The Art and Thought of John La Farge offers an unprecedented portrait of one of the most celebrated artists of the Gilded Age and opens a window onto nineteenth-century American culture. The book reveals how the work of John La Farge contributed to a rich philosophical dialogue concerning the trustworthiness of human perception. In his struggle against a 'common truth' of iconic symbols presented by a new mass visual culture, La Farge developed a subversive approach to visual representation that focused attention not on the artwork itself, but on the complex, real encounter of artist, subject and medium from which the artwork came.

This volume goes well beyond the scope of the typical exhibition catalogue and becomes, in the end, the first great study of La Farge's late South Seas works, and one of the first comprehensive overviews of the activities of Western artists in the South Seas in the late 19th century. The catalogue's (and exhibition's) title refers to La Farge's first great artistic inspiration (1850s-60s) being the area around Paradise Beach in Newport, RI, and his second inspiration (1890s) being a trip to the South Seas. A number of important scholars have contributed essays to this volume. Among them are the longtime La Farge scholar Henry Adams, who contributes an essay titled "John La Farge's South Seas Sketchbooks: Their Nature and Their Significance" (along with an inventory of the South Seas sketchbooks); and Elizabeth Childs, who contributes an essay comparing the activities of Paul Gauguin and John La Farge during their respective sojourns in Tahiti (it turns out that Gauguin arrived in Tahiti only a week or so after La Farge left it for Fiji). This is an attractively produced volume in square quarto format, with 160 color illustrations and many more in black and white. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-level undergraduates and above; general readers. General Readers; Lower-division Undergraduates; Upper-division Undergraduates; Graduate Students; Researchers/Faculty; Professionals/Practitioners. Reviewed by M. W. Sullivan.

Vanishing paradise" offers a fresh take on the modernist primitivism of the French painter Paul Gauguin, the exoticism of the American John LaFarge, and the elite tourism of the American writer Henry Adams. Childs explores how these artists wrestled with the elusiveness of paradise and portrayed colonial Tahiti in ways both mythic and modern.

John La Farge, A Biographical and Critical Study is the first biography in a century of the American painter, illustrator, muralist, stained-glass artist, and writer. Examining La Farge's career from his youth to his late rebound as a decorative artist-from New York City and New England to Europe to Japan to the South Seas-this is also the only biography to date composed independently of the artist and his estate.