As a professor who has taught in a variety of academic institutions to a diverse student body ranging from art majors and undergraduates fulfilling their requirements to graduate art history majors, the publication of an affordable, well illustrated and stimulating new textbook has always been an occasion for rejoicing. Since its beginning, the Oxford History of Art Series has provided students and faculty alike with books that propose an up-to-date and comprehensive treatment of a wide range of subjects. Barbara Groseclose’s Nineteenth-Century American Art is no exception to that rule.

What makes Groseclose’s contribution especially valuable to students struggling to grasp on an introductory level the main issues at stake in studying the art of the United States is the clarity of presentation. While her methodological approach is deeply indebted to the “new art histories”, from Feminism to Marxism, she never indulges in the use of jargon or confusing, purely theoretical terms. In the introduction she offers a straightforward account of her methodological choices, being always acutely aware of the impossibility of closure. She is at the same time self-conscious about her own construction of history and manages to remain always attentive to the constructedness of the histories on which she draws (p. 4). This makes for a clear reading, tight and tidy, that can stimulate both students and teachers. This book avoids a single, omniscient, authoritative text that surveys frequently deliver.

I found that the first chapter, “The Profession of the Artist,” serves as a very useful introduction to the whole problematic laid out in the book. The ambition is to go further than many more traditional publications on the subject, which seem to limit the scope of their inquiries to solving the question: “What is American about American Art?” Nineteenth-Century American Art offers an account of painting and sculpture as their aesthetics develop amid political, social and economic contexts. This makes clear that the whole concept of “American Art” constantly shifts and re-forms itself, negating the possibility of an immutable definition of American. Chapter one is a clear presentation of the state of affairs as the United States becomes an independent nation, specifically exposing the condition of being an artist in a country where the development of an artistic tradition was not seen as a priority and even looked down upon as rather a suspicious activity. The analysis is well supported by the use of primary documents, constant throughout the book, as in this chapter which includes the letters of Kenyon Cox studying in Paris to his family in Ohio (p. 18). The use of such documents reminds the students that the discipline of art history relies on voices from the past, rather than on arbitrary interpretation. This sets standards of scholarship to be emulated.

Groseclose’s thematic approach is very useful as many teaching institutions move away from pure chronology to the development of an art historical period. However, her choices never feel artificial and she privileges themes, which have some connection to a more general historical development. All genres find their rightful place as they connect to specific historical moments: chapters three and four cover the transformation of genre painting throughout the nineteenth century. Democracy is the main focus. How do you represent democratic ideals? By using examples from popular art such as caricatures and broadsheets as well as more standard examples of paintings by William Sidney Mount, Eastman Johnson, and later on in chapter four by George Caleb Bingham, Winslow Homer and Thomas Eakins, she manages to chart the evolution of the representation of that central concept of American life.

Her discussion of portraiture in chapter 2 is exceptionally successful. She outlines how portraiture was truly the first American art. This chapter follows closely the construction of the national identity of the new nation. Through several case studies, allowing for in depth examinations, she proposes a model of investigation that could be well applied by students. A good example is the comparison of François Joseph Bourgoin’s Family Group in New York (1808) and Charles Willson Peale’s John Cadwalader Family (1772). While formal analysis is not her forte, she still manages to raise the important issue of quality, and to outline clear differences between various artistic traditions.

The last three chapters on landscape painting, the American West and commemorative art are equally useful and come at the right moment in the unfolding history of the United States. I was impressed by the use of illustrative materials such as maps, outlining, for instance, where landscapists painted (p. 118) or the territorial growth of the United States (p. 160). Once again Groseclose works hard to present an accurate history, reading the canonical paintings of Thomas Cole, Frederick Church, George Catlin and Albert Bierstadt as reminders of a problematic period, paying extreme attention to the material circumstances of the making of these images, going beyond the myth, leaving no stone unturned from the depiction of Native Americans and Christopher Columbus to tourists visiting the newly created National Parks.

Groseclose not only discusses the works of prominent figures that we all expect to find in such a survey, but also pays attention to recently re-discovered artists such as Harriet Hosmer. She examines the ways American artists responded to major social and economic changes resulting from the rapid transformation from an agricultural-based former colony to an industrialized power with an evolving democracy. Last, but not least, some of the most interesting and useful features of the book are a timeline, a comprehensive annotated bibliography and a suggestion for further readings, neatly organized and easy to use, as well as a list of art collections and web sites where one can learn more about the material covered in the book. Overall this is an innovative and lively examination of nineteenth-century American Art and its audience, which makes the best possible use of recent critical approaches and new research.

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