The following review was contributed by: NORM GOLDMAN:  Editor of Bookpleasures. CLICK TO VIEW  Norm Goldman's Reviews       

American poet, journalist and essayist, Walt Whitman has long been  regarded  as
one of the most outstanding Western poets in the  past  one  hundred  and  fifty
years. Whitman was born in New York, the son of a Quaker  carpenter  and  he  is
best known for Leaves of Grass that was first published  in  1855,  which  Ralph
Waldo Emerson described as being “the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom
America has yet contributed.”

Today, even after its  first  publication,  Leaves  of  Grass  still  remains  a
landmark  of  American  literary  achievement.  Whitman’s  collection  initially
comprised twelve poems and when it was finally put to rest  in  1891-92  it  had
grown to over found hundred. What is not widely known or understood is Whitman’s
many friendships he had cultivated with artists- he  posed  for  more  than  one
hundred photographs as well as several dozen  drawings,  paintings,  prints  and
sculptures. 

As mentioned in the introduction to Looking  into  Walt  Whitman:  American  Art
1850-1920, Ruth L. Bohan, Associate Professor of Art History at  the  University
of Missouri-St. Louis, stated intent  is  the  pushing  back  the  frontiers  of
Whitman studies. In her brilliant exploration Bohan exhibits a great  amount  of
insight with some earnest and  worthy  discussion  pertaining  to  the  changing
dynamics that modified the relationship between  literature  and  the  pictorial
arts in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As Prof. Bohan states,  “I
locate Whitman’s interactions with American visual cultural within the  changing
circumstances of his life, the evolving character of his verse, and developments
within the American art community.” Essentially what Prof Bohan has  masterfully
authored is a text book that merges biography, cultural history, and art history
in order to illustrate how Whitman was an active participant in American  visual
culture “both as an object of the artist’s gaze and as an “agent provocateur” of
the avant garde.”

Looking into Walt Whitman: American Art,  1850-1920  is  filled  with  twenty-two
color and eighty-two black and white images, several of which have never been
seen before, and all mirror Whitman’s statement in Leaves of Grass and which
prefaces Bohan’s tome: “I and mine do not convince by arguments, similes,
rhymes. We convince by our presence.” This becomes quite apparent as you view
among the many portraits illustrated in the book William J. Linton’s design of
the wood block portrait of Whitman where it is pointed out “that hatless, his
head turned in the direction of the viewer, Whitman appears to deny the flatness
of the page and constructed space of the image.” He appears to be leaning out
with his intense gaze and “like the poet himself, will not be denied.”

Bohan’s exhaustive study of these portraits is  logically  structured  into  two
parts commencing with his early years and  ending  with  the  modernists.  Bohan
reminds her readers as to how an astonishing number of artists absorbed  Whitman
into the very fiber of their art during the time he was alive  and  for  decades
thereafter. It should be pointed out that Whitman strongly  encouraged  artist’s
intent on representing his likeness and with each new edition of Leafs of  Grace
there seemed to emerge a new self-image.

Bohan has done some rigorous research and the book’s greatest strengths are  its
lack of embellishment.  Almost  every  page  is  substantiated  with  references
containing foot-notes and unbelievable images. This is an impressive study of an
underappreciated part of Whitman’s life. It should be pointed out, however, that
although the book is accessible to the  average  reader,  it  may  prove  to  be
somewhat dry to those who are not too familiar with art history and consequently
some readers may have  some  difficulty  in  fully  appreciating  its  contents.