The Rocky Mountains, Lander's Peak

Often, of course, American fields were so cluttered with stumps that there was no question of forgetting about them for any length of time. (Figures 30 and 31.)

The decade of the 1850s was, for many, a period of a satisfying coming of age. The Industrial Revolution, which had developed in the United States a bit later than in England, had matured, and the nation was on its way to being a global economic presence (despite a financial depression in 1857). The Gadsden Purchase in 1853 transferred Mexican land (this time without going to war) to the US...

Samuel Colman (1832–1920) was the first artist from the United States to paint an extensive number of images based on a journey through Spain. Son of a bookseller and publisher, Colman grew up in the city of New York, where his exposure to the artists, engravers, and writers...

In a recent essay Wanda Corn noted that before achieving respectability late in the twentieth century, American art had long suffered as “the impoverished, unwanted stepchild of art history.” Wanda M. Corn, “Coming of Age: Historical...