Art

Two key developments emerged in American art in the closing years of the colonial period. First, there arose a core of portrait painters, some more skilled than others, who found patronage among the merchants and landed elite. Second, a select group of these individuals began to expand their horizons beyond portraiture. The American Revolution would have a profound effect on these developments and the American art world.

Colonial portrait painters could only succeed if they could find a market for their talents. The increased affluence of the colonial elite, and its desire to consume luxury items, provided just such a market. Whether in Virginia or Massachusetts, the colonial political and economic leaders wanted to adorn their homes with paintings of themselves and members of their families. However, no one locality provided enough work to steadily employ an artist. Painters like John Singleton Copley and Ralph Earle had to travel from community to community in search of new subjects willing to pay for a portrait. The best of the colonial painters decided that they needed to study in Europe. Benjamin West took the lead in the movement, traveling to Italy and France and settling in London in 1763. West established himself as one of Britain’s premier painters, working in the neoclassical style. His Death of General Wolfe transformed the art world not only by depicting a recent historical event but also by placing his subjects in their modern clothing. After the success of this painting, it became appropriate to commemorate contemporary events with historical painting. Several North American artists flocked to West’s studio to learn from the master, including Copley, Earle, Charles Willson Peale, Gilbert Stuart, and John Trumbull.

The Revolutionary War (1775-83), intruded upon these developments. In the upheaval of the war some artists became Loyalists, others supported the cause of independence. West, already well ensconced in cosmopolitan London and under royal patronage, developed his

Watson and the Shark by John Singleton Copley, 1778 (National Gallery of Art)

Connections further, received a royal stipend, and painted extensively for George III. Copley had gone to Europe in 1774, was joined in England by his Loyalist family in 1775, and never returned to the United States. Earle also left North America sometime around the beginning of the war, but his politics are more difficult to discern. By the 1780s, however, he was back in the United States and was again an itinerant painter. Trumbull was a supporter of independence, served in the Continental army as an officer, and was even arrested in London in 1780. Peale, who had left London in 1769, was an ardent revolutionary, participating in the radical politics of Pennsylvania.

The republicanism of the American Revolution created an intellectual problem for many of these artists. Virtue and self-sacrifice seemed to work at cross-purposes with the self-adulation and luxury represented by a personal portrait. What could be more superfluous than a merchant seeking to immortalize his visage by paying to have his own picture painted? As John Adams explained, art had been “enlisted on the side of Despotism and Superstition throughout the ages.” A society that valued the artist had vast differences in wealth, with “shoeless beggars and brilliant equipage” next to each other. For many revolutionary Americans simple republican society with some claim on equality was not the appropriate setting for the artist.

While Loyalists such as West and Copley may not have had to worry about this issue, revolutionary Whigs such as Trumbull and Peale did. To gain legitimacy in a republic they decided not only to continue to paint portraits for money but also to turn their brushes to republican purposes. Trumbull used the historical style developed by West to create a visual chronicle of the American Revolution, painting between 250 and 300 historical scenes of crucial events, such as the signing of the Declaration of Independence (July 4, 1776) and great battles. Peale devoted himself mostly to portraits, but he also created a gallery of revolutionary heroes with portraits of the Founding Fathers and heroes of the Revolutionary War to be viewed in a museum open to the public (for a fee).

Despite their republican aspirations, the revolutionary artists of the period continued to struggle. Trumbull’s historical paintings achieved some contemporary success, but his involvement in business and his decline in talent with age limited his financial success. Peale’s museum could not sustain an audience and he ultimately had to turn to a more eclectic collection of curiosities to attract visitors.

Further reading: Neil Harris, The Artist in American Society: The Formative Years, 1790-1860 (New York: George Braziller, 1966); Kenneth Silverman, A Cultural History of the American Revolution (New York: T. Y. Crowell, 1976).