Eighteenth century art

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Eighteenth century art

• Portraits
• History paintings
• Architecture

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Overview

• domestic portraiture and middle-class aspirations
  
• Political portraiture and the progressive shaping
  of the nation
• The American revolution at the end of the 18th
  century and its aftermath.
• Artists and architects were called upon to create
  symbols portraits, history paintings,
  sculpture, public monuments - that unified the
  New Republic and commemorated the American
  revolutions heroic events, personalities and
  ideals (fraternity, freedom, virtual
  self-sacrifice for the public, national good).

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Benjamin Franklin

• Britain without us can grow no stronger. Without
  her we shall become a tenfold greater and
  mightier People

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The 13 colonies (1775)
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• Robert Feke
• James Bowdoin
• 1748

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Mediation of British taste

• Royal governors stood at the apex (top) of
  colonial society.
• As surrogates (délégués) for the British
  monarch, they set the standards for manners and
  taste.
• Social clubs and fraternities inspired by
  Londons culture taught socially mobile Americans
  how to dress and conduct themselves like refined
  individuals

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• Robert Feke
• Mrs James Bowoin
• Oil on canvas
• 1748

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Gentility

• Genteel confidence, inner peace, grace and
  moderation a class ethos.
• The Boston elites had to earn status and
  authority by accumulating wealth and other forms
  of accomplishment and had to prove their power on
  a daily basis by displaying the kinds of things,
  demeanours and images that emblematised class
  manners, taste and character.

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• Grizzell Eastwick Apthorp
• Robert Feke
• Boston
• 1748
• Oil on canvas

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Robert Feke, Isaac Royall and his family,
1741social class, gender and age
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Isaac Royall and his family, 1741. Massachusetts

• Young master standing next to his wife and baby
  (then, sister in law and sister).
• Stiffly posed figures fashionable taste for
  classical formality and balanced order.
• Elongated necks of the expressionless women
• The rectilinear compositions (table, rectangular
  window) dominance over nature
• Turkish carpet balance and possession of
  imported luxuries
• Seated, passive women associated to the baby
  caregivers
• Young patriarch with a book worldly man of
  affairs and learning, in charge.
• New England wilnerness has been tamed by a
  civilised, moral aesthetic

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Nature vs nurture

• Nature wilderness
• Nurture nourishment, education, civilisation
• Fruits and flowers as powerful marker of the
  distinctive tastes of a social group that could
  value frail and graceful objects.
• John Locke had made a linkage between gardening
  and moral education fine character is nurtured,
  not innate and womens role was to be in charge
  of nurture. So also a new theory of the nurturing
  role of a family and the education of children
  who came to the fore.
• Very strong gendering flowers and fruits as
  gendered objects that express feminine
  accomplishment, virtue and class distinction.
• masculine prowess with business books, ships,
  books and the relationship to the landscape.

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Rousseaus impact

• In the late 18th century, the European elites
  became fascinated with wild landscapes,
  sensibility, children (as opposed to reason,
  order, enclosed gardens, etc.)
• Norbert Eliass interpretation (La Société de
  cour) nostalgia for the untainted corruption
  from courtly tensions and the evils of city life
  (the first stirrings of industrialisation) a
  form of psychological escapism.
• Rousseau stayed in England from 1766 to 1768 and
  his books (especially LEmile) were bestsellers.

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• John Singleton Copley
• Boy with a squirrel
• 1765
• Boston

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The squirrel metaphor

• Squirrels were pets of privileged boys.
• A native American species
• Unlike dogs, they were wild animals brought into
  a civilised state through training and like their
  masters, had been civilised.
• Henry Pelham loosely holds a chain of a trained
  squirrel while the flying squirrel nibbles at a
  nut on a polished mahogany table.
• Restrained yet free epitome of the new
  enlightenment belief in the nurturing and
  protection of youth.

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John Smibert, The Bermuda group. Dean George
Berkeley and his family, 1729.
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John Smibert, The Bermuda group. Dean George
Berkeley and his family, 1729.

• Group portrait.
• Dean George Berkeley, philosopher and Anglican
  clergyman who envisioned America as a place for
  educating children of American plantation owners
  and for training missionaries to convert Indian
  tribes to Christianity.
• He stands at the right side, black clerical
  costume

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John Smibert, The Bermuda group. Dean George
Berkeley and his family, 1729.

• Dominates the composition (see gaze)
• Secretary waiting/ Berkeley paused in meditation
  (communion with divine ideas)
• Stone pillars protective temple of learning
• Painters self-portrait on the left painters no
  longer anonymous and looking at us. Visually
  equated with Berkeley cultural equality of
  visual and verbal art

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John Smibert, The Bermuda group. Dean George
Berkeley and his family, 1729.

• central woman points to New England nature
  golden horizon (future)
• Wife and baby holding of golden fruit (nurture)
  golden hair and golden dress. The color scheme
  links them to the golden horizon , symbolising
  the future and the progression of history.
• As the youngest and only native-born American in
  the group, the baby personifies the western
  fruition of human destiny in the New World.

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John Singleton CopleyThe Copley Family,
1776/1777
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Enlightenment (lâge des Lumières)

• 18th century Anglo-America was probably the
  worlds most literate society. 90 of New
  Englands adult white males and 40 of its women
  could sign documents as opposed to 30 of English
  males. (reading almanacs, the Bible, even though
  they inhabited a world of conversations, debates
  and sermons).
• Members of the gentry, well-off merchants and
  educated ministers lived in a world of print
  culture and were connected to European scientific
  and intellectual networks.
• The Enlightenment initially strengthened ties
  between British and colonial elites.

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Narrative art and the Enlightened family

• The artist's use of color, light, and line help
  determine social ideas and relationships.
• In narrative art we can obtain some notion of
  the social ideas or relationship embodied in a
  picture by examining body relations and eye
  movement
• Who is next to whom, who is how far from/ or
  inclining toward/ or away from/ or touching whom
  whose eyes turn, whose eyes meet, and who is
  standing or sitting next to what?
• How does the light fall in a picture, where are
  the areas of light and dark concentrated?

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Character and class the portraits of John
Singleton Copley.

• Copleys appeal had something to do with his
  skill in transcribing material things onto
  canvas he could make paint look like polished
  mahogany or clear glass this realism, this
  descriptive ability was also linked to his
  ability to transcribe the elites aspirations for
  status and present a social position in graphic
  ways.
• The paintings were displayed in the halls or
  dining rooms of elite homes, the paintings were
  objects of self-representation, of class
  representation as well (where the group could
  objectify a sense of itself) and also showing
  that American behaviour was able to emulate the
  way the colonial elite thought English
  aristocrats behaved.
• Copley knew firsthand the codes of polite
  behaviour because he was himself trained by his
  English-born stepfather.

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John Singleton CopleyThe Copley Family,
1776/1777
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• An authoritarian upbringing was replaced by a
  gentler attitude where mothers attempted to imbue
  their children with self-worth. Images of
  children at play and engaging in intimated
  exchanges with their mothers mark many of the
  family portraits at the end of the 18th century.

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The Enlightened family

• The family portrait is not highly unusual in art
  history although it is still a rarity especially
  in displaying fathers and young daughters
  together. The new trend in portraying yourself as
  Enlightened not only began an increase in the
  family portrait but in depicting the family as
  actually interacting with each other.
• This was further proof to the viewer that, here
  you are in the act of participating in family
  life, which you enjoy on a daily basis because
  you are a forward thinking person. Anyone could
  sit for a formal portrait with their family but a
  painting of the family being active together is
  visual proof of their general enjoyment of each
  others' company...

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The coming revolution
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The seven year war (1756-63)

• Battles around the world opposing the French and
  the British. What was at stake was the control of
  economic empires.
• William Pitt, the British prime minister,
  invested enormous sums into the battles - twice
  the governments yearly income into the war and
  the strategy started to work out in 1759. In
  particular, general Wolfes conquest of the
  French Quebec seemed to bring America under
  absolute British control.
• With the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1763,
  France lost its entire North American empire.
• But the war left a disquieting legacy. Arrogant
  British officers had treated their own men with
  brutality and had demanded blind obedience from
  American militiamen.

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Benjamin West, The Death of General Wolfe, 1770
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History painting

• Benjamin West became the founder of an American
  school of painting before the Revolution, but he
  did so while he was in Europe. He derived his
  respect for ancient history and his view of
  America as a sacred place, a refuge for liberty
  and pure religion, from his instruction with a
  Anglican clergyman.
• He was financed by prominent Philadelphians to
  travel to Italy in 1760 to study the great
  masterpieces of the antiquity and the Italian
  Renaissance. As he returned he settled in London
  and established an academic tradition of history
  painting and his studio in London became a magnet
  for aspiring American artists.
• The clothing of history figures in contemporary
  clothes was seen and criticised by the British
  academy as a turn towards realism which
  vulgarised high art and the universal ideals of
  classicism.
• Wests rebellion against the European academic
  traditions served the cause of American
  nationalism

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Benjamin West

• Representing geographical specificities and
  historical uniqueness of the new world.
• Christs disciples lamenting the crucified body
  Wolfes blood sanctifies the American soil.
• Over the conquered city, the dark smoke cloud
  gives way to the divine light of providence.
• Competing secondary focus to underscore the
  specifically American nature of victory.
• Romantic view of the Indian as a Spartan warrior

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Matthew Pratt, The American school, 1765
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Paul Revere, craftsman and revolutionary. John
Singleton Copley, 1768
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Paul Revere, 1768

• Moral vindication (support) of visual arts and
  the fabrication of luxury goods.
• Mysterious contrast between intense light and
  dark create a religious aura of silent meditation
• Redeeming (salvation) the production and
  appreciation of luxuries from the taint
  (accusation) of materialism
• Democratic shift elevating in painting the
  social status of craftsmen
• By visually expressing the notion that crafters
  of luxuries were moral, dignified individuals, it
  also stated that luxury items were a
  manifestation of virtue rather than vice.

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• John Singleton Copley
• Governor and Mrs Thomas Mifflin
• 1773
• Philadelphia

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The coming revolution

• Domestic harmony and knowledge.
• A woman producing textile at home independence
  from British imports.
• The consumer revolution of the 18th century
  helped refine and anglicise colonial culture, but
  it also emboldened increasingly self-confident
  Americans to demand political rights.

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• Mordecai Gist,
• 1774Charles Willson Peale
• (1741-1827)Oil on canvas, 30 x 25 in.

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Clothing and rank

• The lace collar and cuffs Gist wears in his
  portrait, his gold-embroidered suit and hat, and
  the elaborately-carved chair in which he sits,
  would have informed eighteenth century viewers of
  Gist's success as a businessman.
• His connection to the sea is made evident by the
  dividers he holds in his hands, the sea chart on
  the table, the book of Euclid's Geometry, and the
  ship sailing towards the horizon. Gist's
  hairstyle was worn by high-ranking sailors of the
  period.
• Clothing is still used today as a way of
  communicating a person's interests and
  allegiances. In the eighteenth century a person's
  social rank, wealth, and the nature of the
  occasion dictated very strictly particular
  clothing.

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Mordecai Gist

• Mordecai Gist came from a wealthy and prominent
  family he chose to join the side of the American
  colonies in the fight for independence.
• This portrait of Gist was painted before the
  Revolutionary War when Gist was a wealthy sea
  captain and merchant. The significance of the sea
  to the colonies and to the new American Republic
  cannot be overestimated the ocean was the
  highway and link between the Old World and the
  New, bringing to America not only goods and
  people, but also ideas and styles from Europe.
• Shortly after this picture was painted, Gist
  became famous for his exploits as an officer in
  the Revolutionary Army.
• Gist was so devoted to the cause that he named
  his sons Independence and States

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Mordecai Gist

• Why might Gist have made the decision to support
  the cause of American liberty?
• For one thing, Gist made his living from trade
  with Europe and other colonies.
• The duties from the Navigation Acts and other
  English attempts at taxation were keenly felt by
  people in his line of work.
• Economic interest became a divisive factor
  between colonists who supported England, those
  who remained neutral, and those who advocated
  independence. Those who advocated independence
  were generally affected directly by England's tax
  laws.

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The American Revolution
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The American Revolution

• The American Revolution refers to the political
  upheaval during the last half of the 18th century
  in which the Thirteen Colonies of North America
  overthrew the governance of the British Empire
  and collectively became the nation of the United
  States of America.
• In this period, the colonies first formed
  self-governing independent states, and then
  united to defend that self-governance in the
  armed conflict from 1775 to 1783 known as the
  American Revolutionary War (or the "American War
  of Independence").
• This resulted in the states breaking away from
  the empire with the Declaration of Independence
  in 1776, victory on the battlefield in October
  1781, and British recognition of United States
  sovereignty and independence in 1783.

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Summary

• During the 1760s and 1770s many colonists began
  to conceive of America as a truly "republican"
  society - one that emphasized personal
  independence, public virtue, and a suspicion of
  concentrated power as essential ingredients of a
  free society. They conceived of America as a
  society inhabited by people who governed
  themselves and enjoyed personal rights and
  liberties. A growing number of colonists
  contrasted their society with Britain's political
  corruption and governmental bureaucracy.
• The American Revolution was not simply the result
  of British political missteps, it was also a
  product of the way that colonists interpreted
  British actions. When Britain began to tax
  Americans, regulate their trade, station troops
  in their midst, and deny colonists the right to
  expand westward, many colonists viewed these
  events through an ideological prism that had been
  shaped by English thinkers and new religious
  interpretations who had warned about the dangers
  posed by a standing army, the evils of public
  debt, and government officials lusting after
  power.

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Interpretation

• Few topics in American history arouse more heated
  controversy than the causes of the American
  Revolution. Some historians trace the causes of
  the Revolution to British high-handedness to
  Britain's determination to impose policies by
  parliamentary fiat rather than negotiation.
• Others attribute the coming of the Revolution to
  demagogues, like Samuel Adams, Thomas Paine, and
  Patrick Henry, who aroused peoples' opinions by
  their words and actions.
• Still others believe that the Revolution grew out
  of a growing sense of American identity. Long
  before the Revolution, the colonists began to
  recognize that their experience diverged sharply
  from Britain's. Their population was growing
  faster (doubling about every twenty years) there
  was greater religious freedom land was more
  widely distributed and men had greater access to
  the vote. Increasingly, the colonists contrasted
  American simplicity, morality, and republicanism
  with British aristocratic corruption and
  responded forcefully to British policies that
  threatened to restrain their economic and
  geographical growth.
• But perhaps the most important cause of the
  Revolution lay in the way that the colonists
  perceived and interpreted events. In the years
  before the Revolution, the colonists embraced an
  ideology which held that liberty was fragile and
  was threatened by the conspiratorial designs of
  scheming politicians. This ideology led colonists
  to interpret British policies as part of a
  deliberate scheme to impose tyrannical oppression
  in America and reduce the colonists to slavery.

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The road to revolution

• Britains victory over France in imperial
  conquest radically altered its relationship with
  its American colonies, as Britain attempted to
  tighten its control over colonial affairs to pay
  off the enormous debt that had accumulated during
  the war.
• American leaders interpreted Britains financial
  control as calculated antagonism designed to
  deprive them of both prosperity and relative
  independence
• Non-elite groups, poor and working people clashed
  with British authorities and in country areas,
  settlers used the language and ideas of urban
  radicals to resist domination by large landowners
  and seaboard elites.

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No taxation without representation

• The British did not expect the colonies to
  contribute to the interest or the retirement of
  debt incurred during the French and Indian War,
  but they did expect a portion of the expenses for
  colonial defense to be paid by the Americans
  through taxes.
• The issues with the colonists were both that the
  taxes were high and that the colonies had no
  representation in the Parliament which passed the
  taxes.
• The phrase "No taxation without representation"
  became popular in many American circles. London
  argued that the Americans were represented
  "virtually" but most Americans rejected the
  theory that men in London, who knew nothing about
  their needs and conditions, could represent them.
  
• In 1765 the Stamp Act was the first direct tax
  ever levied by Parliament on the colonies. All
  newspapers, almanacs, pamphlets, and official
  documentseven decks of playing cards (attacking
  directly the educated class) were required to
  have the stamps. All 13 colonies protested
  vehemently, as popular leaders rallied the people
  in opposition.

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Tea Act and the Boston Tea Party

• On December 16, 1773, a group of men, led by
  Samuel Adams and dressed to evoke American
  Indians, boarded the ships of the
  government-favored British East India Company and
  dumped an estimated 10,000 worth of tea on board
  (approximately 636,000 in 2008) into the harbor.
  This event became known as the Boston Tea Party
  and remains a significant part of American
  patriotic lore ( mythic history).

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The Intolerable acts

• The British government responded by passing
  several Acts which came to be known as the
  Intolerable Acts, which further darkened colonial
  opinion towards the British. They consisted of
  four laws enacted by the British parliament.
• Restriction of town meetings, closing of the port
  of Boston until the British had been compensated
  for the tea lost in the Boston Tea Party (the
  British never received such a payment), etc.
• The First Continental Congress declared the
  Intolerable Acts to be unconstitutional, called
  for the people to form militias, and called for
  Massachusetts to form a Patriot government.

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Organisation of the American political opposition

• American political opposition was initially
  through the colonial assemblies, which included
  representatives from all thirteen colonies.
• In 1765, the Sons of Liberty were formed which
  used public demonstrations, violence and threats
  of violence to ensure that the British tax laws
  were unenforceable.
• In late 1772, Samuel Adams set about creating new
  Committees of Correspondence, which linked
  Patriots in all thirteen colonies and eventually
  provided the framework for a rebel government.
• In 1774, the Continental Congress was formed,
  made up of representatives from each of the
  Provincial Congresses or their equivalents, to
  serve as a provisional national government.

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The revolutionary momentum

• The revolutionary era began in 1763, when the
  French military threat to British North American
  colonies ended.
• Adopting the policy that the colonies should pay
  an increased proportion of the costs associated
  with keeping them in the Empire, Britain imposed
  a series of taxes followed by other laws that
  proved extremely unpopular.
• Because the colonies lacked elected
  representation in the governing British
  Parliament, many colonists considered the laws to
  be illegitimate and a violation of their rights
  as Englishmen.  No taxation without
  representation 
• Beginning in 1772, Patriot groups began to create
  committees of correspondence, which would lead to
  their own Provincial Congress most of the
  colonies.
• In the course of two years, the Provincial
  Congresses or their equivalents effectively
  replaced the British ruling apparatus in the
  former colonies, culminating in 1774 with the
  unifying First Continental Congress.

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Paul Revere, The Boston massacre
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The War of independence (1775-83)

• In response to Patriot protests in Boston, the
  British sent combat troops.
• Consequently, the states mobilized their
  militias, and fighting broke out in 1775.
• Loyalists (faithful to the English crown) were
  estimated to comprise 15-20 of the population.
• In 1776, representatives from each of the
  original thirteen independent states voted
  unanimously to adopt a Declaration of
  Independence (written primarily by Thomas
  Jefferson), establishing the United States, which
  was originally governed as a loose confederation
  by a representative government selected by state
  legislatures.
• The Americans formed an alliance with France in
  1778 that evened the military and naval
  strengths, later bringing Spain and the Dutch
  Republic into the conflict by their own alliance
  with France. The British army was defeated.
• The Congress of the Confederation ratified the
  Articles of Confederation. The Treaty of Paris in
  1783 was ratified by this new national
  government, and ended British claims to any of
  the thirteen states.

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The Patriots

• At the time, revolutionaries were called
  'Patriots', 'Whigs', 'Congress-men', or
  'Americans'. The concept of patriotism was linked
  to enlightenment values concerning a common good,
  which transcended national and social boundaries.
  Patriotism, thus, did not require you to stand
  behind your country at all costs
  (nationalism), and there wouldn't necessarily
  be a contradiction between being a patriot and
  revolting against king and country
• The patriots included a full range of social and
  economic classes, but a unanimity regarding the
  need to defend the rights of Americans.
• After the war, Patriots such as George
  Washington, James Madison, John Adams and
  Alexander Hamilton were deeply devoted to
  republicanism while also eager to build a rich
  and powerful nation
• Patriots such as Benjamin Franklin and Thomas
  Jefferson represented democratic impulses and the
  agrarian plantation element that wanted a
  localized society with greater political equality.

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Patriots vs loyalists

• The Patriots were a 'mixed lot', with the richer
  and better educated more likely to become
  officers in the Army. Most free farmers,
  craftsmen, and small and quite a few successful
  merchants joined the patriot cause, demanding
  more political equality.
• Historians have estimated that about 15-20 of
  the population remained loyal to the British
  Crown these were known at the time as
  'Loyalists', 'Tories', or 'King's men'.
• Loyalists were typically older, less willing to
  break with old loyalties, often connected to the
  Church of England, and included many established
  merchants with business connections across the
  Empire. Some African-American slaves as well
  depended on the protection of the British who did
  not officially support slavery all the groups
  that depended heavily on commercial ties with the
  British and also the most recent immigrants from
  Britain whose ties with the mother country were
  closer.
• Painters allegiances were also divided. Paul
  Revere produced anti-British prints and others
  like Copley left for England.

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Interpretations of the Revolution

• Interpretations about the effect of the
  Revolution vary. Though contemporary participants
  referred to the events as "the revolution", at
  one end of the spectrum is the view that the
  American Revolution was not "revolutionary" at
  all, contending that it did not radically
  transform colonial society but simply replaced a
  distant government with a local one.
• More recent scholarship accepts the contemporary
  view of the participants that the American
  Revolution was a unique and radical event that
  produced deep changes and had a profound impact
  on world affairs, based on an increasing belief
  in the principles of republicanism, such as
  peoples' natural rights, and a system of laws
  chosen by the people.

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Liberalism

• John Locke's ideas on liberalism greatly
  influenced the political minds behind the
  revolution for instance, his theory of the
  "social contract" implied the among humanity's
  natural rights was the right of the people to
  overthrow their leaders, should those leaders
  betray the historic rights of Englishmen.
• 18th century liberal political thinking at the
  heart of all political relationships was a
  struggle between the aggressive extension of
  artificial power, represented by corrupt
  governments and the natural liberty of people.
• In terms of writing state and national
  constitutions, the Americans used Montesquieu's
  analysis of the ideally "balanced" British
  Constitution.

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Republicanism

• A motivating force behind the revolution was the
  American embrace of a political ideology called
  "republicanism", which was dominant in many of
  the colonies by 1775.
• The "country party" in Britain, whose critique of
  British government emphasized that corruption was
  to be feared, influenced American politicians.
• The colonists associated the "court" with luxury
  and inherited aristocracy, which many British
  Americans increasingly condemned. Corruption was
  the greatest possible evil, and civic virtue
  required men to put civic duty ahead of their
  personal desires.
• Men had a civic duty to fight for their country.
  For women, "republican motherhood" became the
  ideal the first duty of the republican woman was
  to instill republican values in her children and
  to avoid luxury and ostentation.
• The "Founding Fathers" were strong advocates of
  republicanism, especially Samuel Adams, Patrick
  Henry, Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin, George
  Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams.

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Religion

• However, the mass of American Patriots had never
  heard of Locke or other Enlightenment thinkers
  nor of republican political theory most
  fighters reading was limited to the Bible the
  Almanac.
• Dissenting (i.e non anglican) churches were the
  school of democracy. The stories that
  influenced their political thinking the most were
  Genesis, which taught all men were created equal,
  Exodus, with its story of the ancient Israelites
  defying Pharaoh and escaping to freedom, and the
  Book of Judges, which taught there is no divine
  right of kings.
• "Founding Fathers" such as Benjamin Franklin,
  Samuel and John Adams, were raised as Puritans,
  reading the Geneva Bible which had marginal notes
  throughout what they called the "Old Testament",
  which preached against kings as tyrants, church
  hierarchy, or obeying wicked laws

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• Almanacs provided a framework to interpret events

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The immediate political aftermath

• The American Revolution included a series of
  broad intellectual and social shifts that
  occurred in the early American society, such as
  the new republican ideals that took hold in the
  American population.
• In some colonies, sharp political debates broke
  out over the role of democracy in government,
  with a number of even the most liberal Founding
  Fathers fearing mob rule.
• Many issues of national governance were not
  settled until the Constitution of the United
  States (1787), including the first 10 amendments
  in the United States Bill of Rights (1789), which
  replaced the Articles of Confederation.
• The Constitution enshrined the natural rights
  idealized by republican revolutionaries and
  guaranteed them under a relatively strong
  federated government, as well as dramatically
  expanded sufferage for national elections.
• The American shift to republicanism, as well as
  the gradually expanding democracy, caused an
  upheaval of the traditional social hierarchy, and
  created the ethic that formed the core of
  American political values.

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The immediate political aftermath

• The leaders in the new country were those
  prominent either in the council halls or on the
  fields of the Revolution, and the first three
  Presidents were Washington, Adams, and Jefferson.
  Some of the more radical Revolutionary leaders
  were disappointed in the turn toward conservatism
  when the Revolution was over, but liberty and
  democracy had been fixed as the highest ideals of
  the United States.
• The American Revolution had a great influence on
  liberal thought throughout Europe. The struggles
  and successes of the youthful democracy were much
  in the minds of those who brought about the
  French Revolution, and most assuredly later
  helped to inspire revolutionists in Spain's
  American colonies.
• Approximately 62,000 loyalists left the newly
  founded republic, most settling in the remaining
  British colonies in North America, such as the
  Province of Quebec and Nova Scotia. The new
  colonies of Upper Canada (now Ontario) and New
  Brunswick were created by Britain for their
  benefit.

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The use of visuals in revolution
69
Women in the revolution

• While formal Revolutionary politics did not
  include women, ordinary domestic behaviors became
  charged with political significance as Whig
  (patriot) women confronted a war that
  permeated all aspects of political, civil, and
  domestic life.
• Patriot women participated by boycotting British
  goods, spying on the British, following armies as
  they marched, washing, cooking, and tending for
  soldiers, delivering secret messages, and
  fighting disguised as men.Above all, they
  continued the agricultural work at home to feed
  the armies and their families.
• The boycott of British goods involved the willing
  participation of American women the boycotted
  items were largely household items such as tea
  and cloth. Women had to return to spinning and
  weavingskills that had fallen into disuse.
• Spinning and weaving was equated with political
  virtue.

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Republican motherhood

• Together with African Americans, American women
  continued to exist outside the active public life
  of electoral politics.
• Women were relegated to the private domestic
  realm of republican motherhood to rear virtuous
  sons, the nations future citizens.
• Protected from the world of commerce and
  politics, women more easily personified the
  bloodless, abstract ideals of Liberty and Wisdom
  or the cardinal virtues of Faith, hope and
  Charity.

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• John Singleton Copley
• Governor and Mrs Thomas Mifflin
• 1773
• Philadelphia

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Benjamin Franklins cartoons
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Propaganda in the pre-revolutionary war era

• The pre-war decade from 1765 to 1775 witnessed a
  proliferation of visual media to propagandise
  against British tyranny.
• Printmakers (such as B. Franklin) published
  political cartoons in newspapers, magazines and
  broadsides posted in taverns, shops,
  coffee-houses.
• Political prints satirized the colonial model of
  dependency upon the mother country.

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Benjamin Franklins cartoons
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Join or die political cartoons

• It's important to note that America's earliest
  cartoons were political in nature. The first
  cartoon appeared in Ben Franklin's newspaper The
  Pennsylvania Gazette on May 9, 1754. It appeared
  as part of an editorial by Franklin commenting on
  'the present disunited state of the British
  Colonies.'
• The woodcut drawing entitled 'Join or Die'
  pictures a divided snake in eight pieces
  representing as many colonial governments. The
  drawing was based on the popular superstition
  that a snake that had been cut in two would come
  to life if the pieces were joined before sunset.
  The drawing immediately caught the public's fancy
  and was reproduced in other newspapers.
• reasons for its widespread currency include its
  demagogic reference to an Indian threat as well
  as its basis in the popular superstition that a
  dead snake would come back to life if the pieces
  were placed next to each other

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Join or die

• Franklin's snake is significant in the
  development of cartooning because it became an
  icon that could be displayed in differing
  variations throughout the existing visual media
  of the day but would always be associated with
  the singular causes of colonial unity and the
  Revolutionary spirit.
• In the same way that Biblical stories are an
  element of shared culture, "Join or Die" became a
  symbol to which all Americans could respond.
  Franklin's snake had established a connection
  between a drawing and a specific political idea
  in the American imagination.

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Benjamin Franklin
78
A dismembered Britannia

• Franklins responded to Britains taxation by
  representing the British empire as a dismembered
  woman.
• A spear points suicidally towards her breast.
• Britain stands helplessly besides the globe it
  once dominated.
• It suggested that the limbs (the colonies) were
  not yet ready to be united.

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• Another early cartoon appeared in the
  Massachusetts Centinel on January 30, 1788.
  Entitled 'The Federal Superstructure,' the
  drawing shows a hand helping to raise the
  Massachusetts pillar to an upright position. The
  Centinel newspaper, a supporter of the new
  Constitution, observed that 'The Pillar of the
  Great Federal Edifice rises daily.'
• Shown in position 'having already ratified the
  new document' are pillars representing the states
  of Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia
  and Connecticut. A story below the drawing notes
  that the New York Assembly will call for a
  convention to ratify the Constitution.

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Thomas Paines Common Sense (january 1776)

• Books circulated widely
• The only solution to the problems with Britain is
  republicanism and independence from Great Britain

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The destruction of former symbols

• Like all revolutions, the American revolution
  engendered the iconoclastic destruction of
  traditional symbols of political authority.
• In 1765, a decade before the revolutionary war,
  anti-British image-breaking started (for example
  destroying the statue of George IIIrd in 1776)

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The destruction of the Royal statue in New York
1776