As nations in the Americas gained independence in the early 19th century, a pictorial landscape tradition emerged. By 1840, landscape painting had become the primary medium for articulating conceptions of land and nation in the development of North and South American cultural identities. Picturing the Americas offers the first comprehensive treatment of this genre on both American continents, bringing into dialogue the landscape traditions of artists practicing between 1840 and 1940.
Featuring works by artists such as George Beaver, Fred Kabotie, Albert Bierstadt, Georgia O’Keeffe, Frances Anne Hopkins, Lawren Harris, José María Velasco, and Tarsila do Amaral and essays by scholars such as Jolene Rickard, Ihor Holubizky, and Natalia Majluf, this exquisite volume offers perspective on the emergence of modernism, landscape art’s role in colonization, and how the development of landscape imagery reflects the geographies and sociopolitical histories of peoples, nations, regions, and diasporas.