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Rating: 
Summary: Tedious and Superficial
Review: A shallow overview, off-puttingly Euro-centric. In addition, Cohen-Solal, who has little or nothing to offer as an art critic aside from literal descriptions of the content of each work, habitually defaults to the rather off-putting modus of the second-rate cultural critic by habitually tracing influences (X's work shows the influences of W,Y & Z, etc.).Anyway, here's something from page 258 that in many ways epitomizes for me what's wrong with this book: 'Marchel Duchamp--the "most eccentric and the most inexplicable human being who ever came" to the city which, according to some, had become the "cultural capital of the world"--was on the way to becoming, for many generations, the true father of American art.' Sorry honey, but anyone inclined to think that Marchel Duchamp -- the expatriated Frenchman who spent precious little time in America doing anything except cadging a living -- is the father of American art has no credibility whatsoever as either a critic or an historian.
Rating:
Summary: Tedious and Superficial
Review: A shallow overview, off-puttingly Euro-centric. In addition, Cohen-Solal, who has little or nothing to offer as an art critic aside from literal descriptions of the content of each work, habitually defaults to the rather off-putting modus of the second-rate cultural critic by habitually tracing influences (X's work shows the influences of W,Y & Z, etc.). Anyway, here's something from page 258 that in many ways epitomizes for me what's wrong with this book: 'Marchel Duchamp--the "most eccentric and the most inexplicable human being who ever came" to the city which, according to some, had become the "cultural capital of the world"--was on the way to becoming, for many generations, the true father of American art.' Sorry honey, but anyone inclined to think that Marchel Duchamp -- the expatriated Frenchman who spent precious little time in America doing anything except cadging a living -- is the father of American art has no credibility whatsoever as either a critic or an historian.
Rating: 
Summary: Franco-centric account of American Art
Review: I became immediately suspicious of this book when I noticed that only one of the blurbs on the back cover came from an art historian of this period; the others were from a historian, pop-historian Ken Burns, a museum director, and Kirkus Reviews. And in reading the book, I understand why no other scholars of 19th & 20th century American art reviewed the text. In overwrought prose, alternatively patronizing and celebratory, Cohen-Solal suggests that France is responsible for all that is good in American art. As an author born in Algeria, I would think that she would avoid such a colonialist paradigm. She misses completely that the experience of American artists was one of transatlantic exchange, as they worked to reconcile their European training with their American environment. Cohen-Solal leaves interesting questions--such as why Americans and American artists responded to Impressionism before the French--unanswered. And the text has several factual errors, for example she writes of an American "economic boom" in 1894, when that year marked the first of a 4-year economic depression in America. For those interested in a text on this subject, but one that focuses on exchange instead of a franco-centric bias, I would suggest Wanda Corn's The Great American Thing.
Rating: 
Summary: A Solid History of the Era
Review: I have nearly completed 'Painting American' and have found it to be a fine review of an interesting period. As a student of the American Gilded Age I found that Cohen-Solal's book represented this period well. Yes, there are some inaccuracies (i.e. George Hearst not George Hearn. Cornelius Vanderbilt did not buy Rosa Bonheur paintings, his son William H did) but what made the book interesting to me was her use of seldom accessed European sources written at the turn of the century; newspaper reviews of America and American artists, rare memoirs of the various players, even buisness files of art dealers. This is something unlikely to be found from an American historian writing on the same subject. Does the book have a 'French slant' as the previous reviewer objects to? Well, yes because France absolutely was THE main source of art training and education at that time. There's no way around that. If that bothers the previous reviewer then he better not read any books about the history of American architecture for he would find that nearly all the leading American architects of that period were trained in Paris and therefore most of their creations in this country are Beaux Arts inspired. This includes the New York Met Museum, most of the still standing Gilded Age mansions, the interior decoration of the White House (subcontracted out to a French firm by McKim, Reed and White), etc.
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