A Revolution in Color: The World of John Singleton Copley
Jane Kamensky
(Author)
Description
Through an intimate narrative of the life of painter John Singleton Copley, award-winning historian Jane Kamensky reveals the world of the American Revolution, rife with divided loyalties and tangled sympathies.
Famed today for his portraits of patriot leaders like Samuel Adams and Paul Revere, Copley is celebrated as one of America's founding artists. But, married to the daughter of a tea merchant and seeking artistic approval from abroad, he could not sever his own ties with Great Britain. Rather, ambition took him to London just as the war began. His view from abroad as rich and fascinating as his harrowing experiences of patriotism in Boston, Copley's refusal to choose sides cost him dearly. Yet to this day, his towering artistic legacy remains shared by America and Britain alike.
Product Details
Price
$19.95
Publisher
W. W. Norton & Company
Publish Date
October 03, 2017
Pages
544
Dimensions
5.4 X 1.4 X 8.3 inches | 0.95 pounds
Language
English
Type
Paperback
EAN/UPC
9780393354867
BISAC Categories:
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About the Author
Carol Sheriff received her B.A. from Wesleyan University and her Ph.D. from Yale University. She has taught at the College of William and Mary since 1993, where she has received the Thomas Jefferson Teaching Award, the Alumni Teaching Fellowship Award and the University Professorship for Teaching Excellence. Dr. Sheriff teaches a U.S. history survey course and an introduction to historical methodology as well as classes on the early republic, the Civil War era, and the American west. She has co-authored A PEOPLE AT WAR: CIVILIANS AND SOLDIERS IN AMERICA�S CIVIL WAR, 1854-1877 and has written THE ARTIFICIAL RIVER: THE ERIE CANAL AND THE PARADOX OF PROGRESS, which earned the Dixon Ryan Fox Award from the New York State Historical Association and the Award for Excellence in Research from the New York State Archives. Dr. Sheriff has published pieces about the history of textbooks, written sections of a teaching manual for the New York State history curriculum and given presentations to public school teachers. She has also worked on public history projects marking the sesquicentennial of the Civil War, appeared in documentaries on the Erie Canal, and is involved in public and scholarly projects to commemorate the Erie Canal�s bicentennial.
Reviews
Vivid and detailed...a drama in motion.--Kathleen DuVal
With a singular focus on Copley and a more vibrant prose style, Kamensky probes deeply into such matters as family relations, local politics and the psychological costs of failing to realize one's ambitions.--Virginia DeJohn Anderson
Far from a born partisan, Copley could have gone either way. Kamensky's great accomplishment is to leave readers pulled by different audiences, demands, and political allegiances right along with him.--Caitlin Fitz
[I]ntelligent and substantive.--Wendy Smith
Kamensky wields a keen putty knife in a restoration that strives--rather than for objectivity--for acuity and honesty. Kamensky has that in spades.--Peter Lewis
Vivid, intimate, and richly detailed, Jane Kamensky's biography of John Singleton Copley illuminates the deeply intertwined worlds of America and England at the moment of their violent divorce. The career of the great painter from Boston provides a wonderfully fresh and surprising perspective on the American Revolution, on the scope of artistic ambition, and on the high costs of divided loyalty.--Stephen Greenblatt, author of The Swerve
The greatest American artist of the eighteenth century, John Singleton Copley, preferred life in Britain, escaping from the bitter civil war that we call the American Revolution. In this brilliantly insightful and lucidly written biography, Jane Kamensky reveals the age of revolution in fresh new tones as complex and compelling as the interplay of light and shade in the finest Copley painting.--Alan Taylor, author of American Revolutions
A memorable journey into the transatlantic world in the age of revolution through a close study of the greatest colonial American artist. Kamensky, a historian with an art historian's sensibility, provides a brilliant survey of John Singleton Copley's life, work, and subjects, vivified by a detailed examination of letters, diaries, and official records, many previously untapped, to involve the reader in the emotional and sensory experience of living in those tumultuous times.--Jules David Prown, Yale University
With a singular focus on Copley and a more vibrant prose style, Kamensky probes deeply into such matters as family relations, local politics and the psychological costs of failing to realize one's ambitions.--Virginia DeJohn Anderson
Far from a born partisan, Copley could have gone either way. Kamensky's great accomplishment is to leave readers pulled by different audiences, demands, and political allegiances right along with him.--Caitlin Fitz
[I]ntelligent and substantive.--Wendy Smith
Kamensky wields a keen putty knife in a restoration that strives--rather than for objectivity--for acuity and honesty. Kamensky has that in spades.--Peter Lewis
Vivid, intimate, and richly detailed, Jane Kamensky's biography of John Singleton Copley illuminates the deeply intertwined worlds of America and England at the moment of their violent divorce. The career of the great painter from Boston provides a wonderfully fresh and surprising perspective on the American Revolution, on the scope of artistic ambition, and on the high costs of divided loyalty.--Stephen Greenblatt, author of The Swerve
The greatest American artist of the eighteenth century, John Singleton Copley, preferred life in Britain, escaping from the bitter civil war that we call the American Revolution. In this brilliantly insightful and lucidly written biography, Jane Kamensky reveals the age of revolution in fresh new tones as complex and compelling as the interplay of light and shade in the finest Copley painting.--Alan Taylor, author of American Revolutions
A memorable journey into the transatlantic world in the age of revolution through a close study of the greatest colonial American artist. Kamensky, a historian with an art historian's sensibility, provides a brilliant survey of John Singleton Copley's life, work, and subjects, vivified by a detailed examination of letters, diaries, and official records, many previously untapped, to involve the reader in the emotional and sensory experience of living in those tumultuous times.--Jules David Prown, Yale University
