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Masterpieces of the American West: Selections from the Anschutz Collection by Elizabeth Cunningham

1988; University of Nebraska Press; Volume: 23; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/wal.1988.0152

1948-7142

Shelley Armitage,

Latin American and Latino Studies

Reviews 263 human and ecological integrity, you have to fight for it.” In “A Chicano in King Arthur s Court,” Rudolfo Anaya explores the Mexican versus the American experience as revealed through literature which he says is neither Hispanic nor Mexican-American, but purely American literature. In another fine essay, “Beyond the Frontier Mind,” Thomas J. Lyon contrasts the frontier mind and the post-frontier mind as well as what he considers the “distinctive­ ness of the better regional literature,” that, he says, “not only describes the ending of a major period in human affairs—the frontier era—but also outlines what it might take, in heart and mind, for us to survive this ending.” The last essay in the book, by Lawrence Clark Powell, is “The Fountain and the Well: Sources of Southwestern Literature.” In it, he relates his acquaintance with many of the writers of the early Southwest: Mary Austin, Mabel Luhan, Willa Cather, John Steinbeck, Robinson Jeffers, Henry Miller, and many others. There are other essays in the book, too many to include in this survey, but teachers and readers interested in the literature of the Southwest and its writers will find much of value in this collection. DORYS CROW GROVER East Texas State University Masterpieces of the American West: Selections from the Anschutz Collection. By Elizabeth Cunningham. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1987. 176 pages, $25.00.) As a survey of more than 150 years of western history and culture, this catalogue is an impressive introduction not only to the Anschutz Collection, but to the American West’s major artists and their varied renderings of a land­ scape both factual and symbolic. In a gracefully written introduction, Charles C. Eldredge, Director of the National Museum of American Art, describes the collection’s circumference: “The West—as fact or as symbol and myth-—has inspired remarkably free and diverse responses from its artists. They have docu­ mented the fact of the land and its people. They have romanticized and dramatized its history. And, in modern times, from the forms of the West— its bold, ‘unfinished’ landscape beneath a limitless pellucid sky filled with the West’s white light—artists have extracted new vistas of imagination.” In 128 color plates expertly reproduced, one may move from the spritely yet hauntingly colored canvases of George Catlin to Helen Frankenthaler’s Phoenix, 1976, evoking the West without representing it. Such a rich display of styles and influences offers the view’er a comprehensive study of artistic reaction to the West as well as documentation of its exploration and inspiration. Along with the pointed introduction and preface, the reproductions are enhanced by a map of the West, a time-line, and most valuably, introductions to the artists and their notable contributions, placing each work in a brief critical context. Together, these aspects of an expertly conceived and executed 264 Western American Literature book faithfully display what Elizabeth Cunningham, Director of Exhibitions, The Anschutz Collection, claims of the art: “The styles and media differ, but the message remains the same: the West is a beautiful, vigorous, still untamed land whose spirit of adventure speaks to all.” As a collector’s guide, a research tool, or an introduction to the vitality of American western art, this book is a handsome addition. SHELLEY ARMITAGE West Texas State University The Kingdom in the Country. ByJames Conoway. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987. 293 pages, $17.95.) Nearly two hundred years ago, Thomas Jefferson gazed westward. Fear­ ing cities as corruptive forces, he beheld the vast, unsettled public lands as the Great Hope of the independent yeoman farmer. Since then, the public domain has shrunk considerably, but most of the land beyond the hundredth meridian does more than remain in public ownership. It serves as a focus for an oneiric nation’s westward-yearning dreams. How are things going out there in dreamland? asks Easterner James Conoway. The Kingdom in the Country attempts to answer the question b^ presenting miners and cowboys and loggers living and working under the aegis of landlord Uncle Sam. According to this measure, things have gone pretty sour. In Utah, Conoway hears of thieves blithely chainsawing pictographs from rock faces. In Oregon, he...