Synopses & Reviews
In the first decades of the 20th century, George Bellows and other painters of the Ashcan School, a loosely connected group of gritty, urban realists, created images of the city from street level. Following older artist Robert Henri's insistence that artists should make "pictures from life," the Ashcanners renounced the polished academic style taught in art schools of the time. Instead they practiced a more urgent manner working with bold, highly saturated color, seeking to catch the ebb and flow of life in urban America. Some of them, particularly Bellows, also produced vivid landscapes and portraits.
This book introduces the artists of the Ashcan School and the key characteristics and themes of their work. Detailed commentaries are provided for twelve significant paintings by George Bellows, William Glackens, Robert Henri, George Luks, and John Sloan, ranging from depictions of the metropolitan throng to Bellows's vivid seascapes. In their visual contemplation of early-20th-century America, these artists offer deep insights into the nature of ordinary life not only in their time but also in our own.
About the Author
David Peters Corbett is Dean, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of East Anglia. He was founding director of the Interdisciplinary Centre for Modern Studies, University of York. Katherine Bourguignon is Associate Curator, Terra Foundation for American Art Europe, Paris. Christopher Riopelle is Curator of Post-1800 Paintings at the National Gallery, London.
Table of Contents
Living the simple life : George Clausen at Childwick Green, St Albans /Anna Gruetzner Robins --'Toilers of the sea' : fisherfolk and the geographies of tourism in England, 1880-1900 /Nina Lèubbren --Haunts of ancient peace /Kenneth McConkey --Ideal modernity : Spencer Gore at Letchworth /Ysanne Holt --Geography of Blast : landscape, modernity and English painting, 1914-30 /David Peters Corbett --Wyndham Lewis and the Rappel áa lâordre : classicism and significant form, 1919-21 /Paul Edwards --Foreigners and fascists : patterns of hostility to modern art in Britain before and after the First World War /Brandon Taylor --Equivalents for the megaliths : prehistory and English culture, 1920-50 /Sam Smiles --Ben Nicholson : modernism, craft and the English vernacular /Chris Stephens --Reluctant Romantics : Axis magazine 1935-37 /Alan Powers --English art and "the national character', 1933-34 /Andrew Causey --John Ruskin, Herbert Read and the Englishness of British modernism /Fiona Russell.