{"product_id":"the-anatomy-of-nature-geology-and-american-landscape-painting-18251875-9780691102917","title":"The Anatomy of Nature: Geology and American Landscape Painting  1825-1875","description":"\u003cp\u003eAn illuminating account of the interplay between science  religion  and nature in nineteenth-century landscape painting  Geology was in vogue in nineteenth-century America. People crowded lecture halls to hear geologists speak  and parlor mineral cabinets signaled social respectability and intellectual engagement. This was also the heyday of the Hudson River School  and many prominent landscape painters avidly studied geology. Thomas Cole  Asher Durand  Frederic Church  John F. Kensett  William Stanley Haseltine  Thomas Moran  and other artists read scientific texts  participated in geological surveys  and carried rock hammers into the field to collect fossils and mineral specimens. As they crafted their paintings  these artists drew on their geological knowledge to shape new vocabularies of landscape elements resonant with moral  spiritual  and intellectual ideas.  Rebecca Bedell contributes to current debates about the relationship among art  science  and religion by exploring this phenomenon. She shows that at a time when many geologists sought to disentangle their science from religion  American artists generally sidestepped the eras more materialist science  particularly Darwinism. They favored a conservative  Christianized geology that promoted scientific study as a way to understand God. Their art was both shaped by and sought to preserve this threatened version of the science. And  through their art  they advanced consequential social developments  including westward expansion  scenic tourism  the emergence of a therapeutic culture  and the creation of a coherent and cohesive national identity.  This major study of the Hudson River School offers an unprecedented account of the role of geology in nineteenth-century landscape painting. It yields fresh insights into some of the most influential works of American art and enriches our understanding of the relationship between art and nature  and between science and religion  in the nineteenth century. It will draw a broad audience of art historians  Americanists  historians of science  and readers interested in the American natural landscape.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45646936834101,"sku":"ByrdShop_0691102910","price":45.44,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780691102917.jpg?v=1781682282","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-anatomy-of-nature-geology-and-american-landscape-painting-18251875-9780691102917","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}