One True Theory and the Quest for an American Aesthetic

Martha Banta reaches across several disciplines to investigate America's early quest to shape an aesthetic equal to the nation's belief in its cultural worth. Marked by an unusually wide-ranging sweep, the book focuses on three major 'testing grounds' where nineteenth-century Americans responded to Ralph Waldo Emerson's call to embrace 'everything' in order to uncover the theoretical principles underlying 'the idea of creation'. The interactions of those who rose to this urgent challenge - artists, architects, writers, politicians, and the technocrats of scientific inquiry - brought about an engrossing tangle of achievements and failures. The first section of the book traces efforts to advance the status of the arts in the face of the aspersion that America lacked an Art Soul as deep as Europe's. This is followed by a hard look at the heated political debates over how to embellish the architecture of Washington, D.C., with the icons of cherished republican ideals. The concluding section probes novels in which artists' lives are portrayed and aesthetic principles tested.

ISBN 0300122977   Pages 384 ISBN13 9780300122978 (What's this?)   Volumes 1 Publisher Yale University Press   Weight (grammes) 617 Imprint Yale University Press   Published in New Haven Format Hardback   Height (mm) 229 Publication date 04 Jan 2008   Width (mm) 152 Library of Congress BH221   Spine width (mm) 25 DEWEY 700.97309034   Academic level Undergraduate, Postgraduate DEWEY edition DC22

Pt. 1		An American Aesthetic and Its Travails		1
		The Burning Question		1
		Measuring Up to Veblenism		7
		Lagging Arts/Advancing Sciences		11
		The Economics of Cultural Deficit		14
		Angers of Influence		21
		Technics, Technics!		24
		Nature, God, Art, Science		28
		God's Time/Government Time		30
		Raw, Ripe, Rot		36
		Transitions without Resolutions		41
		Anxieties of Modernity		47
		Case Studies: Adaptations to Veblenism		50
		"The Normal Man"		54
Pt. 2		Capitol of Best Intentions		58
		The Perfect Republic: Comparative Perspectives		58
		Creation Ab Ova: How Washington, D.C. Came About (1783-1790)		64
		The Southern Factor		66
		Celebratory Histories: Old and New Style		70
		Republican Virtue on Display		75
		Waiting for Greatness to Happen (1820-1860)		81
		From a National Aesthetic to Nationalist Art		88
		The Washington Problem		93
		Reacting to Rome et al		100
		A History of One's Choosing		108
		Montgomery Meigs and the Remaking of Washington, D.C.		115
		America's "Freedom"/Venice's "Justice"		120
		The New Washington, D.C.		129
		The White City		136
		More...

Martha Bantas book aims big. It investigates various American attitudes toward a unified theory of art, featuring strong readings of literature, architecture, and art history. It is a tour de force of learning.Alexander Nemerov, Yale University -- Alexander Nemerov

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