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Yale University Press
December 2012
On Sale: November 27, 2012
352 pages ISBN: 0300187335 EAN: 9780300187335 Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
The American Civil War was arguably the first modern war.
Its grim reality, captured through the new medium of
photography, was laid bare. American artists could not
approach the conflict with the conventions of European
history painting, which glamorized the hero on the
battlefield. Instead, many artists found ways to weave the
war into works of art that considered the human
narrative—the daily experiences of soldiers, slaves, and
families left behind. Artists and writers wrestled with the
ambiguity and anxiety of the Civil War and used landscape
imagery to give voice to their misgivings as well as their
hopes for themselves and the nation. This important book looks at the range of artwork created
before, during, and following the war, in the years between
1859 and 1876. Author Eleanor Jones Harvey examines the
implications of the war on landscape and genre painting,
history painting, and photography, as represented in some of
the greatest masterpieces of 19th-century American art. The
book features extensive quotations from men and women alive
during the war years, alongside text by literary figures
including Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain, and Walt Whitman,
among many others.
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