Citizen spectator : art, illusion, and visual perception in early national America
"Investigates Americans' experiences with material forms of visual deception and argues that encounters with illusory art shaped their understanding of knowledge, representation, and subjectivity between 1790 and 1825. Focusing on the work of the well-known Peale family and their Philadelphia Museum, as well as other Philadelphians, Bellion explores the range of illusions encountered in public spaces, from trompe l'oeil paintings and drawings at art exhibitions to ephemeral displays of phantasmagoria, 'Invisible Ladies, ' and other spectacles of deception."--Publisher description
Print Book, English, ©2011
University of North Carolina Press ; Published for the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, Chapel Hill, Williamsburg, Va., ©2011
History
xviii, 351 pages : illustrations (some color), maps ; 25 cm
9780807833889, 0807833886
640132952
Theaters of visuality
The politics of discernment
Sight and the city
Imitations and originals
Looking for the invisible lady
Phantasmagoric Washington
Outgrowth of the author's thesis (Northwestern University)