The Art and Thought of John La Farge offers an unprecedented portrait of one of the most celebrated artists of the Gilded Age and opens a window onto nineteenth-century American culture. The book reveals how the work of John La Farge contributed to a rich philosophical dialogue concerning the trustworthiness of human perception. In his struggle against a 'common truth' of iconic symbols presented by a new mass visual culture, La Farge developed a subversive approach to visual representation that focused attention not on the artwork itself, but on the complex, real encounter of artist, subject and medium from which the artwork came.

This volume goes well beyond the scope of the typical exhibition catalogue and becomes, in the end, the first great study of La Farge's late South Seas works, and one of the first comprehensive overviews of the activities of Western artists in the South Seas in the late 19th century. The catalogue's (and exhibition's) title refers to La Farge's first great artistic inspiration (1850s-60s) being the area around Paradise Beach in Newport, RI, and his second inspiration (1890s) being a trip to the South Seas. A number of important scholars have contributed essays to this volume. Among them are the longtime La Farge scholar Henry Adams, who contributes an essay titled "John La Farge's South Seas Sketchbooks: Their Nature and Their Significance" (along with an inventory of the South Seas sketchbooks); and Elizabeth Childs, who contributes an essay comparing the activities of Paul Gauguin and John La Farge during their respective sojourns in Tahiti (it turns out that Gauguin arrived in Tahiti only a week or so after La Farge left it for Fiji). This is an attractively produced volume in square quarto format, with 160 color illustrations and many more in black and white. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-level undergraduates and above; general readers. General Readers; Lower-division Undergraduates; Upper-division Undergraduates; Graduate Students; Researchers/Faculty; Professionals/Practitioners. Reviewed by M. W. Sullivan.

Vanishing paradise" offers a fresh take on the modernist primitivism of the French painter Paul Gauguin, the exoticism of the American John LaFarge, and the elite tourism of the American writer Henry Adams. Childs explores how these artists wrestled with the elusiveness of paradise and portrayed colonial Tahiti in ways both mythic and modern.

Explores how the novels of Henry James reflect the significance of the visual culture of his society, and how essential the language and imagery of the arts, as well as friendships with artists, were to James's writing.

Celebrating the great American watercolor, this unique collection of images features the work of Sargent, Homer, LaFarge, Prendergast, Demuth, Marin, Burchfield, and Hopper, among others. Original.

"Glass can be decorative or utilitarian, and its forms often reflect technological innovations and social change. Drawing on an insightful selection from the Yale University Art Gallery and other collections at Yale, American Glass illuminates the vital and often intimate roles that glass has played in the nation's art and culture. Spectacularly illustrated, the publication showcases eighteenth-century mold-blown vessels, nineteenth-century pressed glass, innovative studio work, and luminous stained-glass windows by John La Farge and Louis Comfort Tiffany, the latter reproduced as a lush gatefold. These are considered alongside beguiling objects that broaden our expectations of glass and speak to the centrality of the medium in American life, including one of the oldest complex microscopes in the United States, an early Edison light bulb, glass-plate photography, jewelry, and more. With an essay on the history of collecting American glass and discussions of each object that present new scholarship, this engaging book tells the long and rich history of glass in America--from prehistoric minerals to contemporary sculptures"--Dust jacket front flap.