Transatlantic Romanticism : British and American art and literature, 1790/1860 /

This rich collection brings together the work of 13 major scholars, most of them art historians, to revitalize Romanticism as a category of analysis and debate and investigate it as a transatlantic trend. The essays are grouped into four categories that broadly define the shared themes and concerns that shaped Romanticism in the US and Britain and reflect current scholarly approaches to visual and literary culture: the city, history, landscape, and race. Most of the artists and writers under scrutiny here are canonical figures, including Benjamin West, Thomas Cole, George Catlin, John Martin, and James Fenimore Cooper; their works are effectively reinterpreted when viewed in light of transatlantic considerations. For example, Andrew Hemingway, David Bindman, and Leo Costello pair artists of differing nationalities working with similar themes to forge international connections and note divergences that speak to such issues as class position and national identity. Other essays, such as those by Wayne Franklin and Alan Wallach, consider the significance of the transatlantic sojourns to the formation of Romanticism. The historiography of Romanticism is a sub-theme of many of the essays, thereby generating discussion vital to the study of individual artists and art history itself. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduate, graduate, and research collections. --Kimberly Rhodes, Drew University