier impressed by the D-Day flotilla off the coast of Normandy. All the paintings were made during the period ofthe event depicted. Not all periods in art correspond with historical periods, yet the artist does mirror the times, not only in what he elects to paint but in the way he paints it. The paintings shown are reproduced unretouched, and in actual time sequence so far as is possible. Some paintings were made closer to the actual event than others, so minor liberties have been taken. As it would be impossible to cover 500 years of history in words and reproductions of art in the pages of one book, certain gaps occur, and some whole eras have been telescoped. While THE USA: A HISTORY IN ART is neither a political nor a cultural history, it has some of the elements of both. Its purpose is to give the reader and observer an overall view of the history of the United States of America from prehistory up to the end of World War II and the beginning ofthe space age. Bradley Smith