This book analyzes how American painters, sculptors, and writers, active between 1800 and 1865, depicted their response to a democratic society that failed to a

Through an examination of the development of art academies and exhibition venues, this study traces the evolution of a young nation which went from considering

Painters Robert Duncanson (ca. 1821–1872) and Edward Bannister (1828–1901) and sculptor Mary Edmonia Lewis (ca. 1844–1907) each became accomplished Africa

This book reveals a new history of the imagination told through its engagement with the body. Even as they denounced the imagination’s potential for inviting