A Revolution in Color: The World of John Singleton Copley - Softcover

Jane Kamensky

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0393354865 ISBN 13: 9780393354867

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 2017

Synopsis

"... I commend Kamensky's skill as a writer. Even if you had little interest in such a man as Copley, this is a deeply enjoyable book." David Aaronovitch, Book of the Week, The Times

In this life of painter John Singleton Copley, Jane Kamensky untangles the web of principles and interests that shaped the age of America's revolution. Copley's talent earned him the patronage of Boston's leaders but he did not share their politics and painting portraits failed to satisfy his lofty artistic goals. A British subject who lamented America's provincialism, Copley looked longingly across the Atlantic. When resistance escalated into war, he was in London. A painter of America's revolution as Britain's American War, the magisterial canvases he created made him one of the towering figures of the British art scene. Kamensky brings Copley's world alive and explores the fraught relationships between liberty and slavery, family duty and personal ambition, legacy and posterity tensions that characterised the era of the American Revolution and that beset us still.

About this title

Review:

"Copley was in London when resistance escalated into war. This profile brings his world alive, exploring the difficult relationships between liberty and slavery, family duty and personal ambition."

--The Independent

"...intriguing...[a] richly layered biography..."

--Times Literary Supplement

"Kamensky has given us the first proper biography of the artist. She is especially well equipped for the task, and approaches it with a novelist's verve and imagination, a necessary skill set for dealing with someone of Copley's artistic genius and complex, often downright unpleasant personality." --Burlington Magazine

"Jane Kamensky has not only crafted a stunning biography but also a truly singular account of The American Revolution. A Revolution in Color masterfully unravels any easy distinctions between patriots and loyalists." --Amanda Foreman

About the Author:

Jane Kamensky is a professor of history at Harvard University and the faculty director of the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Her many books include The Exchange Artist, a finalist for the George Washington Book Prize.

About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 0393354865
• ISBN 13: 9780393354867
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 544