A vivid and engaging exploration of California's debt to the ancient world Discussing the influence of the classics on America is nothing new; indeed, classical antiquity could be considered second only to Christianity as a force in modeling America's national identity. What has never been explored until now is how, from the beginning, Californians in particular chose to visually and culturally craft their new world using the rhetoric of classical antiquity. Through a lively exploration of material culture, literature, and architecture, American Arcadia offers a tour through California's development as a Mediterranean haven from the late nineteenth century to the present. In its earliest days, California was touted as the last opportunity for alienated Yankees to establish the refined gentleman-farmer culture envisioned by Jefferson and build new cities free of the filth and corruption of those they left back East. Through architecture and landscape design Californians fashioned an Arcadian setting evocative of ancient Greece and Rome.Later, as Arcadia gave way to urban sprawl, entire city plans were drafted to conjure classical antiquity, self-styled villas dotted the hills, and utopian communities began to shape the state's social atmosphere. Art historian Peter J. Holliday traces the classical influence primarily through the evidence of material culture, yet the book emphasizes the stories and people, famous and forgotten, behind the works, such as Florence Yoch, the renowned landscape designer and set designer for Gone with the Wind, and "Sister Aimee" Semple McPherson, the most publicized Christian evangelist of her day, whose sermons filled the Pantheon-like Angelus Temple. Telling stories from the creation of the famed aqueducts that turned the semi-arid landscape to a cornucopia of almonds, alfalfa, and oranges to the birth of the body-sculpting movement, American Arcadia offers readers a new way of seeing our past and ourselves.

American Arcadia: California and the Classical Tradition

Arts & Photography

Holliday, Peter J.

History & Criticism

Oxford University Press

Those who write history determine its narrative, whether through written text or through the visual language of art and public monuments. Power, Image, and Memory examines a wide variety of artistic traditions, showing how art commemorating historical events can shape collective memory, and with it, the identities of social groups and nations. From the Mesopotamians to the present day, leaders and societies have used art to frame and memorialize important events. This account establishes a dialogue among traditions in a series of case studies, ranging from the reliefs at Ramses' temple at Abu Simbel and the ancient Greek "Alexander Mosaic" to the Heian Period Japanese scroll of the Night Attack on the Sanjo Palace, the Benin Bronzes, Diego Velázquez's Surrender at Breda, and Picasso's Guernica. Weaving together meticulous historic detail, theory, and visual analysis, this volume offers a complex picture of the power of art and memory, as well as of the life of these monuments and messages over time, distanced from their original cultures and context. With insights relevant to contemporary debates reexamining historic monuments, Power, Image, and Memory sheds new light on the power of art to shape social memory and identity.

Power, Image, and Memory: Historical Subjects in Art

This book analyzes the mentality that required the invention of history to commemorate the achievements of aristocrats at the dawn of the Roman Empire. By investigating classical literary sources as well as the visual arts, this book helps us understand how the Romans justified their action to themselves and to their conquered subjects. It investigates how the Romans interacted with the artistic traditions of the ancient Greeks, Etruscans, and other Italian peoples.

The Origins of Roman Historical Commemoration in the Visual Arts

Cambridge University Press

Parker, John Henry, Holliday, Peter J.

The Fascination With the Past: John Henry Parker's Photographs of Rome : University Art Gallery, California State University, San Bernardino, 24 Apri

Parker, John Henry

Individual Artists

California State Univ

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Holliday, Peter J.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Holliday, Peter J.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Holliday, Peter J.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

American Arcadia: California and the Classical Tradition

Power, Image, and Memory: Historical Subjects in Art

The Origins of Roman Historical Commemoration in the Visual Arts

The Fascination With the Past: John Henry Parker's Photographs of Rome : University Art Gallery, California State University, San Bernardino, 24 Apri