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Summary: Thorough study of American art for professional and novice
Review: The depth and breadth of Hughes' investigation of American art is remarkable. The book is detailed enough to provide students or art critics at a professional level adequate food for thought; at the same time, the book is incredibly easy to read and understandable for the first-time student. Interspersing historical fact with humor, Hughes clearly establishes a link between art and American history/culture. He misses nothing. Beginning with the Puritans, the author takes the reader on an artistic journey that begins in the churches of New England and ends in the scandals of the 1990s. Along the way, the reader, through viewing major artworks, examines the Revolutionary Era, the expansion of the West, ages of Division and Discovery as the U.S. is torn apart by a Civil War, Realism and Naturalism influences, symbolist movements, and the anxieties of the post-modern and current ages. American Visions is truly a remarkable work: during the past academic year, I have rewritten my high school eleventh grade Humanities curriculum to include it as both a main text and research resource. My students, as well, have tremendous praise for this book since it makes the study of American history, literature, and art interdisicplinary and understandable.
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Summary: Erudite fun - more please!
Review: The first thing to say about this book, and the most important, is that it is a good read. It illuminates its subject matter whereas much writing about art, especially catalogue writing and writing in magazines such as ART FORUM is bad writing. Such bad writing draws attention to itself and is characterised by jargon, obfuscation, and mystification. Mr Hughes is guilty of none of this. Mr Hughes informs elegantly, argues persuasively and entertains amusingly. Art is well served by this elegant and opinionated craftsman. I also admire his tone which seems confidently irreverent. He is a wise debunker without being arrogant. He pays respect where he thinks it is due but refuses to be taken in, unlike me, by the sentimental, overwrought or portentous. As a general reader I found him especially helpful in his analysis of the American icons Andrew Wyeth (whom I'm a sucker for) Thomas Hart Benton, and the illustrator Norman Rockwell. The pre-20th Century sympathetic commentary on such masters as Winslow Homer, whose retrospective at the Metropolitan in New York in 1996 was such a stunning event, is sheer delight to read. But I appreciated too his later chapters on contemporary art where his waggish insights informed by a formidable intelligence and eye never fail to amuse. Brilliant, and such fun! More please.
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Summary: Its capacious wealth of indelible insight lurks to be read.
Review: This book has all the usual verve of Robert Hughes insightful eye. As always, his wit goes where no one else dares lurk. His personal insight and vision is indelibly etched in the deep recesses making this a rich and rewarding reading experience. With none of the usual ethnocentric prejudices, his work analyzes the American psyche from a social context and reveals to us a side of ourselves that is not otherwise easily seen, least of all by us. The marvels of his occupation lay bare the foundations of American art in a form that will, no doubt, endure the test of time.
Rating: 
Summary: Spectacular book a worthy addition to any collection
Review: This is a book well worthy of your attention if you are interested in the wealth of art that the United States has produced. The images and plates are wonderful, though I feel that the text drags a little and sometimes I feel that Mr Hughes has lost some of his passion for commentary. If you would like a far more informative text about art, and American modern art in particular, check out his earlier and far better work "The Shock of the New".
Rating:
Summary: Spectacular book a worthy addition to any collection
Review: This is a book well worthy of your attention if you are interested in the wealth of art that the United States has produced. The images and plates are wonderful, though I feel that the text drags a little and sometimes I feel that Mr Hughes has lost some of his passion for commentary. If you would like a far more informative text about art, and American modern art in particular, check out his earlier and far better work "The Shock of the New".
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Summary: Resonance in American Art
Review: This is an extraordinary book. Robert Hughes combines a receptive eye, historical fact and resonant writing to tell the story of American Art. Hughes' contempory critical faculties guide him through four centuries of art making, avoiding sentiment or patriotism. He feels the tactile and human nature of art deeply. A must have for American Artists.
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Summary: An entertaining exploration and celebration of American Art
Review: Using barrelling, passionate, reckless, witty and poetic prose, Robert Hughes as an author often comes off as drunken and macho new world pirate gleefully beholding a vast store of riches in his exploration of American Art History. Because American Art is an Epic in the writing (as in fact is all forms of World Art), Hughes does betray an Euro-centric bias and, as a result, slightly overlooks the contribution of many other minority artists to the rich tapestry of American Culture. That criticism aside, Hughes' passion and devotion to his subject rings true all throughout the entire book, making this a fast and consistently entertaining and educational read. His championing of Hopper, Benton and Pollock as world class visionaries is particularly enlightening (probably because I agree!). Hughes manages to sound scholarly without resorting to dry ivory tower musings. His rants and raves, while maintaining the informed and educated discourse required of a true scholar, also posses the wit and wisdom of skilled stage performer. Although there are plenty of fine reproductions here, even more would have aided in creating a more complete book. But why quibble? This book is a fine starting out point for anyone interested in reading a fine author's exploration of a rich subject.
Rating: 
Summary: Please!
Review: Well, it's not surprising that the author of this book chose to belittle the work of on of America's Great Afro/Latino artists. It seems as if the author, with no real recourse, took it upon himself to speak of someone so lowly whom he never had a chance to meet. This author has no real understanding of Basquiat's work and it is plainly obvious in the words used to describe Basquiat as "the Little Black Rimbaud of American painting..." I would not recommend this book to anyone of Afro/Latino Descent interested in a serious study of Black art...
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Summary: Hughes returns with the good, bad and ugly of American art.
Review: What a piece of work is Hughes. So sassy, so like a critic, soinexorably like a cultural gadfly, stinging his way past the foiblesof American culture, to sometimes light upon those rarefied flowers of genius. And yet, so like the contemporary art upon which he thrives with nothing much new to say. Australian Robert Hughes is undoubtedly the most famous art critic around. Like one of Warhol's self-created Pop figures, the eloquently opinionated connoisseur set the glitterati afire in 1980 with his stringently reflective monogram "Shock of the New," which came with a neatly packaged PBS documentary. In "American Visions," the critic has returned with his perspective of the good, bad and the ugly of America's offering to the sacrificial pyre of high art. This book also comes with a mini-series, though Hughes himself has publicly complained of the show's emasculation by television executives. In contrast, the book turns out to be a hell of a great read. Hughes writes in a "no-holds-barred" style that should be a lark to anyone even mildly interested. Something of a popularizer in his presentation, he shies away from the cryptic nomenclature of most critics. This is a jazzy tale of paintings and sculptures and the artists who produced them. "American Visions" is as much a spicy chronicle of US history as of art. Through this window of the visual arts, Hughes wryly comments on the social and cultural evolution of the North American people. A fundamental premise threaded through the narrative is that the imagery that has come to symbolize the American experience reveals the true character of its people. More interesting though is how Hughes deftly addresses those events and issues which are visually by-passed, signifying much through omission. The list is a long one: slavery, subjugation of the natives, Reconstruction, immigration, or the mass consumption of the continent's resources to name just a few. This country's art has tended towards idealism with its delusional pictures of Norman Rockwell coziness, or Winslow Homer loveliness--when not insecurely kowtowing to the grandeur of the European art model. Hughes loves to condescend the populism and kitsch of the mainstream, while owing his livelihood to it. Beginning with the nation's origins, he tells us that founders like Jefferson and Franklin believed that the visual arts were a waste, resonating Plato's "Republic." Between Puritanical functionalism and the Quaker's antipathy for art, artists have had it tough from the start. Yet, there have always been those personalities compelled to express themselves through images. One of the earliest--and something of a Renaissance man come Walt Disney--was Charles Wilson Peale. Peale founded an artistic dynasty through his many sons, but more importantly made himself a 19th Century media star while bringing a tinge of respectability to home-grown painters. Fundamentally, Hughes links together the glossy color reproductions with the biographical chronicle of talented nationals who have contributed to our contemporary culture. For example, Edward Hopper's haunting paintings of urbanites caught in melancholy poses of alienation. These are eerily familiar to millions all over the globe. His influence on Hollywood filmmaking stretches from Hitchcock to the latest video by rocker's Live. Or, Gilbert Stuart's famous portrait of Washington, which he reproduced opportunistically into a one-man industry. The portrait is now one of the most recognized images on the planet, since it appears on the US one dollar bill. Significantly, it was the heroic Modernism of Abstract Expressionists like Pollack and De Kooning that first thrust Post-war American art into the international limelight, shifting the world's art center from Paris to New York. This set the stage for the easy dissemination of Pop imagery through the mediazation and inevitable commercialization of the planet. More importantly it allowed industrial designers like Norman Bel Geddes or Raymond Loewy to spread the message of progressive consumerism. The sad but true irony is that American artists have had to struggle along as superfluous citizens rebuffed by their own countrymen and disparaged as provincials by foreigners. Karmically though, these very same artists are the progenitors of the burgeoning global culture. This culture is a visually dominant one, radiating out through coaxial cable and beaming everywhere via satellite. Whether this imagery happens to be the latest Sojourner landscapes from Mars, the newest Japanese Anime films, or the most sensational 3-D virtual cafe on-line, devoted American artists were the ones to establish the fundamentals of this new visual language. For all its insight, Robert Hughes' absorbing historical recap "Vision of America," misses this point, which is, of course, that the collective vision of America's artists--for good or ill--now electronically radiates to all. This is truly America's shock of the new.
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