Your guide is Professor William Kloss. A noted scholar and art historian, Professor Kloss has taught more than 100 courses as an independent lecturer for the Smithsonian Institutions seminar and travel program. Through 8 weeks of engaging and informative lectures, on DVD, he shares his deep passion for the art of this nation while offering remarkable insights into the relationship between Americas history and its art.

     Professor Kloss highlights this uniquely American approach to art, examining some of the greatest paintings of the tradition within the larger context of our country’s history and culture. The result is a grand survey of the American experience, in which some of the most critical eras of this nation’s history are viewed through the lens of great art:

The American Revolution: Great artists captured a new spirit of liberty through scenes of war and government. You examine key examples of their revolutionary approach to art, including The Death of General Wolfe, in which Benjamin West pioneered a new vision of democratic leadership by rendering the British general in contemporary dress.

     The Civil War: You see how this tumultuous period of American history found expression on memorable canvases, such as James Hamilton’s symbolic representation of the battered ship of state in Old Ironsides and Winslow Homers vivid reenactment of skirmishes on the front, inviting a Shot before Petersburg.

     The Reconstruction: After the war, painters sought to create an image of the nation reunited, as in George P. A. Healys portrait of The Peacemakers, while others reflected the readjustments of postwar life, as in Homers A Visit from the Old Mistress.

The Westward Expansion: Great masters such as Albert Bierstadt, in his monumental canvas Valley of the Yosemite, recorded the natural splendors of a nation pushing westward, while Emanuel Gottlieb Leutzes allegorical mural Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way embodied the idea of Manifest Destiny. Taken from  www.thegreatcourses.com

This DVD lecture series has been generously provided by