1. V: Defining “Americaness” Part 2: Landscapes and Architecture
5/8/2019
V: Defining “Americaness” Part 2: Landscapes and Architecture
The land continues to shape the “American” imagination, and welcomes reinvention of older styles. Biblical narrative again captures senses of “American destiny.” Revivals in Greek- and Gothic-inspired architecture reach new heights in both the North and the South. After the Civil War and the end of the 19th Century, arts and architecture are never the same.
5/8/2019
Dr. Nick Melczarek 2004

2. Continuing Influence of the Land in Arts
5/8/2019
Continuing Influence of the Land in Arts
American artists continue to appreciate the American landscape for its own merits.
Artists eventually created more fantastical allegorical landscape paintings, based on the natural world by romanticized to fit Christian teachings and sentiment.
The painter becomes a prophet of Biblical times to come, by reflecting the natural world which is a reflection of God.
American landscape as ideal or holy place. How does this attitude contrast to those of earlier generations?
5/8/2019
Dr. Nick Melczarek 2004

3. Edward Hicks: The Peaceable Kingdom
Cf. Pohl. Pp , plates
Situates Biblical narrative within the American wilderness.
Question: How does Hicks’ placement of Biblical narrative onto the American landscape compare/contrast to previous efforts we’ve encountered?

4. Landscape & Imagination: Frederick Church
Frederick Church, The Heart of the Andes
Pohl p.148
Many artists create “cosmic” landscapes: vistas from different places seemlessly collected to create an overall artistic impression -- landscapes of the mind.

5. Niagara Falls au naturelle
Church, Niagara (1857)
How does this representation compare/contrast to Trumbull or Cole’s (Pohl pp )?

6. Architecture: Gothic & Greek Revivals early-mid 1800s
Styles inspired by the past, but totally revised; often eclectic.
Top LEFT: GOTHIC REVIVAL (Salem, MSA c.1850) Pointed arches, “gingerbread” detail, amateur architecture.
Top RIGHT: GREEK REVIVAL in the South (Oak Alley Plantation, LA) Columned porticoes & balconies.
RIGHT: GREEK REVIVAL in the North (Gannett House, Cambridge, MA) Columns & equal proportions.

7. Jumps Ahead:Later comments on the Revival style
QUESTION: How do this bridge and this painting each comment on the Gothic Revival in its own time?
On “America” in its own time?
PRE-SECOND-WORLD-WAR 20TH-CENTURY
POST-CIVIL WAR 19TH CENTURY
Heroic apex of Gothic revival: Brooklyn Bridge, architects John & Washington Roebling, (postcard from 1883)
Ironic commentary on the Gothic revival: Grant Wood’s American Gothic, Pohl p.407

8. “Defining ‘Americanness’ (Part 2)” themes, terms, concepts, artists
5/8/2019
Artists as Christian prophet; land as holy place
Edward Hicks
Peaceable Kingdom
Frederick Church
“cosmic landscapes”
Heart of the Andes
Niagara
Greek and Gothic Revival styles in architecture
Later versions/comments
Brooklyn Bridge
Wood’s American Gothic
5/8/2019
Dr. Nick Melczarek 2004