New World visions of household gods & sacred places : American art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1650-1914 /

Based on a pair of excellent TV films and incorporating material that had to be dropped from them, this essay by an art historian famous for his studies of American architecture shows him to be an equally stimulating commentator on painting, sculpture, and the decorative arts. What's more, it improves upon its TV counterpart by freeing us from the tyranny of time: we can inspect a picture as closely as printing quality allows (and the quality of the illustrations here is quite high), with no fear of being yanked way by the restless camera. Scully's aim is to reveal the spirits that inform premodernist American art. In his view, these include native American animism, colonial materialism, Jeffersonian classical idealism, vernacular realism, and the transcendental aspirations of Luminist painting and of Shaker furniture and architecture. These strains rise and decline, recur and combine, Scully argues, throughout and beyond the period he covers. Written in a conver- sational tone no doubt attributable to its original intent as spoken commentary, his overview is a lively, fascinating necessity for American public libraries. Bibliographical note; index. RO.

Scully's text is the somewhat enlarged script of a two-part PBS television program that he hosted. As such, it loses the impact and visual continuity that TV viewers might experience. Even so, this is an unusually perceptive, erudite, even profound armchair tour of the alternating currents of earthy realism and Jeffersonian idealism in American painting, sculpture and architecture. Aided by 200 color and black-and-white plates, this Yale professor of art history tours the Metropolitan Museum of Art's American wing, but veers off to discuss pre-Columbian temples, pueblos, town planning as it relates to Washington, D.C., and Versailles, Ashcan School painters, skyscrapers, a Robert Venturi house. The ``household gods'' of the title are materialistic objectsa silver teapot, a Philadelphia high-chestcounterposed with the ``sacred places'' of home or public monument. Scully blows the dust off national treasures and makes them speak to us anew. (September) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Behind the confusing title lies a highly personal and thematic look at American attitudes toward landscape, architecture, art, and the decorative arts. (Examples in the last two categories are culled largely from the Metropolitan's collection.) Scully's depth of knowledge allows him to draw convincing parallels between such diverse elements as a Mayan temple and a city skyscraper, the interiors of 17th-century dwellings and those of Frank Lloyd Wright. Based on the public TV series of the same name, this critical survey is in no way comprehensive, but it is though-provoking. For public libraries. Kathleen Eagen Johnson, Historic Hudson Valley, Tarrytown, N.Y. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.