Patricia Phagan

Explores geologic themes and their significance in over fifty outstanding works by American and European artists of the Enlightenment and Romantic eras. This is a beautifully illustrated, interdisciplinary volume which explores how European and American artists of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries revealed a compelling interest in dramatic geologic phenomena - caves and natural arches, boulders and rock formations, mountains, glaciers, volcanoes, and cliffs. From a topographical, often strata-focused means to a later mode that evoked nature's great transformational powers over time, European and American artists pursued their cross-cultural travels in seeking geological wonders. The authors address the importance and history of geology, the most popular science of the 1800s. Past Time features a combination of outstanding drawings, watercolours, and brilliant oil sketches and studies, with works by Asher B Durand, Frederic Church, John Singer Sargent, Albert Bierstadt, Thomas Moran, J. M. W. Turner, Joseph Wright of Derby, and Thomas Rowlandson, amongst many others. This volume is a great addition to the currently available publications on the relationship between the growth of natural science and the interest amongst artists in capturing and presenting scientific phenomena and an ever-changing earth. AUTHOR: Patricia Phagan is the Philip and Lynn Straus Curator of Prints and Drawings, the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Poughkeepsie, NY. SELLING POINTS: . A great addition to the currently available publications on the releationship between art and natural science in the 18th and 19th centuries . Features works by Asher B. Durand, Frederic Church, John Singer Sargent, Albert Bierstadt, Thomas Moran, J.W. Turner, Joseph Wright of Derby and Thomas Rowlandson, amongst many others 80 colour images

Accompanying the first major exhibition of Thomas Rowlandson's work in North America for some 20 years, this volume reflects the growing emphasis on the social and political context of the satirical watercolours, drawings and prints of the 18th and 19th century and in doing so rescues Rowlandson from what co-author Vic Gatrell calls "the immense condescension of posterity". This book explores Rowlandson's unique perspective on Georgian society, and opens up the whole subject of Georgian leisure and social life and the crossing of class boundaries. An introduction by Patricia Phagan describes Rowlandson's position within a hierarchical society. Illustrated essays by Vic Gatrell and Amelia Rauser examine Rowlandson's view of social life and leisure in London and his political satires. The main catalogue is divided into six thematic sections: high society and political campaigning; encounters on the street; gatherings in clubs and taverns; art, dance, and the theatre; outdoor diversions; and romantic trysts, tangles, and attachments. Over 70 of Rowlandson's original watercolours and drawings, as well as prints and illustrated books drawn from the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at Vassar College as well as from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Yale Center for British Art, Lewis Walpole Library, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, and Vassar College Libraries, Archives and Special Collections are presented.