From Library Journal
Suggestive of an old-fashioned cabinet of curiosities, this miscellany of 375 paintings, drawings, prints, sculptures, books, maps, scientific instruments, astronaut gear, and natural objects (fossils, seashells, and meteorites) are solemnly assembled to explore how science's viscous frontiers have been interpreted by artists in the last two centuries. The ambitious catalog, which accompanies a millennium exhibition in Montreal and Barcelona, is divided into six sprawling sectionsAall of which might have worked better as more focused separate shows. Combining American manifest destiny with Polar exploration, moonscapes, current interstellar constructs, and imaginary cosmologies will tax even the most science-steeped reader. Works are described in detail, and artists receive short biographies and bibliographies. Overall, an impressive, if audacious and intimidating, tour de force. For large public and academic libraries.ARussell T. Clement, Univ. of Tennessee Lib., Knoxville Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

As European settlers in America explored the strange landscapes of the New World, their artistic vocabulary drew on the painterly traditions of the Old World, in particular the works of John Martin, J.M.W. Turner, Caspar David Friedrich, C.G. Carus, Gustave Courbet, and Gustave Dore Romantic evocations of the sublime were transplanted into scenes of the uninhabited West, as well as into the late 19th-century conquest of the arctic regions, by painters such as F.E. Church, and the photographer Eadweard Muybridge.

With contributions by internationally acclaimed historians of art and science, this beautifully illustrated book will be essential reading for students of 19th- and 20th-century art, photography, and architecture, as well as for all those interested in the history of representation in the modern world.

FROM THE CRITICS

Library Journal