Heroic Vision: A Story of Revolutionary Art and Politics

Heroic Vision offers parallel and intertwined accounts of politics and fine art at the time of the American Revolution and national founding. Art stories illuminate the character, depth, and tenacity of revolutionary political ideals unleashed in the 1760s and 1770s, and then consolidated in the  1780s and 1790s; political change, in turn, suggests how and why art shifted from English vernaculars to mature New World foundations.

Professor Olton's narrative moves seamlessly between art and politics, allowing each to propel the other.