Designs on the Heart

Download or read book Designs on the Heart written by Karal Ann Marling and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2006-05-29 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In this book Karal Ann Marling looks at Grandma Moses as a cultural phenomenon of the postwar period and explores the meaning of her subject matter - and her astonishing fame. What did the "Greatest Generation" see in her simple renderings of people, young and old, tapping maple trees for syrup, making apple butter, gliding across snowy fields on sleighs? Why did Bob Hope, Irving Berlin, and Harry Truman all love her - and the art czars' of New York openly despise her? Through the flood of Moses merchandise - splashed across Christmas cards, dishware, yard goods, and gewgaws of every kind - Marling traces the resonances that these "primitive" images struck in an America awkwardly adjusting to a new era of technology, suburbia, and Cold War tensions.".