Word: arcadia
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...from the "dark Satanic mills" of the industrial Midlands. Cole's clients were mainly from the rich Federalist "aristocracy," whose members, offended by Jacksonian populism, wanted pastoral images of a pure American scene unsullied by the marks of getting and spending. Skeptical of progress, Cole painted the landscape as Arcadia, which served to spiritualize the past in a land without antique monuments. He loved the freshness of primal mountains and valleys--unpainted, unstereotyped, the traces of God's hand in forming the world. America's columns were trees, its forums were groves, and its invasive barbarian was the wrong sort...
...that would express its values. It found a model in the ancient republics of Greece and Rome. Classicism, says Hughes, gave the country "a language of power and authority and continuity to the past, even though it was so new." The man who adapted classical architecture to the American Arcadia was Thomas Jefferson, whose home, Monticello, Hughes visits. Standing amid the emblems of Jefferson's artistic and scientific achievements, Hughes cites him as the "one person from all the dead Americans that I wish I could talk to" because of "the overwhelmingly attractive cast of his mind...
Only 50 years after the nation's founding, the concept of Arcadia was passing. "The fear of decline started to nag at the edges of the American consciousness," Hughes notes. The show ends by focusing on one of the artists who memorably reflected that fear, Thomas Cole. He created a five-painting cycle called The Course of Empire, which stood as a warning that America--so new, so strong and shiny--could nevertheless be swept away in one cataclysmic moment...
...production of As You Like It at the Agassiz is one splendid example of a working marriage between the Renaissance text and a modern aesthetic. The Arcadia of Shakespeare's Forest of Arden is shot through with visual evocations of the Victorian period, from the nineteenth-century images hanging quietly among the trees to allusions to Alice in Wonderland. The Victorian icons have a resonance which seems strangely suited to the fantastic atmosphere of the comedy, and the bowler hats, black umbrellas, high collars and spats worn by some inhabitants of the green, fruitful forest lend the entire stage...
...atmosphere created by the unification of images, sounds and concepts from different time periods generates a world both dreamlike and rich on many layers. The effect is somewhat reminiscent of Tom Stoppard's Arcadia--a formidable achievement indeed...