Spirit of Place: Contemporary Landscape, Painting and the American Tradition

Spirit of Place: Contemporary Landscape, Painting and the American Tradition by Arthur, John. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780821217078.

This is an examination of the realist tradition in contemporary American landscape painting, which the author sees as the only form of visual expression that has remained a constant link in American art, from the late 19th-century work of Frederic E.Church, through to the present day. After surveying the predecessors, including Homer, Burchfield and OKeeffe, and a new generation with Fairfield Porter, Alex Katz and Neil Welliver, the author devotes chapters to the various formal approaches of the painters of the 1970s and 1980s. "Realism" is interpreted broadly; some of the paintings illustrated are expressionist in feeling, and lyricism dominates, rather than the hard edge of photorealism. Some eighty painters are discussed and their works illustrated. Among the contemporary artists are Diebenkorn, Wyeth, Beckman, Estes, Button, Kahn and Wonner. The book makes both art historical and critical points, and is a survey of the best in American landscape in the second half of the twentieth century.