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With over 560 color photos and well-researched text, this book recounts the histories of the hard working, entrepreneurial people of Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket and their role in this nation, as told through the folk art primitives the residents produced from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries. The art displayed includes the works of itinerant painters, domestic weavers and quilters, seminary school watercolorists, and carvers in wood, metal, and stone. Among these fascinating items are: paintings including portraits and silhouettes, landscapes and genre paintings; maritime art such as sculpture and scrimshaw; trade figures and signs; carousel art; wood carvings; weathervanes and whirligigs; religious and decorative art; textiles, including quilts and samplers; and gravestones. All of these beautiful and compelling works of art speak eloquently of the human aspirations sparked by the freedom and prosperity offered by the coasts and the bold, clear visual language that ordered these craftsmen's world.

567 illustrations