America’s Rome

Creator

Date

c. 1989

Identifier

Storage NX503.7 V635

Publisher

New Haven: Yale University Press

Abstract

From the early days of the Republic, the American imagination was captured by the classical world, and the ‘ideal’ achieved by the ancient Greeks and Romans in politics, arts, architecture, ethics and education. Hiram Powers (1805-1873) and Harriet Hosmer (1830-1908) were both American sculptors who lived and worked in Italy and produced statues and busts in the neoclassical style, often ‘dressing’ their contemporary subjects in traditional Greek and Roman garb. Neoclassical sculptures were the concrete embodiment of American society’s aspirations to the ‘ideal’, portraying the likes of George Washington, among others, in the same way that the great Greek and Roman leaders had been.

Files

William Vance Cabinet 18.jpg

Citation

William Vance, “America’s Rome,” ourheritage.ac.nz | OUR Heritage, accessed October 10, 2024, https://ourheritage.ac.nz/items/show/7930.