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Art Criticism in America 1865–1880: The Early Voices of Dissent

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2009

Ellen Harbert
Affiliation:
Tulane University

Extract

In his influential study, Art and Life in America, Oliver W. Larkin describes the famous Armory Show of 1913 as an ‘explosion’ in the history of American art. Few would quarrel with this view; indeed, the author's choice of the noun does no more than proper justice to the sudden and powerful impact of the Armory event upon the American public. Certainly, at least with regard to a popular audience for art ‘explosion’ is an appropriate description. Unlike the public, on the other hand, the select group of artists represented by works in the Show itself proved that they were ready for that historic moment. They had practised and created, and over the years the biographical accounts of how they prepared themselves and their art have gradually filled an important place in the larger explanation of why the ‘explosion’ went off at all.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1974

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References

1 Rev. ed., Rinehart, Holt, N.Y., 1960, p. 364.Google Scholar

2 The magazines and art journals used for this study were surveyed from the late 1860s until the end of the 1870s. They included: Aldine, a journal of the graphic arts which also printed a small amount of literary and musical criticism; Appleton's Journal, a semi-literary magazine which frequently carried columns devoted to art criticism; Art Journal, an American edition of the London Art Journal which dealt almost entirely with American art; Atlantic Monthly, a publication devoted to literature and criticism which printed a monthly column on art criticism; Galaxy, a magazine which from 1866 to 1872 contained an art column written by Eugene Benson: Harper's New Monthly Magazine, which frequently contained art columns; Harper's Weekly, a publication which covered a wide variety ot aesthetic topics; articles on painting appeared irregularly in issues of the 1870s.

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