American art’s Western horizons

Writing at the turn of the current century, the historian David Armitage proclaimed, “We are all Atlanticists now.” His claim evinces bravado, but carries a good deal of truth. When at its best, Atlantic Studies sought (and still seeks) to open methodological and historical perspectives onto the networks – be they physical, imagined, or some combination thereof – that connected people and goods of the Americas and Africa with those of Western Europe. There has been a pronounced hemispheric sl...