“Was it not for preserving the resemblance of particular persons, painting would not be known in America. The people generally regard it as not more than any other useful trade, not as one of the most noble arts in the world”

-John Singleton Copley

Thus one of the most accomplished painters of the colonial era summarized the general attitude of the American people towards visual art during the first century after the colonization of America. It is a summary that is fairly accurate, up to about 1750. Early American visual art was rare and consisted almost entirely portraits. These portraits were almost always based on European models; it would take some time before a distinctly American style of art would develop.

• based off of mezzotints (copies of English pantings)
  • color relations often slightly off
  • complex outlines were simplified
  • backgrounds were English landscapes, not American wilderness
• commissioning portraits
  • indicated power and wealth
  • assured remembrance after death
• artists
  • either traveled or had a ‘day job’
  • in 1700, no city or town in America could support a full-time artist

Puritan Art (New England)
Elizabeth Freake and Baby Mary, Sarah C. Garver Fund.	Joseph Tapping Stone
Self-Portrait, Thomas Smith.

• religious art forbidden
• either portraits or crests/shields--functional
• portraits were “effigy of spirit”
  • resemblance is not so important as the fact that a record was made
  • linear style—from England
  • Elizabeth Freake and Baby Mary (1674)
    • depiction of elegant clothing
    • wouldn’t have been allowed a generation before
    • little background
    • bright colors to hide volume
• Dutch realism
  • more modeling, psychological insight
  • stiff poses
  • Revered John Davenport (late 17th century)
• contemporary English courtly style
  • splendor and pomp of Flemish Baroque art apparent
  • backgrounds
  • tells little about Puritan culture
  • exemplifies desire to copy English styles
  • Self Portrait, Thomas Smith (late 17th century)
    • skull = European symbol of mortality
    • memento mori (remembering before death)
• tombstone art (based on English symbols)
  • “live mindful of death”
  • grim reaper snuffing out candle (life) on a globe (earth)
  • hourglass to symbolize passing time
  • flowers, plants to symbolize paradise, hope of rebirth
  • Joseph Tapping Stone (1678)

• Dutch realistic style
• Duyckinck family
  • couldn’t evoke 3-D effect
• limners = artisans for the masses

• very little art initially
  • settlers were wealthy enough to go to England if they wanted a portrait

Justus Engelhardt Kuhn

Eleanor Darnall

• 1st professional artist in Middle Colonies (1708—1717)
• Eleanor Darnall
• painted children and fantastic architecture/landscapes
  • children were 54% of population
  • parents wanted to suggest the wonderful futures their children would have in America

• realism
• Tishcohan (1736)
• first mythological paintings
  • precursor to later historical paintings
• Lely-Kneller style—“elegant, with restrained paint application” (CDAPS)

• less art, because fewer towns and plantations were spread out
• 1705—Henrietta Johnston—pastel portraits, 1st American woman artist
• Jeremiah Theus –major southern artist for several decades after 1710

John Smibert (1688—1781)

The Bermuda Group

• set stage for evolution of colonial painting & J.S. Copley
  • 1726—was persuaded by George Berkely to go to America
  • The Bermuda Group
    • clothing texture
    • atmosphere and background
    • group connections through form and gaze
  • best trained English artist to visit the colonies before 1775
  • spread aristocratic styles
  • demonstrated colonists desires to follow English models
  • compare Mrs. Francis Brinley and Son (1731-2) with Elizabeth Freake and Baby Mary (1674).
    • realistic
    • cosmopolitan
    • secular
  • artistic leadership ended in 1740s

Robert Feke

Captain Alexander Graydon, npa.gov.

• colonial versions of Smibert’s work
• The Bermuda Group vs. Isaac Royall and Family (1741)
  • repetitive patterns to link figures
  • simple shapes—triangular torsos for women, inverted cones for men
  • bright surface patterns
  • wooden poses
• untrained, but could imitate better artists fairly well

Jonathon Singleton Copley
Boy With a Squirrel	Watson and the Shark, npa.gov.
Jane Browne, npa.gov.	Epes Sargent, npa.gov.

• influenced by lighter, more informal rococo style
• probably the most influential and best artist of the time period
• integrated background to form harmonious compositions
  • Watson and the Shark triangle
• developed mastery over 3-D effects
• altered colors with great effect, despite seeing only black and white mezzotints
• unusually skilled at psychological observation
• 1760s—painted more elegantly
• 1770s—painted more realistically
• Boy with a Squirrel (1765)
  • criticized in England
    • lacking volume in the figures
    • cold shadows
    • minute detail
    • hardness of drawing
  • in modern era, well-received
  • Copley wanted to paint in European style regardless of criticism
• Samuel Adams—most psychologically gripping pre-war piece
• Copley realized he would never be more than a portraitist in the colonies, so he left in 1774
• provided the defining artistic style for colonial America

Visual art during the colonial period of American history consisted almost entirely of portraits that were imitations of European styles. Even during the period where the colonies began to break politically from England, their artistic styles closely followed those of their mother country. John Singleton Copley, the most distinguished American artist of the period, did begin break away from this mold. But he still painted from mezzotints, and was willing to sacrifice his own style when the Royal Academy of London criticized it. Though a uniquely American style did not truly emerge until after the political break with England, it was during this time period that the first suggestions of a new technique began to appear.

Why did American art so closely follow European examples

Visual Arts : 1775-1790

“The art of painting has powers to dignify man by transmitting to posterity his noble actions, and his mental powers, to be viewed in those invaluable lessons of religion, love of country, and morality; such subjects are worthy of the pencil, they are worthy of being placed in view as the most instructive records to as rising generation.”

- Benjamin West

• Paul Revere Boston Massacre
• Benjamin Franklin Join or Die
• political motivations of art

• George Washington—symbol of republicanism
  • fame due to personal merit and virtue, rather than birth
• Charles Wilson Peale, George Washington at Princeton (1779)
  • informal leader, no imperial embellishments
  • Peale was a radical revolutionary
• John Trumbull, General George Washington before the Battle of Princeton (1792)
  • stance more heroic, slightly aristocratic
  • Trumbull was a federalist
• both emphasize nobility and virtue
• art seen as an elevating force—could lead society toward virtue by depicting it
• artists should study Greek, Roman and Renaissance art
• artists should paint noble aspects of human nature
• nearly all American artists in 1780-1800 visited England to study

• Agrippina Landing at Brundisium with the Ashes of Germanicus (1768)—early neoclassicism
  • derived from Roman monuments
  • possibly referring to death of American freedom due to Townshend Acts
• The Death of General Wolfe (1770)
  • caused a revolution in history painting
  • actual event had occurred in 1759
  • Wolfe is dying in a Christ-like pose
  • dramatic sky
  • Indian represents America
• painted just about everything—secular, religious, neoclassical, baroque, and contemporary

• famous for historical paintings
• like Copley & West, wanted to paint higher art rather than portraits
• sensitivity to color was somewhat repressed due to colonial linear style
• West’s student
• 1786—decided to paint scenes from Revolutionary War
  • first and most important visual representations of the new country
  • soldiers were pictured as gallant, war was a noble duty
  • unprecedented use of color added excitement
  • Death of General Montgomery in the Attack on Quebec (1786)

Charles Wilson Peale

• leading artist in colonies at outbreak of Revolutionary War
• 1782—opened a portrait gallery
• 1786—opened a museum of natural history
• often combined interest in science with art
• techniques
  • long, curving lines
  • traditional compositional formulas
  • change from soft shapes to sharper, more definite outlines in early 1800s
• always willing to learn, try new techniques

• son of Charles Wilson
• still life painter with meticulous techniques
• lots of paintings of fruit and vegetables—simple, geometric shapes
• extremely sensitive to abstract shapes and qualities of objects

• return to Greek & Roman virtues by means of emulating Greek & Roman art
  • acknowledge “old masters”: Greeks, Romans, also Michelagelo & Raphael
  • art seen as moralizing force in society
• Republican government compared to Roman Republic
• influence seen largely in sculpture & architecture, also in painting, to a lesser extent

~Thomas Cole

In the 1790’s Americans began to realize beauty and mystery of their own landscape. Unlike the well-known European outdoors, the American wilderness was pristine, untouched, and fiercely beautiful. Nature was assigned religious qualities, and seen as God’s handiwork; many people felt the presence of God in nature. It was not until a few decades later, however, that these ideas became apparent in American art. Landscapes became popular, though they did not replace portraits. Literary and philosophical traditions such as Romanticism and Transcendentalism heavily influenced the artistic community—religion, art, and nature were closely linked in the 19th century.

Washington Allston (1779—1843)

• First Romantic artist
• emotion & imagination, not reason, in paintings

  • wanted to paint ‘the sublime’
  • art should be used to better humanity, but on the individual, not societal, level
• technically skilled

  • soft edges
  • subtle colorations
  • “added a Romantic warmth and mystery”
• influences

  • Renaissance Italian masterpieces
  • German Romantic philosophers/poets

Thomas Doughty (1793—1853)

Fanciful Landscape

• 1st landscapist with a personal approach to nature
• new American view

  • nature is not an enemy, but a teacher
  • nature can help hone the moral sense
  • nature is God’s creation
• a founder of the American landscapist school
• criticized for ‘unrealistic’ works

  • indication of break with England
  • Americans want to paint their own country as it is

Hudson River School Group of landscape artists (1820s—1840s) Painted Hudson River valley, mountainous Northeast, and New England coast major figures: Thomas Cole, Asher Durand, William Dunlap influenced by transcendentalism (religious aspects of nature)

Luminists (1850s—1870s) Name given to painters concerned with painting light Major figures: Fitz Hugh Lane, John Kensett, Martin Heade, Sanford Gifford did not officially form a group, but were familiar with each others work. based on Hudson River School, but limited themselves to quieter waterside scenes techniques often painted eastern coastal regions atmospheric colors to suggest light little superimposition of forms low horizon line—lots of sky humans, if they appear, are small and don’t disturb calm association with Transcendentalism spirit of Divine present in physical world, especially nature desire to lose oneself in the Divine

Thomas Cole (1801—1848)

A View of the Mountain Pass Called the Notch of the White Mountains (Crawford Notch).	Study for "Catskill Creek"	Sunrise in the Catskills	Italian Coast Scene with Ruined Tower

• most important landscapist of the era
• emphasized the large-scale grandeur and ferocity of nature
• established closer relationship between artists and writers than ever before

  • Cooper, Irving, Bryant all friends of his
• moralizing painter; humans should live in harmony with nature
• cycles of paintings: The Course of Empire

  • warns Americans about the downfall of the Roman Republic
• founder of Hudson River School

Asher Durand (1796—1886)

Forest in the Morning Light	A Pastoral Scene

 

Rio de Janeiro Bay, Martin Heade.	Cattleya Orchid and Three Brazilian Hummingbirds, Martin Heade.	Becalmed off Halfway Rock, Fitz Hugh Lane.	Lumber Schooners at Evening on Penobscot Bay, Fitz Hugh Lane.

 John James Audubon

Snowy Heron, or White Egret	Great American Cock	The Mocking Bird

George Catlin

Chief of the Taensa Indians Receiving La Salle. March 20, 1682	Boy Chief - Ojibbeway	The Female Eagle - Shawano

• more “real” than paintings
• horrifying documentary effect
• showed civilians exactly what war was really like
• civilians believed photos totally accurate
• in fact, photographers often moved bodies around to achieve more artistic effect

Technical:

• required glass plates, darkroom, chemicals
• difficult to work with on battlefield
• 1860s—equipment just mobile enough to be transported with army
• used mobile, horse-drawn darkrooms

Matthew Brady

• organized assistants to photograph all aspects of the Civil War
• worked in the field
• “Brady’s Photographic Corps” had over 300 men at one point
• Alexander Gardner & Timothy O’Sullivan were among the best
• result: over 7,000 photographs of the Civil War

Painting— Winslow Homer

• worked as Civil War illustrator
• neither sentimental nor serious
• focused on soldiers lives while they were not fighting
• some executed on the spot, others done back in his New York studio
• realistic, set in camp
• best visual record of the war, apart from photography

Genre Painting

• paintings of normal people in their everyday lives
• sometimes considered “low” art as compared to mythological and/or historical subjects
• gave vivid picture of everyday American life
• popular in 1830s through 1860s

William Sydney Mount

• precise unsentimental anecdotal paintings in 1830s
• often moralizing: value of temperance, dangers of gambling
• contradictory view of slavery: treated blacks as human beings, yet did not support abolition

Richard Caton Woodville

• reflects shift to more refined themes in 1850s
• paintings more obviously staged, though very precise
• problems never appear—shows peaceful rural American life
• technically more advanced than any other genre painter of the period

John Quidor

The Return of Rip Van Winkle

• followed Allston’s tradition—sense of Romantic mystery/horror/shock
• one of the most talented painters of the time, but little appreciated.
• illustrated Washington Irving’s stories
• exaggerated figures, lively color

George Caleb Bingham

• painted everyday frontier life
• glorification of common man—evidence of Jacksonian democracy
• became a politician—painted political events
• painted the West, but influenced by eastern landscapists
  • showed no steamboats, crowded cities
• focus is on people, not landscape, but people are portrayed as part of the landscape, not a threat to it.
• captured the essence of the western frontier experience