Seeing High and Low - Edited by Patricia Johnston - University of California Press

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Seeing High and Low

American Art

Representing Social Conflict in American Visual Culture

Ancient & Classical Art

Patricia Johnston (Editor)

Art & Society

Available worldwide
An Ahmanson-Murphy Fine Arts Book

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Read Chapter 1 (PDF)

Asian Art
Paperback, 317 pages
ISBN: 9780520241886
June 2006
$34.95, 24.95

European Art
Exhibition Catalogs

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Hardcover, 317 pages

ISBN: 9780520241879
June 2006
$70.00, 48.95

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Contents

Author Bio

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This cutting-edge volume presents a sweeping view of the evolution of visual culture in the United States through fifteen
absorbing case studies by top scholars of American art that explore visual cultures engagement with social controversy.
Written especially for this work in lively and accessible language, the essays illuminate what visual formsincluding
traditional crafts, sculpture, painting and graphic arts, even domestic and museum interiorscan tell us about social
conditions, how visual culture has contributed to social values, and how concepts of high and low art have developed.
The only work on visual culture to span American history from the early republic to the present and to delve into issues
from ethnicity to geography, Seeing High and Low allows readers to follow the evolution of concepts of high and low
art as well as to gain new insight into American history.
Arranged roughly chronologically, these generously illustrated essays explore topics including the formative role of visual
images in the process of class stratification in the Early Republic; the contribution of media images and paintings to
debates on environmental crises, race relations, and urbanization in the late nineteenth century; and the difficulties of
engaging with social issues while employing a modernist vocabulary.

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Seeing High and Low - Edited by Patricia Johnston - University of California Press

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