Book picks similar to
Knowing Nature: Art and Science in Philadelphia, 1740-1840 by Amy R.W. Meyers
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America's Daughter
Celeste De Blasis - 2021
Soon, the glittering summers in rural Virginia with her cousins and the plush prosperity of her father’s home in Boston are eclipsed by the fight for American independence.When the British forces lay siege to Boston, Addie’s family is torn in two. Her brothers and her childhood sweetheart Silas leave to become aides to General Washington alongside Alexander Hamilton, while Addie’s English-born, Loyalist father welcomes the British into his home. Just as Addie takes the painful decision to join the fight, she meets enigmatic Scottish Highlander John Traverne. But he’s on the side of the English king, so Addie will not give in to the spark between them.As the bitter war continues, Addie’s life becomes increasingly bound with the fate of America. When Silas is captured by the British, Addie risks all to search for him, but venturing into enemy territory brings her face to face with her Highlander again, and she must make an impossible choice between love, or the future of her nation…An epic, emotional and heartbreaking novel about a woman caught in the struggle for a new America. Readers who love My Dear Hamilton and Flight of the Sparrow will be swept away by America’s Daughter.
I Always Loved You
Robin Oliveira - 2014
Her father is begging her to return to Philadelphia to find a husband before it is too late, her sister Lydia is falling mysteriously ill, and worse, Mary is beginning to doubt herself. Then one evening a friend introduces her to Edgar Degas and her life changes forever. Years later she will learn that he had begged for the introduction, but in that moment their meeting seems a miracle. So begins the defining period of her life and the most tempestuous of relationships.In I Always Loved You, Robin Oliveira brilliantly re-creates the irresistible world of Belle Époque Paris, writing with grace and uncommon insight into the passion and foibles of the human heart.
The Romantic Revolution
Timothy C.W. Blanning - 2010
The first two - the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution - have inspired the greatest volume of literature. But the third - the romantic revolution - was perhaps the most fundamental and far-reaching.From Byron, Wordsworth, Coleridge and Burns, to Beethoven, Wagner, Berlioz, Rossini and Liszt, to Goya, Turner, Delacroix and Blake, the romantics brought about nothing less than a revolution when they tore up the artistic rule book of the old regime. This was the period in which art acquired its modern meaning; for the first time the creator, rather than the created, took centre-stage. Artists became the high priests of a new religion, and as the concert hall and gallery came to take the place of the church, the public found a new subject worthy of veneration in paintings, poetry and music. Tim Blanning's wide-ranging survey traces the roots and evolution of a cultural revolution whose reverberations continue to be felt today.
High Art Lite: The Rise and Fall of Young British Art
Julian Stallabrass - 2000
High Art Lite provides a sustained analysis of the phenomenal success of YBA, young British artists obsessed with commerce, mass media and the cult of personality Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin, Jake and Dinos Chapman, Marcus Harvey, Sarah Lucas, among others. In this fully revised and expanded edition, Julian Stallabrass explores how YBA lost its critical immunity in the new millennium, and looks at the ways in which figures such as Hirst, Emin, Wearing and Landy have altered their work in recent years.
Tragedy: The Ballad of the Bee Gees
Jeff Apter - 2015
For every incredible career high there was a hefty personal downside: divorce, drunkenness, and death seemed as synonymous with the Gibbs as falsetto harmonies, flares, and multi-platinum record sales.Not long before his death, Robin made it clear that he believed the Gibbs had been forced to pay the highest possible cost for their success. "All the tragedies my family has suffered . . . is a kind of karmic price we are paying for all the fame and fortune we've had." This is the story of the brothers' incredible careers and an examination of the Gibb 'curse'--an all-too-human look at the rollercoaster ride of fame.
The Ultimate Biography Of The Bee Gees: Tales Of The Brothers Gibb
Melinda Bilyeu - 2000
The Bee Gee's journey from Fifties child act to musical institution is one of pop's most turbulent legends. Barry, Maurice and Robin Gibb somehow managed to survive changing musical fashions and bitter personal feuds to create musical partnership that has already lasted four times as long as The Beatles. Described by the authors as their objective tribute, this unflinching biography chronicles everything - the good, the bad... and the bushed-up. Youthful delinquency, disastrous marriages, bitter lawsuits, gay sex scandals, serious drug problems and the death of younger brother Andy have sometimes made the personal lives of the Brothers Gibb look as bleak as the low spots of a career that once reduced them to playing the Batley Variety Club. Yet every time the Bee Gees roller coaster seemed derailed for good, they recorded and went on to even greater triumphs. Today they are revered among pop music's all-time great performers, producers and songwriters. But the true story of their success and the high price they paid for it has never been fully revealed... until now. This new edition of The Ultimate Biography incorporates a complete listing of every song written or recorded by the Gibbs.
The Devil and Dr. Barnes: Portrait of an American Art Collector
Howard Greenfeld - 1987
The Devil and Dr. Barnes traces the near-mythical journey of a man who was born into poverty, amassed a fortune through the promotion of a popular medicine, and acquired the premier private collection of works by such masters as Renoir, Matisse, Cézanne, and Picasso. Ostentatiously turning his back on the art establishment, Barnes challenged the aesthetic sensibilities of an uninitiated, often resistant and scoffing, American audience. In particular, he championed Matisse, Soutine, and Modigliani when they were obscure or in difficult straits. Analyzing what he saw as the formal relationships underlying all art, linking the old and the new, Barnes applied these principles in a rigorous course of study offered at his Merion foundation. Barnes's own mordant words, culled from the copious printed record, animate the narrative throughout, as do accounts of his associations with notables of the era--Gertrude and Leo Stein, Bertrand Russell, and John Dewey among them--many of whom he alienated with his appetite for passionate, public feuds. In this rounded portrait, Albert Barnes emerges as a complex, flawed man, who--blessed with an astute eye for greatness--has left us an incomparable treasure, gathered in one place and unforgettable to all who have seen it.
Surreal Lives: The Surrealists 1917-1945
Ruth Brandon - 1999
In Surreal Lives, Ruth Brandon follows the lives and interactions of such firecracker minds as the movement's didactic "Pope," Andre Breton, and the ambitious and manic Salvador Dali, as well as Marcel Duchamp, Francis Picabia, Tristan Tzara, Man Ray, Max Ernst, and filmmaker Luis Bunuel. It charts their shifting allegiances, and their ties to muses and patrons like Gala Dali and Peggy Guggenheim. Ruth Brandon spins the many stories of Surrealism with wit, energy, and insight, bringing sharp analysis to an eccentric cast of characters whose struggles and achievements came to mirror and define the way the world changed between the wars. "Fascinating, impassioned... admirable [for] the masterly storytelling, the richness of anecdotal incident, the keen reporting of intellectual enthusiasms and artistic collaborations, and the panorama of a spectacular cultural galaxy." -- The New York Times Book Review; "Superbly entertaining... A cousin to Malcolm Cowley's Exile's Return." -- Michael Dirda, The Washington Post Book World; "A lively and absorbing complement to [the Surrealists'] work." -- The New Yorker
Brian Eno's Another Green World (33 1/3 Book 67)
Geeta Dayal - 2009
It was the first Brian Eno album tobe composed almost completely in the confines of a recording studio,over a scant few months in the summer of 1975. The album was a proofof concept for Eno's budding ideas of "the studio as musicalinstrument," and a signpost for a bold new way of thinking aboutmusic.In this book, Geeta Dayal unravels Another Green World's abundantmysteries, venturing into its dense thickets of sound. How was analbum this cohesive and refined formed in such a seemingly ad hoc way?How were electronics and layers of synthetic treatments used to createan album so redolent of the natural world? How did a deck of cardsfigure into all of this? Here, through interviews and archivalresearch, she unearths the strange story of how Another Green Worldformed the link to Eno's future -- foreshadowing his metamorphosisfrom unlikely glam rocker to sonic painter and producer.
Hidden Treasures: Searching for Masterpieces of American Furniture
Joan Barzilay Freund - 2000
On Antiques Roadshow, experts tell people whether they have a "match" and are in possession of a valuable antique or simply have another run-of-the-mill object. Leigh and Leslie Keno, the twin-brother experts who appear on Antiques Roadshow, have now written a book chronicling their history of discovering rare antiques -- Hidden Treasures: Searching for Masterpieces of American Furniture.These brothers have literally spent a lifetime learning about antiques. By the time the boys were 12, they were already dealers and were more than a bit familiar with the world of flea markets, tag sales, and antique shops. Having been raised in a home where they learned that the intrinsic value of an antique lies in its rarity and beauty, the brothers took that knowledge and built a life around what quickly became an obsession.In Hidden Treasures the Kenos' passion is not explained in a dry, academic lecture; instead, they detail some of the most exciting antiques hunts they've had. Although they are both obviously experts, there are still pieces that experts can question or pass over because years of refinishing and reupholstering have disguised the original design. Sometimes even experts can feel like they're on the other side of the table at Antiques Roadshow. In Hidden Treasures the Kenos face some trials, but their skill and determination always leads them to success.The brothers, who alternate writing chapters, don't simply want to tell readers about the fun they have -- they want the readers to understand antiques. Hidden Treasures is filled with photographs of the rare and beautiful pieces discussed in the text. Many of the pieces are shown in a series of photographs to explain exactly why those pieces are works of such incredible craftsmanship.Reading Hidden Treasures will not turn someone into the experts that Leigh and Leslie are. But it does allow for a much greater understanding of the antiques world that they love. They teach readers to appreciate the beauty that can transform an everyday object into a work of art, and in doing so, they teach readers to keep their eyes open to the beauty that people miss every day.
The Refinement of America: Persons, Houses, Cities
Richard L. Bushman - 1992
Spanning the material world from mansions and silverware to etiquette books, city planning, and sentimental novels, Richard L. Bushman shows how a set of values originating in aristocratic court culture gradually permeated almost every stratum of American society and served to prevent the hardening of class consciousness. A work of immense and richly nuanced learning, The Refinement of America newly illuminates every facet of both our artifacts and our values.
European Architecture 1750-1890
Barry Bergdoll - 2000
Never before had the functional requirements and expressive capacities of architecture been tested so thoroughly and with such diversity of invention. Bergdoll traces this experimentation in a broad range of contexts, focusing in particular on the relation of architectural design to new theories of history, new categories of scientific inquiry, and the broadening audience for architecture in this period of transformation. Unlike traditional surveys with long lists of buildings and architects, the themes are elucidated by in-depth coverage of key buildings which in turn are situated in both their local and European context.
Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves: Race, War, and Monument in Nineteenth-Century America
Kirk Savage - 1997
Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves explores how that history of slavery and its violent end was told in public space--specifically in the sculptural monuments that increasingly came to dominate streets, parks, and town squares in nineteenth-century America. Here Kirk Savage shows how the greatest era of monument building in American history arose amidst struggles over race, gender, and collective memory. As men and women North and South fought to define the war's legacy in monumental art, they reshaped the cultural landscape of American nationalism.At the same time that the Civil War challenged the nation to reexamine the meaning of freedom, Americans began to erect public monuments as never before. Savage studies this extraordinary moment in American history when a new interracial order seemed to be on the horizon, and when public sculptors tried to bring that new order into concrete form. Looking at monuments built and unbuilt, Savage shows how an old image of black slavery was perpetuated while a new image of the common white soldier was launched in public space. Faced with the challenge of Reconstruction, the nation ultimately recast itself in the mold of the ordinary white man. Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves, the first sustained investigation of monument building as a process of national and racial definition, probes a host of fascinating questions: How was slavery to be explained without exploding the myth of a united people? How did notions of heroism become racialized? And more generally, who is represented in and by monumental space? How are particular visions of history constructed by public monuments? Written in an engaging fashion, this book will appeal to a wide range of readers interested in American culture, race relations, and public art.
The Idea of North
Peter Davidson - 2005
It is also the direction taken throughout history by the adventurous, the curious, the solitary, and the foolhardy. Based in the North himself, Peter Davidson, in The Idea of North, explores the very concept of "north" through its many manifestations in painting, legend, and literature. Tracing a northbound route from rural England—whose mild climate keeps it from being truly northern—to the wind-shorn highlands of Scotland, then through Scandinavia and into the desolate, icebound Arctic Circle, Davidson takes the reader on a journey from the heart of society to its most far-flung outposts. But we never fully leave civilization behind; rather, it is our companion on his alluring ramble through the north in art and story. Davidson presents a north that is haunted by Moomintrolls and the ghosts of long-lost Arctic explorers but at the same time, somehow, home to the fragile beauty of a Baltic midsummer evening. He sets the Icelandic Sagas, Nabokov's snowy fictional kingdom of Zembla, and Hans Christian Andersen's cryptic, forbidding Snow Queen alongside the works of such artists as Eric Ravilious, Ian Hamilton Finlay, and Andy Goldsworthy, demonstrating how each illuminates a different facet of humanity's relationship to the earth's most dangerous and austere terrain. Through the lens of Davidson's easy erudition and astonishing range of reference, we come to see that the north is more a goal than a place, receding always before us, just over the horizon, past the last town, off the edge of the map. True north may be unreachable, but The Idea of North brings intrepid readers closer than ever before.