idealization

This is a young man’s idealization of a dying old man glorifying his final breaths.

As a man who’s always on the right side of history, he manages to embody the idealization of the American spirit while critiquing its difficult reality.

More than implied in this 1950s-esque idealization of Americana is the segregation and bigotry that actually dominated the time.

Waldstreicher, who teaches at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, is known for deeply researched, tightly written studies, which aim to complicate any comforting idealization of the founding.

Such failed attempts at art also echo earlier artistic idealizations of authoritarian leaders.