Pacific Arcadia: Images of California, 1600-1915

By Claire Perry

Book Overview

Since the arrival of the Spanish explorers in the sixteenth century, California has been thought of as a land of promise and opportunity. This lavishly illustrated catalog, which is to accompany a major exhibit opening in April 1999 at Stanford's Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts and traveling subsequently to two other museums, presents a fascinating cultural history of an idyllic vision of California that still figures prominently in the American imagination. Brought together in one show for the first time, this combination of art is unique in its range from high art to popular representations. Currier and Ives lithographs and the work of early European cartographers are juxtaposed with photographs by Carleton E. Watkins, Arnold Genthe, and Eadweard Muybridge, and paintings by Albert Bierstadt, James Walker, and William Hahn, among others. With one hundred and fifty plates--sixty in full color--Pacific Arcadia illuminates the imagery of the California Dream.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195109368
• ISBN13: 9780195109368
• Release Date: April 1999
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 2.97 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 8.8" x 11.3"

Customer Reviews

Great Book

For anyone who is interested in the history of California and art, this is a very interesting book.