Portraits and Pioneers

We must change our habits, our prejudices, our palates, our taste in dress, furniture, equipage, architecture, etc., but we can live and be happy.

--John Adams

In this time of patriotism and peril, it may seem frivolous to report on the state of art. But since few lands have ever achieved greatness without producing a great art, Americans should realize that their prospects are none too bright. Indeed, the most dexterous of our artists have already departed for London to make their fortunes there.

Benjamin West, 37, whose Quaker father kept an inn outside Philadelphia, has by now achieved a great success abroad. In fact West transformed the whole art of historical painting in 1770 by insisting that he would paint the death of General Wolfe at Quebec in the costumes and landscape in which it actually occurred, thus overturning the tradition that no hero could ever die except in the robes of ancient Greece, preferably with a temple or two in the background. West was a co-founder with Sir Joshua Reynolds of the Royal Academy of the Arts, and in 1772 King George appointed him historical painter to the court (his most recent commission: a Death of Stephen, for which the King proposes to pay -L- 1,000).

An even more grievous loss is John Singleton Copley, perhaps the greatest painter this country has yet produced. Still only 38, he is just now reaching the peak of his powers. There is scarcely an eminent person in Boston who has not sat for him, and his portrait of Silversmith Paul Revere is masterly. (He has also portrayed many non-Bostonian notables like Thomas Mifflin, who was recently made a brigadier general in the Continental Army.) But it was his fortune, or misfortune, to marry the daughter of Boston's most successful dealer in tea, Richard Clarke, and it was Clarke's tea that the Sons of Liberty threw into Boston Harbor. Copley tried unsuccessfully to mediate the dispute between the Patriots and his Tory father-in-law. But he was less concerned with politics than with achieving a greater reputation, which he did not think he could do in Boston. As he lamented in a letter to his half brother: "A taste of painting is too much wanting ... and was it not for preserving the resemblance of particular persons, painting would not be known in the place. The people generally regard it as no more than any other useful trade ... like that of a carpenter, tailor, or shoemaker ... Which is not a little mortifying to me."

So he has gone to Europe to study, and a year ago summoned his wife and children to join him in London --all in fear of some musket volleys at Lexington. Judging from the few examples of his painting that have been seen since his European excursion, he may be in danger of acquiring that overobsequious, overdandified slickness that is the sine qua non of the European portraitist.

The young Gilbert Stuart, that precocious son of a Rhode Island snuff grinder, who created a stir in Newport even in his teens, has also departed for London. He is only 20 and his future cannot be predicted, but his talent is evident in his youthful portrait of Mrs. John Bannister and her son. Another unpredictable talent is that of John Trumbull, a year younger than Stuart and born to wealth (as Stuart was not). Trumbull's father. Governor of Connecticut, recognized his son's precocity and enrolled him as a third-year student at Harvard at 15, then observed: "I am sensible of his natural genius and inclination for limning, an art I have frequently told him will be of no use to him." When hostilities seemed imminent, Trumbull joined the Army, served briefly as aide-de-camp to General Washington, and last week joined American forces at Fort Ticonderoga.

Among those who remain in the embattled Colonies, the master of portrait painting is undoubtedly Charles Willson Peale. If Peale lacks something of Copley's consummate dexterity at catching a character in mid-gesture, he nevertheless seems more unpretentiously honest; perhaps, it might be said, more distinctively American. Unlike West and his London friends, who often seem to paint at the kneel before their distinguished subjects, Peale has always looked at his sitters eye to eye.

Yet Peale almost failed to become a painter at all. He was born with the least of advantages. His father came to the Colonies 40 years ago not because he wanted to but because he was banished for embezzling post office funds. After settling his family in Maryland, across the bay from Annapolis, he set himself up as a schoolmaster and died when Peale was only nine. Peale's mother moved her brood to Annapolis, where she did embroidery to sustain her five children and apprenticed Charles (the eldest) to a saddlemaker at the age of twelve. By 20, Peale had married and gone into debt to open his own saddlery. He also diversified into upholstery, harnessmaking and silversmithing.

By chance, he encountered an amateur painter, who showed him some of his works. "They were miserably done," Peale recalled later. "Had they been better, perhaps they would not have led ... to the idea of attempting anything in that way." He got some instruction from his neighbor, the established portraitist John Hessilius, and advertised as a sign painter. In 1765, pressed by his Tory creditors for both his debts and his patriotic views, Peale fled Maryland with the sheriff literally at his door. He took advantage of his exile to study briefly in Boston with Copley himself. On his return, the Annapolis gentry were so impressed with his new skills that they forgave him his debts and even raised a fund so that he could go to London and study with West.

After returning two years later, in 1769, he soon attracted all the patronage he could handle, and his reputation spread far. Last month he moved himself and his growing family (two children) to Philadelphia. Among his new commissions, the most impressive is undoubtedly the one he received from John Hancock to paint the portraits of General George Washington and his wife Martha. Several weeks ago, even in the midst of dealing with Congress, the general granted him two sittings in his house on Arch Street. Mrs. Washington has also sat twice for him. Though the portraits are far from finished, visitors have found that Peale has caught the general's best likeness yet--the bodily presence, ponderous but not paunchy; the look both determined and serene.

Splendid as Peale is, and as Copley was before him, there is another tradition in American art that has been too little appreciated. That is the tradition of the simple journeymen artists who make their living by painting likenesses for pleasantly prosperous people in areas outside our few cities. Like peddlers, they come to the door and inquire whether the master or mistress wants a portrait painted. Their range is the range of their feet (or perhaps their horse), and their reputation passes by word of mouth in the town squares or local taverns. Their knowledge of Europe is gathered, if at all, from engravings seen here or there in a bookseller's shop. Since there are no art academies or public exhibitions, they are little known in the cities; nor do they sign their names for posterity. Among the few who will be remembered is Winthrop Chandler, who lives in Woodstock, Connecticut, where he paints portraits, fireplace panels, even houses.

These unsung and almost unknown "limners" are not great, and they certainly lack technical skill (the grace of lace seems to be beyond Chandler's competence). But they have a distinctive quality that has something to do with the fact that they have not seen the classics of the Renaissance, that their heritage comes from sign painters for taverns rather than salon painters for courts. They (and their sitters) want a likeness that conveys how ordinary Americans live, what manner of people they are --prosperous but plain, not elegant but confident. Such elements may not survive either in the new Republic or in its art; but as of now, these painters, this instinct, are what is inherently American. We should cherish them.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.