As nations in the Americas gained independence in the early nineteenth century, a pictorial landscape tradition emerged. By 1840, landscape painting had become the primary medium for articulating conceptions of land and nation in the development of North and South American cultural identity. Picturing the Americas offers the first comprehensive treatment of this genre on both American continents, bringing into dialogue the landscape traditions of artists practicing between 1840 and 1940.

The book includes works by U.S. artists Albert Bierstadt, Frederic Church, and Georgia O’Keeffe; Canadian artists Joseph Légaré, Frances Anne Hopkins, and Lawren Harris; Mexico’s José María Velasco, Uruguay’s Joaquín Torres-García, and Brazil’s Tarsila do Amaral, among many others. Leading scholars offer a Pan-American perspective on these landscape traditions: essays consider the emergence of modernism, as well as how the development of landscape imagery reflects the intricately intertwined geographies and sociopolitical histories of the peoples, nations, regions, and diasporas of the two continents.

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Samuel F. B. Morse’s (1791–1872) Gallery of the Louvre (1831–33) is one of the most significant, and enigmatic, works of early 19th-century American art. It is also one of the last works Morse painted before turning his attention to the invention of the telegraph and Morse code.

A signature painting in the collection of the Terra Foundation for American Art, Gallery of the Louvre underwent an extensive conservation treatment in 2010–11 and was the focus of three symposia held at the Yale University Art Gallery (April 2011), the National Gallery of Art (April 2012), and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (April 2013). This collection of essays, carefully drawn from the proceedings of these scholarly sessions, brings together the fresh insights of academics, curators, and conservators, who focus on the painting’s visual components and its cultural contexts. The book accompanies a multi-year tour of the painting to prominent museums across the country.

*This eBook is available exclusively on the A&AePortal*