Thursday, August 27, 2009

Prague -- The American Frontier in European Imagination

An exhibition in Prague illustrates (literally) early images of America -- the Frontier -- in the European Imagination. Dinah Spritzer reports in the New York Times:

European graphic artists depict the drama of colonization in the exhibition “Savoring America: The New World in 16th- to 19th-Century Prints,” at the quiet Schwarzenberg Palace (Hradcanske namesti 2), a recently restored Baroque gem a short walk from the castle gate. Displayed in a single room, the prints reflect the initial perception of the New World as a savage land, hence the darkly comic pun in the exhibit name.
Seems that the exhibit focuses on the Land of Savagery image, rather than the Land of Promise (as described in Ray Billington's great book, Land of Savagery, Land of Promise: The European Image of the American Frontier in the Nineteenth Century (which can be read online).

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