Description
A statement of purpose.
The State of Maine offers the locale for a penetrating study of the visual arts as they relate to a people and a geographical setting. This study can reach fruition in three distinct but related ways: as an exhibition of the works of art themselves; in the establishment of a permanent repository for photographs, factual data and source material; and as a book combining good reproductions and an authoritative text. Each of these will be discussed separately later in this report.
As a region, Maine is perhaps uniquely qualified to reveal the scope of American art from the mid 18th century to the present. Its cultural history begins in colonial times, reflects the stage of being a province of Massachusetts, and in the last century or so has been shaped considerably by the natural beauty of the state. Its early settlers were patrons of the arts and sat for their portraits to the best of New England’s artists. From the time that landscape painting first became popular in this country Maine's scenery has acted as a magnet to landscape artists. Even those who were not landscapists - sculptors for example - seemed to find its rural environment a stimulant to creativity.
Publication Date
1-1962
Publisher
Colby College
City
Waterville, Maine, USA
Disciplines
American Art and Architecture | Arts and Humanities | Museum Studies
Recommended Citation
Colby College, "Colby College Sesquicentennial Project: Art in Maine; or, Colony, Province and State - the Role of Maine in American Art" (1962). Archives of Maine Art. 2.
https://digitalcommons.colby.edu/maineart/2
Comments
Prepared by The Executive Committee of the Committee of Selection for the Sesquicentennial Exhibition, Waterville, Maine, January, 1962.