American Art and Architecture by Michael J. Lewis traces the full arc of American visual culture from seventeenth-century colonial settlements to contemporary installation and video art, mapping how a distinctly American aesthetic language emerged and ultimately reshaped global practice.
About This Book
This survey charts American art and architecture across four centuries, integrating the histories of buildings and artworks rather than treating them as separate disciplines. Lewis argues that painting, sculpture, photography, and architecture share underlying social and aesthetic concerns — and his account is structured around those connections. Colonial houses and churches give way to modernist museums and postmodernist skyscrapers; vernacular building traditions sit alongside corporate landmarks. What distinguishes the book is its sustained attention to the question of American identity: how artists and architects absorbed European precedents, departed from them, and eventually produced a visual language influential enough to dominate international practice.
Key Features
- 336 pages of integrated art and architectural history spanning the seventeenth century to the present, with illustrated examples across painting, sculpture, photography, new-media art, and building types
- Author: Michael J. Lewis
- Published by Thames & Hudson, ISBN 9780500203910
What You'll Discover
- How American architects and artists selectively adopted and diverged from European models to construct a visual language of their own
- The formal and stylistic characteristics that mark works as distinctively American across different historical periods
- The shared social and aesthetic concerns connecting vernacular, religious, secular, and corporate architecture with the fine and new-media arts
- The trajectory by which American visual culture moved from provincial adaptation to global dominance in modernist and postmodernist practice
About the Author
Michael J. Lewis is the author of this comprehensive survey of American art and architecture. His approach dextrously integrates discussions of built form and visual art, revealing the cultural logic that connects them across four centuries of American history.
Specifications
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 336
- Dimensions: 21 x 15 cm
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9780500203910
- Publisher: Thames & Hudson
- Publication Date: [Details available upon request]
Perfect For: Architecture and art history students, educators building survey courses, and practitioners seeking a single-volume account of how American visual culture evolved from colonial origins to contemporary global influence.