A Companion to American Art

A Companion to American Art presents 35 newly-commissioned essays by leading scholars that explore the methodology, historiography, and current state of the field of American art history. Features contributions from a balance of established and emerging scholars, art and architectural historians, and other specialists Includes several paired essays to emphasize dialogue and debate between scholars on important contemporary issues in American art history Examines topics such as the methodological stakes in the writing of American art history, changing ideas about what constitutes Americanness, and the relationship of art to public culture Offers a fascinating portrait of the evolution and current state of the field of American art history and suggests future directions of scholarship

A Companion to American Art presents 35newly-commissioned essays by leading scholars that explore themethodology, historiography, and current state of the field ofAmerican art history.* Features contributions from a balance of established andemerging scholars, art and architectural historians, and otherspecialists* Includes several paired essays to emphasize dialogue and debatebetween scholars on important contemporary issues in American arthistory* Examines topics such as the methodological stakes in thewriting of American art history, changing ideas about whatconstitutes "Americanness," and the relationship of artto public culture* Offers a fascinating portrait of the evolution and currentstate of the field of American art history and suggests futuredirections of scholarship

List of Figures xiNotes on Contributors xviiAcknowledgments xxiiiIntroduction: American Art History Now: A Snapshot 1John Davis, Jennifer A. Greenhill, and Jason D. LaFountainPart I Writing American Art History 13Dialogue 151 A Conversation Missed: Toward a Historical Understanding of the Americanist/Modernist Divide 17Joshua Shannon and Jason Weems2 Response: Setting the Roundtable, or, Prospects for Dialogue between Americanists and Modernists 34Jennifer L. Roberts3 A Time and a Place: Rethinking Race in American Art History 49Tanya SheehanDialogue 694 On the Social History of American Art 71Alan Wallach5 Response: Our Cause Is What? 85Robin Kelsey6 The Maker's Share: Tools for the Study of Process in American Art 95Ethan W. LasserDialogue 1117 The Problem with Close Looking 113Martin A. Berger8 Response: Look Away 128Jennifer A. Greenhill9 Looking for Thomas Eakins: The Lure of the Archive and the Object 146Kathleen A. FosterDialogue 16510 The Challenge of Contemporaneity, or, Thoughts on Art as Culture 167Rachael Z. DeLue11 Response: Writing History, Reading Art 183Bryan WolfPart II Geographies: Rethinking Americanness 19112 Teaching Across the Borders of North American Art History 193Wendy Bellion and Mónica Domínguez Torres13 An American Architecture? 211Dell Upton14 The Pacific World and American Art History 228J.M. Mancini15 "Home" and "Homeless" in Art between the Wars 246Angela Miller16 Pueblo Painting in 1932: Folding Narratives of Native Art into American Art History 264Jessica L. Horton and Janet Catherine Berlo17 US American Art in the Americas 281Mary K. Coffey18 Geography Lessons: Canadian Notes on American Art History 299Frances K. Pohl19 Only in America: Exceptionalism, Nationalism, Provincialism 317John Davis20 Monolingualism, Multilingualism, and the Study of American Art 336Jason D. LaFountainPart III Subjectivities 35721 Painters and Status in Colony and Early Nation 359Susan Rather22 Pantaloons vs. Petticoats: Gender and Artistic Identity in Antebellum America 378Sarah Burns23 Male or Man?: The Politics of Emancipation in the Neoclassical Imaginary 395Charmaine A. Nelson24 Drawing Boundaries, Crossing Borders: Trespassing and Identity in American Art 414Randall R. Griffey25 Lookout: On Queer American Art and History 433Richard Meyer26 From Nature to Ecology: The Emergence of Ecocritical Art History 447Alan C. Braddock27 Art History as Collage: A Personal Approach 468David M. LubinPart IV Art and Public Culture 48728 Material Religion in Early America 489Louis P. Nelson29 Issues in Early Mass Visual Culture 507Michael Leja30 Patrons, Collectors, and Markets 525John Ott31 Historicism in the American Built Environment 544Kevin D. Murphy32 The Painting of Urban Life, 1880-1930 562David Peters Corbett33 Photography and Opium in a Nineteenth-Century Port City 581Anthony W. Lee34 Value in the Vernacular 599Leo G. Mazow35 Realism under Duress: The 1930s 617Andrew HemingwayIndex 637