000 02875nam 2200385 a 45 0
001 1121693
008 950817s1996 paua b s00100 eng
010 $a 95037877
019 1 $a11831800
019 $a 95037877
020 $a0271015578 (cloth : acid-free paper)
020 $a0271015586 (pbk. : acid-free paper)
035 $aM11831800
035 $a0011831800
043 $an-us---$ae------
049 00 $aMAIN
050 00 $aN6510$b.V35 1996
082 00 $a757/.4/097309034$220
089 00 $h709.7309034 V256A
100 1 $aVan Hook, Bailey,$d1953-
245 10 $aAngels of art :$bwomen and art in American
society, 1876-1914 /$cBailey Van Hook.
260 $aUniversity Park, Pa. :$bPennsylvania State
University Press,$cc1996.
300 $axvi, 287 p. :$bill. ;$c26 cm.
504 $aIncludes bibliographical references (p.
[265]-280) and index.
505 0 $a1. Ideal Women as the International Language of
Art -- 2. The Return Home: What to Paint? -- 3. Ideal Women
in Late Nineteenth-Century American Art: Modes of
Representation -- 4. Modes of Representation Continued:
Mural Painting -- 5. Ideal and Real -- 6. Beautiful and
Decorative -- 7. Pure and American.
520 $aImages of women were ubiquitous in America at the
turn of the last century. In painting and sculpture, they
took on a bewildering variety of identities, from Venus,
Ariadne, and Diana to Law, Justice, the Arts, and Commerce.
Bailey Van Hook argues here that the artists' concept of art
coincided with the construction of gender in American
culture. She finds that certain characteristics such as
"ideal," beautiful," "decorative," and "pure" both describe
this art and define the perceived role of women in American
society at the time.
520 8 $aVan Hook first places the American artists in an
international context by discussing the works of their
French teachers, including Jean-Leon Gerome and Alexandre
Cabanel. She goes on to explore why they soon had to
distance themselves from that context, primarily because
their arw was perceived as either openly sensual or too
obliquely foreign by American audiences. Van Hook delineates
the modes of representation the American painters chose,
which ranged from the more traditional allegorical or
mythological subjects to a decorative figure painting
indebted to Whistler. Changing American culture ultimately
rejected these idealized female images as too genteel and,
eventually, too academic and European.
650 0 $aArt, American.
650 0 $aArt, Modern$y19th century$zUnited States.
650 0 $aArt, Modern$y20th century$zUnited States.
650 0 $aWomen in art.
650 0 $aFeminine beauty (Aesthetics)$zUnited States.
650 0 $aExpatriate painters$zEurope.
650 0 $aArt and society$zUnited States$xHistory$y19th
century.
650 0 $aArt and society$zUnited States$xHistory$y20th
century.
