Picturing Old New England: Image and Memory

by William H. Truettner

When we think of New England, we envision village greens surrounded by neat, white-framed houses; tall elms & church spires; country stores; Yankee farmers; sailing ships; rocky coastlines; brilliant autumn foliage. Despite the fact that there is a New England of cities, factories, & an increasingly diverse ethnic population, it is the Old New England that Americans have always treasured, finding in it a kind of "national memory bank." This beautiful book examines images of Old New England created between 1865 & 1945, demonstrating how these images encoded the values of age & tradition to a nation facing complex cultural issues during the period. The book begins with an introduction by Dona Brown & Stephen Nissenbaum that provides a historical background to the era. Then William Truettner, Roger Stein, & Bruce Robertson turn more directly to New England images & discuss a variety of artistic efforts to historicize the past. They show that paintings of the Revolutionary War, of harvest scenes, or of genteel old New England towns served, for example, to provide reassurance to urban dwellers after the Civil War, to counteract the effects of modernism, & to encourage a sense of community during the Depression. They also examine paintings of coastal New England & favorite haunts of tourists & artists such as Winslow Homer & Marsden Hartley. The many images of Old New England, say the authors, represent shared cultural beliefs-ways of seeing the present in terms of a mythical past.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0937311480
• ISBN13: 9780937311486
• Release Date: January 1999
• Publisher: University Press of New England
• Length: 239 Pages
• Weight: 3.05 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Shaped regionalism

This is a remarkable book. It could not exist but for cultural studies and postmodernism. The time frame is 1865 to 1945. By 1865 New England was the most highly urbanized area in the U.S. By 1875 more than half of the Massachusetts residents lived in cities. Maine's greatest period of industrialization occurred between 1880 and 1910. In the last quarter of the century New England seemed to be thriving, but it was no longer in the economic vanguard. Also, growth for the cities meant crisis for the countryside. Rural isolated areas became vacation sites and artistic destinations. In the 1920's Massachusetts lost jobs in textiles and shoes. From the 1870's and on vast numbers of scenic-rural paintings were produced. In the early 1870's APPLETON'S JOURNAL ran a series entitled picturesque America. Chapters included the coast of Maine, Providence, the White Mountains. A wealth of images were created by artists and writers. New England became a national memory bank. The pilgrims and the Revolutionary War were historicized. After the Civil War antiquarianism was evident at all levels of society. The chapter on yankee modernism encompassing John Marin, Stuart Davis, Marsden Hartley, Edward Hopper, Charles Demuth is delightful. Artist biographies appear at the back of the book. The pictures are splendid.