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Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction: The Look of History
1 The Revolt Against the Grande Machine: Emanuel Leutze at the Metropolitan Fair
2 Leutze’s Storming of the Teocalli: Historical Struggle and the Middle Class
3 A Republican Court for the American People
4 Painting for the Union: Lilly Martin Spencer’s War Spirit at Home
5 Eastman Johnson: Low Life and “High Art”
Conclusion: History Painting and the Centennial
Notes
Index
“This fascinating and richly detailed historical study explains how the legendary painting Washington Crossing the Delaware, a sensation at its first public showing in 1851, provided antebellum Americans with a message of hope and unity at the very moment their nation was crumbling—and how, once civil war became inevitable, art of such immense size and unmitigated idealism lost its magnetic power. Jochen Wierich examines alternative types of history painting that emerged during the period and analyzes the critical debates they fueled. In doing so, he dusts off a neglected genre of American art and makes us see how crucial it once was in defining the country’s present by picturing its past.”
—David M. Lubin, Wake Forest University, author of Picturing a Nation: Art and Social Change in Nineteenth-Century America
