VISIONS in FORMATION

Yale University Art Gallery showcases the figurative studies used to elevate the grandeur of civic spaces in America

- Sarah Gianelli

The American Renaissance, also known as the Golden Age, was an era when art for the public came to prominence in American life. The movement, which swelled between the country's centennial celebration and the onset of World War I, was largely an architectural one-most of the grand civic spaces in the nation were designed and built during this period-but it depended heavily on a collaboration with the American artists of the day to realize a collective vision.

With The Dance of Life: Figure and Imagination in American Art, 1876-1917, on view September 6, 2024, through January 5, 2025, Yale University Art Gallery examines the vitality and expressivity of the human figure in working studies for large commissions at civic institutions nationwide during a pivotal moment in American history. “Historically, the most prominent

event in peoples’ lives in this generation was the Civil War,” says Mark D. Mitchell, the gallery’s Holcombe T. Green Curator of American Paintings and Sculpture, and curator of The Dance of Life. “A whole generation of Americans had died in just a few years. There is a sense of incredible grief over the consequences of the Civil War and it takes more than a decade for American artists to find a way to respond to that watershed in American history, which was called the second American Revolution.

“They turned to life rather than death,” continues Mitchell. “They turned to the body and figure as a symbol of rebirth and hope…The aspiration in these artists was to create something new. That represented a dramatic change in the aspirations of American artists not just to be a reflection of the character and history of the nation, but to try to communicate its ideals through the human figure in monumental form.”