Being an Indiana artist in the late 1800s was no easy task. Critics rarely paid attention to the art. If there were exhibitions, the art was chosen by East Coast groups.

In 1896, famed Hoosier T.C. Steele along with J. Ottis Adams, William Forsyth and 15 others formed The Society of Western Artists to take Indiana art to the world.

They had been typically treated as royalty by the Indiana art critics. It wasn’t until the first exhibition of the Society of Western Artists in Chicago that they tasted critical harshness.

The tumult of the exhibition, and subsequent response, is captured with precision by

Rachel Berenson Perry in the oversize, illustration-rich “T.C. Steele and The Society of Western Artists 1896-1914,” published by Indiana University Press.

Perry also captures the essences of many of the artists through their own writings and correspondence.

The most telling comes at the start, with T.C. Steele defining his preference for impressionistic landscapes: “It is light that gives mystery to shadow, vibration to atmosphere, and makes all the color notes sing together in harmony.”

As if writing could be impressionistic art, Steele added, “It must be conceded that by shifting the point of interest from the detail to the general effect ... a new store of beauty has been opened to humanity and one almost unexplored before.”

Of course, more intriguing are the nearly 80 pages of artwork and photographs, including work by Steele, Adams, Forsyth and other peers. In Lost Cove, Tennessee, Steele (then worried about his wife’s tuberculosis) paints an earthen road dissolving into a moody, steamy mountainscape that seems to question his future. Contrast that to the bright, strong hillsides that celebrates nature of “A Spur of the Roan.” Both were painted in 1899.

Winifred Brady Adams, who studied at the Muncie Art School and married J. Ottis Adams, painted floral settings, notably “A Pot of Poppies,” with warm red flowers starting to droop; but the work is better defined by the two flowers that have fallen, clinging to their color. Adams’ “The Closing of an Autumn Day”� is rich with fall hues, made more vibrant by the sun and its reflection from a lake.

Read the detailed history at your leisure, but take a good long look at the artwork. T.C. Steele and The Society of Western Artists’ is certainly the best Indiana coffee table book of the season.