Colonial and Early American Art

1
Colonial and Early American Art Compiled
by Margo Thornbury October 2005 For educational
purposes
2
The pineapple motif came to symbolize prosperity
and hospitality since only the very wealthy could
afford to have it shipped in from South America.
trivet
Pineapple armillary a spherical model of the
universe first used by early Greek astronomers.
Relative positions are represented by
intersecting metal rings.
3
The woodcut artist John Foster was a graduate of
Harvard (1667), set up Boston's first press in
1675. The portrait of Mather is thought to be
the first woodcut printed in America around 1670.
Richard Mather, woodcut portrait by John Foster
4
Gravestone of Sarah Baker, about 1700, Copp's
Hill Burial Ground, Boston
Skulls, skeletons, coffins, and candle flames
were common images in gravestone carvings of the
late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.
The skull represents the brevity of life and the
wings represent the after life
The seventeenth-century painters were also called
upon to create death's heads and other symbols of
mourning for funeral processions of prominent
figures.
5
Elizabeth Clarke Freake (Mrs. John Freake) and
Baby Mary, about 1671 and 1674.Artist unknown.
Elizabethan style. Untrained artist Folk Art
Artists in colonial America received little
formal education in art and were considered to be
in the same social category as craftsmen. Most
art from this period appears flat and
two-dimensional because the artists did not have
sufficient training in linear perspective. It
was also the fashion not to smile in portraits.
6
Massachusetts law stated that only the very
wealthy could display extravagant clothing
sleeve slashes, could only be worn if income
exceeded 200 pounds per year.
The Puritan ideals
Childhood was not considered a distinct time in
life separate from adulthood. Children began to
dress as adults as soon as they were six years of
age.
Portrait Clues a silver-topped cane and glove. a
fan, a coral necklace to ward off childhood
diseases, a rose for innocence.
rose, a symbol of innocence
The Mason Children David, Joanna, and Abigail,
1670Attributed to the Freake-Gibbs Painter
7
Thomas SmithAmerican, seventeenth century
Self-Portrait, about 1680
The battle scene in the background suggests that
Smith was a mariner and perhaps a naval officer.
Puritan attitudes toward life and death are
contrasted in the soft pink skin and the gray
skull.
This painting marks a shift in American art from
the Elizabethan to the baroque style using light
and shadow to show objects in space, such as the
head and wrinkles, the folds of the lace neck
cloth,
¾ view
This painting is the only 17th century New
England painting that is clearly linked to a
known painter and the earliest American
self-portrait.
8
Joseph BadgerCaptain-Lieutenant John Larrabee,
c. 1750 83 1/8 x 50 1/4 in.
Can you find the spyglass black cannon
gold handle of a small sword ships at sea
Larrabee was the commander of Castle William in
Boston.
Full length view
York served Larrabee from the late 1730s until
1762, when his master died. Larrabees will freed
York and granted him a suit of mourning clothes.
It also stated that if York should become sick or
unable to sustain himself, "I Order that he be
Supported out of my Estate."
9
John Singleton Copley is considered the greatest
American portraitist of the eighteenth century.
Copley was the first American artist to succeed
in creating the illusion of a three-dimensional
reality on canvas.
Portrait symbols a scallop shell in a stream of
water, symbolism borrowed from an English print.
The shell is an attribute of Venus, the Roman
goddess of love and beauty, while the water
symbolizes life and purity.
How do you stand? Good posture still indicates a
good upbringing and a positive self-image.
Mary Turner Sargent, 1763John Singleton Copley
(1738-1815)
She sat for this painting "fifteen or sixteen
times! Six hours at a time!"
10
John Singleton Copley American, 1737-1815
Portrait of Mrs. George Turner, 1765
While the word limner has been used to
characterize artists working in this style, that
term was reserved in the seventeenth century for
miniaturists.
11
Famous engraving by Paul Revere - "The Bloody
Massacre perpetrated in King Street" in Boston,
1770. To stir up anti-British sentiment with the
colonists, Paul Revere rushed to get his print
to press. What inaccurate clues do you see?
(No snow, blue sky at night, soldiers in a line,
Crispus Attucks is shown to be white.
12
Unidentified artist 18th century Landscape (View
of a Town), after 1753
This overmantel demonstrates how
eighteenth-century American decorative painters
composed individual paintings from multiple
sources, including imported prints, personal
experience, and the imagination.
The painting contrasts work and leisure, as well
as town and country.
13
Portrait clues Wealthy or Poor? Sailor or
Captain? Artist trained or untrained?
Mordecai Gist, ca. 1774Charles Willson Peale
(1741-1827)
14
Rococo style
Joseph Blackburn, Isaac Winslow and His Family,
1755,
The group portrait was still uncommon in colonial
America.
15
John Singleton CopleyJohn Bours, about 176062
Bours wanted Copley to represent him as one who
cared more about the pursuits of the mind than
the latest fashions.
Mood pensive (deep in thought)
16
The Savage Family, about 1779
Edward Savage
(17611817)
During this time period photography was not mass
marketed and paintings were the main way people
had their likenesses made. Working class people
could not afford to pay a great deal to the
painters, so to make the job go faster the
artists would paint the bodies in their studios
and then fill in the heads. Often this made the
portrait look disjointed.
17
John Singleton Copley Thomas Aston Coffin
18
      James Peale Still Life, 1825
The rounded shapes of the apples, grapes, and
bowl are set in contrast with the jagged edges of
the grape leaves
Asymmetrical balance
19
A collaborative art form, sign making required
sign painters to work with woodworkers and
blacksmiths to provide the sign board and framing
elements.
Sign for Roses Inn, circa 1813. Coventry,
Connecticut.
20
John James Audubon American, 1785-1851 Iceland
or Jer Falcon (Plate 366 from the Birds of
America), 1826-1838
21
Ralph Earl    American, 1751-1801 Portrait of Two
Brothers

22
Baldwin Gardiner    1791-1869 silver
Baldwin GardinerNeo-Classical Tea or Coffee Urn
23
Folk art" is most often defined as art that is
created by individuals who were not academically
trained (although they may have acquired their
skills through apprenticeship, observation, or
informal learning).
Ambrose Andrews (ca. 1801-1877), The Children of
Nathan Starr, 1835.
24
Rufus Hathaway (1770-1822) was only twenty years
old when he painted Lady with her Pets (Molly
Wales Forbes), one of the best-known portraits by
an American country painter
John Bradley (active 1832-1847), Emma Homan, ca.
1844,
25
Edward and Sarah Rutter, ca. 1805Joshua Johnson
(American, ca. 1763ca. 1824)
Joshua Johnson is the earliest African-American
painter in the United States with a recognized
body of work. Johnson was brought to Baltimore
in the 1790s as a slave for a family that was
related to Charles Willson Peale, the celebrated
portrait painter. Within a decade Johnson became
a "freeman of color" and was earning his living
as a portrait painter.
26
An itinerant artist active in towns along the
Massachusetts-Connecticut border, Phillips
painted hundreds of portraits over his long
career. Phillips was an untrained rural painter,
Mrs. Mayer and Daughter, 183540Ammi Phillips
(17881865)
27
Unidentified artist, Boy with Blond Hair, ca.
1840-50,
28
Engravings of European paintings were widely
available in the colonies and were a chief source
of information on European art for American
artists until the beginning of the nineteenth
century. Copying European art styles was an
accepted practice by which artists could
demonstrate their awareness of the trends and
techniques used abroad thepose the classical
column gathered drapery landscape All
techniques borrowed from published prints of
European nobility.
Grizzell Eastwick Apthorp, 1748Robert Feke
(1707-1752)
29
Sign Boards
Apothecary mortar and pestle
30
Coryells Ferry 1776 by Joseph Pickett
31
RESOURCES
http//www.history.org http//www.worcesterart.org
/Collection/Early_American http//www.levins.com/
pineapple.html http//www.chs.org/exhibitioncon.h
tml http//academic.reed.edu/am_studies/museum/ea
rlyamart.html http//www.plimoth.org/learn/histor
y/glossary.asp http//www.thinker.org/fam/educatio
n/publications/guide-american/slide-1.html http//
www.pbs.org/wnet/colonialhouse/history/index.html
http//www.tfaoi.com/newsm1/n1m135.htm http//www.
colonialwilliamsburg.org/Almanack/life/trades/trad
eapo.cfm http//www.earlyamerica.com/review/winte
r96/massacre.html http//foxpawpress.com/Printshop
/museum/williamsburg/williamsburg.html http//www.
antiquesandthearts.com/archive/limner.htm