Meet Your Neighbors: New England Portraits, Painters, & Society, 1790-1850

Portraits have an immediacy which makes them compelling windows on the past. As images, they provide tangible information about their subjects and the world in which they lived. As art and cultural artifacts they reveal the dynamic social, aesthetic, and economic forces that shaped them.This book uses portraiture as a prism through which to look at rural New England society. In those years industrialization, immigration, and urbanization undermined the old order and encouraged the emergence of a new class of Americans. This middle-class redefined tastes and material standards in a wider cultural movement, creating a new age of abundance. Meet Your Neighbors focuses on artists, their patrons, and the community at large to shed light on these profound and complex social and economic changes. Product Details: Pages: 144 pages Published By: Old Sturbridge Village Dimensions: approx. 8.5" x 0.5" x 11" Paperback New England topic