Realism in Revolution: The Art of the Boston School

Realism in Revolution: The Art of the Boston School by Lack, Richard. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780878334636.

This is the manifesto of a group of American realist painters known collectively as the Boston School, a work which traces the roots of a classical tradition in search of lost beauty. In addition to more than 160 color plates of recent and historical works, this book presents a compelling analysis by twelve members of the school of the crisis confronting the modem painter and the demand for a return to representation of the natural world. The formidable tradition of the Boston School extends from the two dozen painters represented here to Bostons R.H. Ives Gammell, who taught many of these artists, to William McGregor Paxton, and from master to pupil back to J.L. Gérôme, Paul Delaroche, Jacques-Louis David, and to the inspiration of Rembrandt, Vermeer and Michelangelo. It is a tradition which encompasses Edmund Tarbell, J.M. Whistler, J.S. Copley, Gilbert Stuart, Joseph DeCamp, Childe Hassam, and William Merritt Chase, who so influenced American painting at the turn of the century. At publication, the artists whose paintings appear in this book, along with the hundreds of pupils they taught, carried the torch of the classical tradition, maintaining their realist imperatives against the weight of fashion. This work is a tribute both to the Boston painters and to the legacy of beauty and truth-to-nature they represent. In gathering and preparing the materials for this book, Richard Lack spent nearly two years collating, compiling, and corresponding with artists in all parts of America and in Europe. As founder of Atelier Lack in Minneapolis, and a pupil of R.H. Ives Gammell in Boston, Richard had been immersed in the study and development of classical painting for more than 35 years, and is generally referred to as "the dean" of the Boston School. Richard was assisted in this effort by his capable wife, Katherine.