Poe and the Visual Arts

I just got my hands on Dr. Barbara Cantalupo's Poe and the Visual Arts. I have to admit that I was already inclined to be fond of her study after reading relevant reviews. To be fair, Cantalupo is a Quinn Award recipient, an award that is never given unless we have to do with a worthy study; that shows a lot about the book's quality. 

The book consists of five chapters, and it principally delves into Poe's interest in the visual arts. To that end, we are brought back to Poe's exposure to art in Philadephia, the writer's homely interiors, and his visual tricks. Cantalupo also explores Poe's art criticism in an elegant way. There have been several studies on Poe's artistic principles, and a number of critical reviews (Cantalupo drawn on Pollin's and Deas', for instance); yet this field of Poe studies has definitely been unexplored as a whole. 

Poe and the Visual Arts wonderfully describes Poe's world of art, his artistic companions, and the art he was exposed to during his final years; all these explorations are escorted by a large number of wonderful images which I am sure took quite a lot of time and effort to get a hold of. Undoubtedly, the book has a lot to offer, and it should be in every Poe scholar's collection, as it offers a further insight to Poe's knowledge of the visual arts.  

Works Cited

Cantalupo, Barbara. Poe and the Visual Arts. University Park, Pennsylvania: The Penn State University Press, 2014.