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Front MatterSource: Archives of American Art Journal, Vol. 28, No. 4 (1988), p. 1Published by: The Smithsonian InstitutionStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1557612 .

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THE ARCHIVES OF AMERICAN ART, founded in 1954, has assembled the world's largest collection of material documenting the history of the visual arts in this country. More than eight million items of original source material are available on microfilm to scholars, students, writers, and researchers. Affiliated with the Smithsonian Institution since 1970, the Archives preserves its original documents in Washington with microfilm copies in its regional branches. The collection is protected from loss and destruction while copies are readily accessible to scholars around the world through inter-library loans. The Archives contains not only original records of American painters, sculptors, craftsmen, collectors, and dealers but also those of critics, historians, curators, museums, societies, and institutions concerned with art in America. Affiliation with the Smithsonian Institution makes the Archives of American Art part of one of the world's greatest research centers in the arts and sciences. But it does not decrease financial responsibility. The Archives Trustees raise a substantial portion of the annual budget through contributions from individuals and organizations.

THE ARCHIVES OF AMERICAN ART JOURNAL, published quarterly, is provided to all members of the Archives of American Art. The JOURNAL is also available on a subscription basis for $35 annually; $25 for students with proof of current enrollment. Single copies may be obtained for $10 per copy. Inquiries regarding memberships and subscriptions, and orders for current and back copies, should be addressed to: Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., 20560.

Manuscripts submitted for publication should be based in part on the resources of the Archives of American Art. Two copies should be sent to the Editor, Archives of American Art Journal, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., 20560.

Articles appearing in this journal are abstracted and indexed in Historical Abstracts, America: History and Life, and the Art Index.

Editor: Garnett McCoy

Managing Editor: Darcy Tell

Designer: Hubert Leckie

? 1988 Archives of American Art

Typesetting: V.I.P. Systems Inc., Alexandria, VA

Printing: Eastern Press, New Haven, CT

ISSN 0003-9853

TRUSTEES

Chairman Emeritus Mrs. Otto L. Spaeth

President Richard Jay Schwartz

Vice-Presidents Mrs. Robert F. Shapiro Mrs. Francis de Marneffe Mrs. John Rosekrans, Jr.

Treasurer Mrs. Abbott K. Schlain

Secretary to the Board Mrs. Dana M. Raymond

Officers-at-Large Joel S. Ehrenkranz Julienne Michel

Honorary Officer Mrs. Keith S. Wellin

Members Caroline R. Alexander Eli Broad Ivan Chermayeff Gilbert S. Edelson Mrs. Ahmet M. Ertegun Miles Q. Fiterman Mrs. Daniel Fraad Mrs. Bernard A. Greenberg Benjamin D. Holloway

EX-OFFICIO TRUSTEES

Robert McCormick Adams Dr. Milton Brown Tom L. Freudenheim

FOUNDING TRUSTEES

Lawrence A. Fleischman Edgar P. Richardson (deceased) Mrs. Edsel B. Ford (deceased)

HONORARY TRUSTEES

Dr. Irving F. Burton Russell Lynes Mrs. William L. Richards

DIRECTOR EMERITUS

William E. Woolfenden

CURATOR EMERITUS

Garnett McCoy

ACTING DIRECTOR

Susan Hamilton

John K. Howat Mrs. Philip C. Jessup, Jr. Mrs. Henry C. Johnson Howard W. Lipman Alexander R. Mehran Mayer Mitchell Alan E. Schwartz A. Alfred Taubman R. Frederick Woolworth

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.....~,.,. .. Front cover: Martin Johnson Heade, detail from Thunderstorm over

Narragansett Bay 1868. Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth.

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Editorial Note

Much of this issue deals with aspects of nineteenth-century American landscape painting, a subject that offers an infi- nite supply of grist for the scholarly mill. In a sense, the rise of American art history to its present level of academic respectability began in the late 1930s with a renewed inter- est in the Hudson River School. The then neglected works of Thomas Cole, John Kensett, Frederic E. Church, and their followers revealed a newly discovered indigenous quality which appealed to the Depression period's quest for authen- tic native traditions. This concern was reflected in exhibi- tions of early American paintings held at the Whitney and Metropolitan Museums and in Robert Frost's surprised re- sponse to a 1941 Thomas Cole show, the first since a me- morial exhibition of 1848: "Why haven't I heard of Thomas Cole?"

The reassessment process gained momentum after the war as succeeding generations of scholars trained in the latest techniques of art-historical method explored issues of style, iconography, influence, and patronage. A great quantity of paintings existed and, beginning in the 1950s, an ample supply of documentation was brought together by the Ar- chives of American Art. Opportunities for scholarly discourse on the subject seemed endless, and the modern sensibility of our own time finds nineteenth-century American landscape art ripe with qualities quite unsuspected by an earlier audi- ence. Indeed, one recent study discovered close affinities be- tween the Hudson River School and abstract expressionism.

Since the 1941 show, Cole's work has inspired disserta- tions, exhibition catalogues, and innumerable articles. Yet as late as 1964, the editor of a new edition of an early bi- ography could complain that Cole "has been strangely ne- glected by historians" and that "there is still no modern full length study of his life and work. " Ellwood Parry's book, trenchantly reviewed here by Alan Wallach, finally fills the gap.

Unlike Cole, Charles Frederick Briggs was a minor figure in his own time--the mid-decades of the nineteenth cen- tury. A forgotten but talented writer and perceptive critic, he figures prominently in Perry Miller's The Raven and the Whale (1956), an analysis of the New York literary community in the 1840s. Miller, who had little to go on be- yond Brigg's novels, articles, and reviews, was favorably impressed by his abilities and character and hoped to revive his reputation. "If this volume inspires further disclosure of him," he wrote, "I shall not have worked in vain." With the acquisition of the William Page papers eight years later, the Archives of American Art received the only substantial body of Brigg's correspondence known to exist- nearly a hundred letters to Page and to James Russell Lowell.

While these provide a partial basis for further disclosure, they remain largely unused. As the selection we publish be- low indicates, Briggs held strong views on art and was evi- dently one of the first Americans to appreciate John Rus- kin's significance. An article on his role as an art critic is long overdue.

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Archives of American Art Journal VOLUME 28 NUMBER 4 1988

ARTICLES

A "very peculiar" picture: Martin Johnson Heade's THUNDERSTORM OVER NARRAGANSETT BAY J.Gray Sweeney page 2

"I am right and you are wrong" -Letters of Advice to an Artist of the 1840s page 15

BOOK REVIEWS

Alan Wallach on THE ART OF THOMAS COLE,AMBITION

AND IMAGINATION, by Elwood C.Parry III page 21

J. Gray Sweeney on FREDERIC EDWIN CHURCH AND THE

NATIONAL LANDSCAPE, by Franklin Kelly; and FREDERIC

EDWIN CHURCH, by Franklin Kelly & others page 25

Barbara Zabel on PERPETUAL MOTIF:THE ART OF MAN RAY,

by Merry Foresta and others page 29

REGIONAL REPORTS

Southeast: Liza Kirwin page 34 New York: William McNaught page 35 New England: Robert F. Brown page 35 Southern California: Paul J. Karlstrom page 36

Philadelphia Project: Marina Pacini page 38 West Coast: Paul J. Karlstrom page 39

OFFICES OF THE ARCHIVES OF AMERICAN ART 8th and F Streets, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20560 1285 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10019 5200 Woodward Avenue, Detroit, Michigan 48202 87 Mount Vernon Street, Boston, Massachusetts 02108 M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, California 94118 Huntington Library, 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino, California 91108

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