Visual art of the United States  

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 +[[Image:Roc.gif|thumb|left|200px|''[[The Roc's Egg]]'' ([[1874]]) by [[Robert Swain Gifford]]]]
 +[[Image:George Bellows, Dempsey and Firpo (1924).jpg|thumb|right|200px|''Dempsey and Firpo'' ([[1924]]) by [[George Bellows]]]]
 +[[Image:Venus_Rising_from_the_Sea_—_A_Deception.jpg|thumb|right|200px|''[[Venus Rising from the Sea — A Deception]]'' (c. 1822) by American painter [[Raphaelle Peale]].]]
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'''Visual arts of the United States''' refers to the history of [[painting]] and [[visual art]] in the [[United States]]. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, artists primarily painted landscapes and portraits in a realistic style. A parallel development taking shape in rural America was the [[American craft]] movement, which began as a reaction to the [[industrial revolution]]. Developments in modern art in Europe came to America from exhibitions in [[New York City]] such as the [[Armory Show]] in 1913. After World War II, New York replaced [[Paris]] as the center of the art world. Painting in the United States today covers a huge range of styles. '''Visual arts of the United States''' refers to the history of [[painting]] and [[visual art]] in the [[United States]]. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, artists primarily painted landscapes and portraits in a realistic style. A parallel development taking shape in rural America was the [[American craft]] movement, which began as a reaction to the [[industrial revolution]]. Developments in modern art in Europe came to America from exhibitions in [[New York City]] such as the [[Armory Show]] in 1913. After World War II, New York replaced [[Paris]] as the center of the art world. Painting in the United States today covers a huge range of styles.
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== Nineteenth century == == Nineteenth century ==
-[[United States|America]]'s first well-known school of painting—the [[Hudson River School]]—appeared in 1820. As with music and literature, this development was delayed until artists perceived that the New World offered subjects unique to itself; in this case the westward expansion of settlement brought the transcendent beauty of frontier landscapes to painters' attention.+:''[[19th century art]]''
-The Hudson River painters' directness and simplicity of vision influenced such later artists as [[Winslow Homer]] (1836-1910), who depicted rural America—the sea, the mountains, and the people who lived near them. Middle-class city life found its painter in [[Thomas Eakins]] (1844-1916), an uncompromising realist whose unflinching honesty undercut the genteel preference for romantic sentimentalism. [[Henry Ossawa Tanner]] who studied with Thomas Eakins was one of the first important [[African American art|African American painters]]. +America's first well-known school of painting—the [[Hudson River School]]—appeared in 1820. [[Thomas Cole]] pioneered the movement which included [[Albert Bierstadt]], [[Frederic Edwin Church]], [[Thomas Doughty (artist)|Thomas Doughty]] and several others. As with music and literature, this development was delayed until artists perceived that the New World offered subjects unique to itself; in this case the westward expansion of settlement brought the transcendent beauty of frontier landscapes to painters' attention.
-Paintings of the Great West, particularly the act of conveying the sheer size of the land and the cultures of the native people living on it, were starting to emerge as well. Artists such as [[George Catlin]] broke from traditional styles of showing land, most often done to show how much a subject owned, to show the West and it's people as honestly as possible.+The Hudson River painters' directness and simplicity of vision influenced and inspired such later artists as [[John Kensett]] and the ''[[Luminism (American art style)|Luminists]]''; as well as [[George Inness]] and the ''[[Tonalism|tonalists]]'' (which included [[Albert Pinkham Ryder]] and [[Ralph Albert Blakelock|Ralph Blakelock]] among others), and [[Winslow Homer]] (1836–1910), who depicted rural America—the sea, the mountains, and the people who lived near them. The Hudson River School landscape painter [[Robert S. Duncanson]] was one of the first important [[African American art|African American painters]]. [[John James Audubon]], an [[ornothology|ornothologist]] whose paintings documented birds, was one of the most important naturalist artists in America. His major work, a set of colored prints entitled ''[[The Birds of America]]'' (1827–1839), is considered one of the finest ornithological works ever completed. [[Edward Hicks]] was an American [[Folk art|folk painter]] and distinguished [[minister (Christianity)|minister]] of the [[Society of Friends]]. He became a Quaker [[Cultural icon|icon]] because of his paintings.
-Many painters who are considered American spent some time in Europe and met other European artists in Paris and London, such as [[Mary Cassatt]] and [[James McNeill Whistler|Whistler]].+Paintings of the Great West, many of which emphasized the sheer size of the land and the cultures of the native people living on it, became a distinct genre as well. [[George Catlin]] depicted the West and its people as honestly as possible. [[George Caleb Bingham]], and later [[Frederick Remington]], [[Charles M. Russell]], the photographer [[Edward S. Curtis]], and others recorded the American Western heritage and the [[Old American West]] through their art.
-== Twentieth Century ==+[[History painting]] was a less popular genre in American art during the 19th century, allthough ''[[Washington Crossing the Delaware]]'', painted by the German-born [[Emanuel Leutze]], is among the best-known American paintings. The historical and military paintings of [[William B. T. Trego]] were widely published after his death (according to Edwin A. Peeples, "There is probably not an American History book which doesn't have (a) Trego picture in it").
-Controversy soon became a way of life for American artists. In fact, much of American painting and sculpture since 1900 has been a series of revolts against tradition. "To hell with the artistic values," announced [[Robert Henri]] (1865-1929). He was the leader of what critics called the [[Ashcan school]] of painting, after the group's portrayals of the squalid aspects of city life. Soon the ash-can artists gave way to [[Modernism|modernists]] arriving from [[Europe]]—the cubists and abstract painters promoted by the photographer [[Alfred Stieglitz]] (1864-1946) at his [[291 Gallery]] in [[New York City]]. [[John Marin]], [[Marsden Hartley]], [[Alfred Henry Maurer]], [[Arthur Dove]], [[Stuart Davis (painter)|Stuart Davis]], [[Stanton MacDonald-Wright]], [[Morgan Russell]], [[Patrick Henry Bruce]], and [[Gerald Murphy]] were some important early American modernist painters.+
-After [[World War I]] many [[United States|American]] artists also rejected the [[modern art|modern]] trends emanating from the [[Armory Show]] and European influences such as those from the [[School of Paris]]. Instead they chose to adopt [[academic art|academic]] [[Realism (visual arts)|realism]] in depicting American urban and rural scenes. [[Charles Sheeler]], [[Charles Demuth]] and the artists from the [[Ashcan school]] or [[American realism]]: notably [[George Bellows]], [[Everett Shinn]], [[George Benjamin Luks]], [[William Glackens]], and [[John Sloan]] and others developed socially conscious imagery in their works. +Portrait painters in America in the 19th century included untrained limners such as [[Ammi Phillips]], and painters schooled in the European tradition, such as Thomas Sully and [[George Peter Alexander Healy|G.P.A. Healy]]. Middle-class city life found its painter in [[Thomas Eakins]] (1844–1916), an uncompromising realist whose unflinching honesty undercut the genteel preference for romantic sentimentalism. As a result he was not notably successful in his lifetime, although he has since been recognized as one of America's most significant artists. One of his students was [[Henry Ossawa Tanner]], the first African-American painter to achieve international acclaim.
-===The American Southwest===+
-Following the [[first World War]], the completion of the [[Santa Fe Railroad]] enabled American settlers to travel across the west, as far as the [[California]] coast. New artists’ colonies started growing up around [[Santa Fe, New Mexico|Santa Fe]] and [[Taos, New Mexico|Taos]], the artists primary subject matter being the native people and landscapes of the [[Southwestern United States|Southwest]]. Images of the [[Southwestern United States|Southwest]] became a popular form of advertising, used most significantly by the [[Santa Fe Railroad]] to entice settlers to come west and enjoy the “unsullied landscapes.” [[Walter Ufer]], [[Bert Greer Phillips]], [[E. Irving Couse]], [[William Henry Jackson]], and [[Georgia O'Keefe]] are some of the more prolific artists of the [[southwest]].+
-===Harlem Renaissance===+A [[trompe-l'oeil]] style of [[still-life]] painting, originating mainly in Philadelphia, included Raphaelle Peale (one of several artists of the Peale family), [[William Michael Harnett]], and [[John F. Peto]].
-The [[Harlem Renaissance]] was another significant development in American art. In the 1920s and 30s a new generation of educated and politically astute African-American men and women emerged who sponsored literary societies and art and industrial exhibitions to combat racist stereotypes. The movement showcases the range of talents within African-American communities. Though the movement included artists from across America, it was centered in [[Harlem]], and work from [[Harlem]] [[graphic art]]ist [[Aaron Douglas]] and photographer [[James VanDerZee]] became emblematic of the movement. Some of the artists include [[Romare Bearden]], [[Jacob Lawrence]], [[Charles Alston]], [[Augusta Savage]], [[Archibald Motley]], [[Lois Mailou Jones]], [[Palmer Hayden]] and [[Sargent Johnson]].+
-===New Deal Art===+The most successful American sculptor of his era, [[Hiram Powers]], left America in his early thirties to spend the rest of his life in Europe, where he adopted a conventional style for his idealized female nudes such as ''Eve Tempted''. Several important painters who are considered American spent much of their lives in Europe, notably [[Mary Cassatt]], [[James McNeill Whistler]], and [[John Singer Sargent]], all of whom were influenced by French [[Impressionism]]. [[Theodore Robinson]] visited France in 1887, befriended [[Claude Monet|Monet]], and became one of the first American painters to adopt the new technique. In the last decades of the century [[American Impressionism]], as practiced by artists such as [[Childe Hassam]] and [[Frank W. Benson]], became a popular style.
-When the [[Great Depression]] hit, president [[Franklin D Roosevelt|Roosevelt’s]] [[New Deal]] created several public arts programs. The purpose of the programs was to give work to artists and decorate public buildings, usually with a national theme. The first of these projects, the [[Public Works of Art Project]] (PWAP), was created after successful lobbying by the unemployed artists of the [[Artists' Union]]. The PWAP lasted less than one year, and produced nearly 15,000 works of art. It was followed by the [[Federal Art Project]] of the [[Works Progress Administration]] (FAP/WPA) in 1935, which funded some of the most well-known [[List of American artists|American artists]]. Several separate and related movements began and developed during the [[Great Depression]] including [[American scene painting]], [[Regionalism (art)|Regionalism]], and [[Social Realism]]. [[Thomas Hart Benton (painter)| Thomas Hart Benton]], [[John Steuart Curry]], [[Grant Wood]], [[Ben Shahn]], [[Joseph Stella]], [[Reginald Marsh (artist)|Reginald Marsh]], [[Isaac Soyer]], [[Raphael Soyer]], and [[Jack Levine]] were some of the best known artists.+
-===Abstract Expressionism===+== Twentieth Century ==
-In the years after [[World War II]], a group of New York artists formed the first American movement to exert major influence internationally: [[abstract expressionism]]. +:''[[American modern art]], [[20th century American art]]''
-This term, which had first been used in 1919 in Berlin, was used again in 1946 by [[Robert Coates]] in the [[New York Times]], and was taken up by the two major art critics of that time, [[Harold Rosenberg]] and [[Clement Greenberg]]. It has always been criticized as too large and paradoxical, yet the common definition implies the use of [[abstract art]] to express feelings, emotions, what is within the artist, and not what stands without.+
- +
-The first generation of abstract expressionists was composed of artists such as [[Jackson Pollock]], [[Willem De Kooning]], [[Mark Rothko]], [[Franz Kline]], [[Arshile Gorky]], [[Robert Motherwell]], [[Clyfford Still]], [[Barnett Newman]], [[Adolph Gottlieb]], [[Phillip Guston]], [[Ad Reinhardt]], and [[Hans Hofmann]]. Though the numerous artists encompassed by this label had widely different styles, contemporary critics found several common points between them. +
- +
-Many first generation [[abstract expressionists]] were influenced both by the [[Cubist]]s' works (black & white copies in art reviews and the works themselves at the 291 Gallery or the Armory Show), and by the European [[Surrealist]]s, most of them abandoned formal composition and representation of real objects; and by [[Pablo Picasso]] and [[Henri Matisse]]. Often the ''abstract expressionists'' decided to try instinctual, intuitive, spontaneous arrangements of space, line, shape and color. Abstract Expressionism can be characterized by two major elements - the large size of the canvases used, (partially inspired by Mexican frescoes and the works they made for the [[WPA]] in the 1930s), and the strong and unusual use of brushstrokes and experimental paint application with a new understanding of process. +
- +
-The emphasis and intensification of color and large open expanses of surface were two of the principles applied to the movement called [[Color field]] Painting. Ad Reinhardt, Adolph Gottlieb, Mark Rothko, Clyfford Still and Barnett Newman were categorized as such. Another movement was called [[Action Painting]], characterized by spontaneous reaction, powerful brushstrokes, dripped and splashed paint and the strong physical movements used in the production of a painting. Jackson Pollock is an example of an Action Painter: his ''creative process,'' incorporating thrown and dripped paint from a stick or poured directly from the can; he revolutionized painting methods. [[Willem de Kooning]] famously said about Pollock "he broke the ice for the rest of us." Ironically Pollock's large repetitous expanses of linear fields are also characteristic of Color Field painting as well, and [[art critic]] [[Michael Fried]] pointed that out in his essay for the catalog of ''Three American painters: [[Kenneth Noland]], [[Jules Olitski]], [[Frank Stella]]'' at the [[Fogg Art Museum]] in 1965.+
-Despite the disagreements between art critics, Abstract Expressionism marks a turning-point in the history of American art: the 1940s and 1950s saw international attention shift from European -Parisian- art, to American -New York- art. +
- +
-[[Color field]] painting went on as a movement: artists in the 1950s, such as Clyfford Still, Barnett Newman, Robert Motherwell, and in the 1960s, Jules Olitski, Kenneth Noland, and [[Helen Frankenthaler]], sought to make paintings which would eliminate superfluous rhetoric with large, flat areas of color.+
- +
-===After Abstract Expressionism===+
-During the 1950s abstract painting in America evolved into movements such as [[Neo-Dada]], [[Post painterly abstraction]], [[Op Art]], [[hard-edge painting]], [[Minimal art]], [[Shaped canvas]] painting, [[Lyrical Abstraction]], and the continuation of [[Abstract expressionism]]. As a response to the tendency toward abstraction imagery emerged through various new movements like [[Pop Art]], the [[Bay Area Figurative Movement]] and later in the 1970s [[Neo-expressionism]].+
- +
-[[Lyrical Abstraction]] along with the [[Fluxus]] movement and [[Postminimalism]] (a term first coined by Robert Pincus-Witten in the pages of [[Artforum]] in 1969)<ref>''Movers and Shakers, New York'', "Leaving C&M", by Sarah Douglas, Art and Auction, March 2007, V.XXXNo7.</ref> sought to expand the boundaries of abstract painting and Minimalism by focusing on process, new materials and new ways of expression. [[Postminimalism]] often incorporating industrial materials, raw materials, fabrications, found objects, installation, serial repetition, and often with references to [[Dada]] and [[Surrealism]] is best exemplified in the sculptures of [[Eva Hesse]].<ref>''Movers and Shakers, New York'', "Leaving C&M", by Sarah Douglas, Art and Auction, March 2007, V.XXXNo7.</ref> Lyrical Abstraction, [[Conceptual Art]], [[Postminimalism]], [[Earth Art]], [[Video]], [[Performance art]], [[Installation art]], along with the continuation of [[Fluxus]], [[Abstract Expressionism]], [[Color Field]] [[Painting]], [[Hard-edge painting]], [[Minimal Art]], [[Op art]], [[Pop Art]], [[Photorealism]] and [[New Realism]] extended the boundaries of [[Contemporary Art]] in the mid-1960s through the 1970s.<ref>Martin, Ann Ray, and Howard Junker. The New Art: It's Way, Way Out, [[Newsweek]] [[July 29]] [[1968]]: pp.3,55-63.</ref> +
- +
-[[Lyrical Abstraction]] shares similarities with [[Color Field]] [[Painting]] and [[Abstract Expressionism]] especially in the freewheeling usage of paint - texture and surface. Direct drawing, calligraphic use of line, the effects of brushed, splattered, stained, squeegeed, poured, and splashed paint superficially resemble the effects seen in [[Abstract Expressionism]] and [[Color Field]] [[Painting]]. However the styles are markedly different.+
- +
-During the 1960s and 1970s painters as powerful and influential as [[Adolph Gottlieb]], [[Phillip Guston]], [[Lee Krasner]], [[Cy Twombly]], [[Robert Rauschenberg]], [[Jasper Johns]], [[Richard Diebenkorn]], [[Josef Albers]], [[Elmer Bischoff]], [[Agnes Martin]], [[Al Held]], [[Sam Francis]], [[Ellsworth Kelly]], [[Morris Louis]], [[Gene Davis (painter)|Gene Davis]], [[Frank Stella]], [[Joan Mitchell]], [[Friedel Dzubas]], and younger artists like [[Brice Marden]], [[Robert Mangold]], [[Sam Gilliam]], [[Sean Scully]], [[Elizabeth Murray (born 1940)|Elizabeth Murray]], [[Walter Darby Bannard]], [[Larry Zox]], [[Ronnie Landfield]], [[Ronald Davis]], [[Dan Christensen]], [[Susan Rothenberg]], [[Ross Bleckner]], [[Richard Tuttle]], [[Julian Schnabel]], and dozens of others produced vital and influential paintings.+
-===Other Modern American Movements=== 
-Members of the next artistic generation favored a different form of abstraction: works of mixed media. Among them were [[Robert Rauschenberg]] (1925-2008) and [[Jasper Johns]] (1930- ), who used photos, newsprint, and discarded objects in their compositions. [[Pop art]]ists, such as [[Andy Warhol]] (1930-1987), [[Larry Rivers]] (1923-2002), and [[Roy Lichtenstein]] (1923-1997), reproduced, with satiric care, everyday objects and images of American popular culture&mdash;Coca-Cola bottles, soup cans, comic strips.  
-Realism has also been popular in the United States, despite modernist tendencies, such as the city scenes by [[Edward Hopper]] and the illustrations of [[Norman Rockwell]]. 
== Notable figures== == Notable figures==

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Dempsey and Firpo (1924) by George Bellows
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Visual arts of the United States refers to the history of painting and visual art in the United States. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, artists primarily painted landscapes and portraits in a realistic style. A parallel development taking shape in rural America was the American craft movement, which began as a reaction to the industrial revolution. Developments in modern art in Europe came to America from exhibitions in New York City such as the Armory Show in 1913. After World War II, New York replaced Paris as the center of the art world. Painting in the United States today covers a huge range of styles.

Contents

Eighteenth century

After the Declaration of Independence in 1776, which marked the official beginning of the American national identity, the new nation needed a history, and part of that history would be expressed visually. Most of early American art (from the late 18th century through the early 19th century) consists of history painting and portraits. Painters such as Gilbert Stuart made portraits of the newly elected government officials, while John Singleton Copley was painting emblematic portraits for the increasingly prosperous merchant class, and painters such as John Trumbull were making large battle scenes of the Revolutionary War.

Nineteenth century

19th century art

America's first well-known school of painting—the Hudson River School—appeared in 1820. Thomas Cole pioneered the movement which included Albert Bierstadt, Frederic Edwin Church, Thomas Doughty and several others. As with music and literature, this development was delayed until artists perceived that the New World offered subjects unique to itself; in this case the westward expansion of settlement brought the transcendent beauty of frontier landscapes to painters' attention.

The Hudson River painters' directness and simplicity of vision influenced and inspired such later artists as John Kensett and the Luminists; as well as George Inness and the tonalists (which included Albert Pinkham Ryder and Ralph Blakelock among others), and Winslow Homer (1836–1910), who depicted rural America—the sea, the mountains, and the people who lived near them. The Hudson River School landscape painter Robert S. Duncanson was one of the first important African American painters. John James Audubon, an ornothologist whose paintings documented birds, was one of the most important naturalist artists in America. His major work, a set of colored prints entitled The Birds of America (1827–1839), is considered one of the finest ornithological works ever completed. Edward Hicks was an American folk painter and distinguished minister of the Society of Friends. He became a Quaker icon because of his paintings.

Paintings of the Great West, many of which emphasized the sheer size of the land and the cultures of the native people living on it, became a distinct genre as well. George Catlin depicted the West and its people as honestly as possible. George Caleb Bingham, and later Frederick Remington, Charles M. Russell, the photographer Edward S. Curtis, and others recorded the American Western heritage and the Old American West through their art.

History painting was a less popular genre in American art during the 19th century, allthough Washington Crossing the Delaware, painted by the German-born Emanuel Leutze, is among the best-known American paintings. The historical and military paintings of William B. T. Trego were widely published after his death (according to Edwin A. Peeples, "There is probably not an American History book which doesn't have (a) Trego picture in it").

Portrait painters in America in the 19th century included untrained limners such as Ammi Phillips, and painters schooled in the European tradition, such as Thomas Sully and G.P.A. Healy. Middle-class city life found its painter in Thomas Eakins (1844–1916), an uncompromising realist whose unflinching honesty undercut the genteel preference for romantic sentimentalism. As a result he was not notably successful in his lifetime, although he has since been recognized as one of America's most significant artists. One of his students was Henry Ossawa Tanner, the first African-American painter to achieve international acclaim.

A trompe-l'oeil style of still-life painting, originating mainly in Philadelphia, included Raphaelle Peale (one of several artists of the Peale family), William Michael Harnett, and John F. Peto.

The most successful American sculptor of his era, Hiram Powers, left America in his early thirties to spend the rest of his life in Europe, where he adopted a conventional style for his idealized female nudes such as Eve Tempted. Several important painters who are considered American spent much of their lives in Europe, notably Mary Cassatt, James McNeill Whistler, and John Singer Sargent, all of whom were influenced by French Impressionism. Theodore Robinson visited France in 1887, befriended Monet, and became one of the first American painters to adopt the new technique. In the last decades of the century American Impressionism, as practiced by artists such as Childe Hassam and Frank W. Benson, became a popular style.

Twentieth Century

American modern art, 20th century American art


Notable figures

A few American artists of note include Ansel Adams, John James Audubon, Milton Avery, Thomas Hart Benton, Albert Bierstadt, Alexander Calder, Robert Capa, Mary Cassatt, William Merritt Chase, Dale Chihuly, Frederic Edwin Church, Thomas Cole, John Singleton Copley, Edward S. Curtis, Stuart Davis, Richard Diebenkorn, Thomas Eakins, Sir Jacob Epstein, Jules Feiffer, Helen Frankenthaler, Arshile Gorky, Marsden Hartley, Al Hirschfeld, Hans Hofmann, Winslow Homer, Georgia O'Keeffe, Lee Krasner, Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning, Dorothea Lange, Roy Lichtenstein, Morris Louis, John Marin, Agnes Martin, Joan Mitchell, Robert Motherwell, Jackson Pollock, Man Ray, Robert Rauschenberg, Frederic Remington, Norman Rockwell, Mark Rothko, Albert Pinkham Ryder, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Dr. Seuss, Ben Shahn, Cindy Sherman, David Smith, Frank Stella, Gilbert Stuart, James Thurber, Louis Comfort Tiffany, Andy Warhol, Frank Lloyd Wright, Andrew Wyeth, N.C. Wyeth.

See




Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Visual art of the United States" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

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