University Press Copublishing Division / University of Delaware Press
Pages: 196
Trim: 6¼ x 9¼
978-1-61149-412-9 • Hardback • April 2015 • $101.00 • (£78.00)
978-1-61149-413-6 • eBook • April 2015 • $96.00 • (£74.00)
Erika Schneider is associate professor of art history at Framingham State University.
List of IllustrationsAcknowledgmentsChaptersIntroduction: The Mythology of Privation- Political Beginnings:
“You Have Come A Great Way To Starve”- Man Enough:
“Beggars Are Not To Be Choosers”- Compromise:
“Paint For The Many, Not For The Few”- Respite Abroad:
“Though They Feed My Body . . . They Starve My Soul”- Reading between the Lines:
“American Patrons, Pshaw! American Critics, Bah!”ConclusionBibliography
This is an invaluable study of a key image in American culture before the Civil War: the trope of the starving artist as he was rejected by American society, encouraged by institutions, and represented in the lives of painters, sculptors and novelists, both real and fictional.
— Paul Staiti, Professor of Fine Arts on the Alumnae Foundation, Mount Holyoke College
Schneider’s important study fills a gap in American art history scholarship by focusing on a period, the early to mid-nineteenth century, and works of art under addressed in published literature on images of artists. Its greatest strength is the balance of visual and literary perceptions of artists, which enables a richer assessment of artist imagery of this time than has been attempted before. Well-known artist images by Washington Allston, Charles Bird King, and David Gilmour Blythe, along with lesser-known images by John Krimmel and Horatio Greenough, are interrogated in great detail and solidly contextualized within their social, cultural, and political milieus. Those interested in the development of an American artistic identity at a time when many contested the value and role of the arts in the young democracy will find much of relevance here.
— Elisabeth L. Roark, Associate Professor of Art History, Chatham University