American Art and Architecture

B

Painting After the War of Independence

As with architecture, portraiture flourished in the prosperous era that followed the War of Independence. The leading figures included Ralph Earl, who worked in various places in New England; Charles Willson Peale, active mainly in Philadelphia (he was the head of an artistic dynasty and helped to establish the city as one of the country's main art centres); and Gilbert Stuart, who spent most of his early career in Britain before working in New York, Philadelphia, Washington, and finally Boston, where he settled in 1805. Of these three, Stuart was the outstanding artist—second only to Copley as the greatest American portraitist of his age. He is particularly renowned for his portraits of George Washington; he created three distinctive types, all of which were much copied and became national icons. One of them still appears on the country's $1 banknote.

Another notable painter of the time was John Trumbull. He had fought in the War of Independence and he is best known for paintings in which he recorded its great moments, notably The Declaration of Independence (1794) and The Battle of Bunker Hill (1789; both Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven). Later versions (1817-1824) may be seen in the rotunda of the US Capitol in Washington, D.C. The War of Independence continued to inspire painters long after this, most notably in the famous Washington Crossing the Delaware (1851, Metropolitan Museum, New York) by the German-born Emmanuel Gottlieb Leutze.

B

1

Romantic Portraiture and Genre Painting

Until at least 1840 American painting continued to be dominated by portraiture in the Romantic manner. The leading portraitist around the middle of the century was Thomas Sully, whose glossy Romantic style shows his admiration for the English portraitist Sir Thomas Lawrence. Another leading Romantic portraitist was Samuel F. B. Morse; he was one of the most talented artists of his generation before giving up art for science and developing the system of electric telegraphy that bears his name—Morse code.

There were also some outstanding achievements in genre painting at this time. The first prominent American specialist in the field was William Sidney Mount, who recorded the daily lives of Long Island farmers in paintings such as Bargaining for a Horse (1835, New-York Historical Society, New York). In Missouri his contemporary George Caleb Bingham painted scenes of the lives of fur traders and flatboatmen, most notably the much-reproduced Fur Traders Descending the Missouri (1845, Metropolitan Museum, New York).

B

2

Landscape Painting

Mount and Bingham's works often include prominent landscape elements, and in the course of the 19th century landscape painting become one of the strongest currents in American art. The father of this great tradition was Washington Allston, who set the tone for much of what followed with his dramatic and visionary views of nature, for example Moonlight (1819, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston).

In the late 1820s a distinctive tradition of American landscape arose in what is now called the Hudson River School. The outstanding figure among the founders of the school was Thomas Cole, who was inspired by the awesome majesty of the American wilderness, especially along the banks of the Hudson River. Thomas Doughty and Asher B. Durand were among his contemporaries who worked in a similar vein. Their patriotic spirit appealed greatly to the American public, and the Hudson River School not only flourished for about 50 years but also helped inspire painters to depict other areas of the country in a similarly reverential spirit. Cole's pupil Frederic Edwin Church, for example, became famous with a spectacular picture of Niagara (1857, Corcoran Gallery, Washington), and a number of painters (now known as the Rocky Mountain School) celebrated the mountain scenery of the far West in comparably dramatic images, sometimes of huge size. Among them were the German-born Albert Bierstadt and the English-born Thomas Moran.

Another aspect of mid-19th century American landscape painting is a trend known as Luminism. Artists working in this vein were interested in light and atmosphere rather than sheer spectacle, and their work tends to be fairly modest in size. Among them were the marine painter Fitz Hugh Lane, whose work included crystalline views of New England harbours, and Martin Johnson Heade.

C

Sculpture Before the Civil War

The first American sculptor to break free of the folk art tradition and be recognized as a distinctive artistic personality was William Rush, who worked in Philadelphia. The son of a ship's carpenter, he began his career as a carver of figureheads for vessels and progressed to monumental freestanding figures, notably Comedy and Tragedy (1808, Edwin Forrest Home, Philadelphia), which were made for a theatre.

Rush's preferred medium was wood, but most of the leading American sculptors of the next generation were strongly influenced by Neo-Classicism and worked mainly in marble, which was the material of the bulk of the sculpture that had survived from the ancient world. Among these sculptors were Horatio Greenough and Hiram Powers, both of whom spent much of their careers in Italy, where there was plentiful marble and a strong tradition of working it. Greenough is best known for the huge figure of George Washington (1833-1841) made for the Capitol in Washington (it is now in the National Museum of American History, Washington); it was the first major state commission carried out by an American sculptor. Powers became famous with his female nude The Greek Slave (1841-1843), of which he made several replicas (one is in the Corcoran Gallery, Washington). It was much acclaimed at the Great Exhibition in London in 1851 and was for a time one of the most reproduced and discussed works of art in the world.

IV

From the American Civil War to the Armory Show: 1865 to 1913

A

Architecture After the Civil War

An important aspect of American architecture after the Civil War (1861-1865) was an increase in influence from Continental Europe, particularly France. Studying abroad was now customary, and Paris—recognized as the art capital of the world—was the strongest draw of all. Even before the Civil War, Richard Morris Hunt had had a thorough French training, and when he returned to the United States in 1855 he became the leading exponent of a French Renaissance style, inspired by 16th-century châteaux. He used it particularly in mansions for extremely wealthy clients, for example that of W. K. Vanderbilt on Fifth Avenue, New York (1879-1882; destroyed).

Other architects looked to the Italian rather than the French Renaissance for inspiration, notably the firm of McKim, Mead & White, as in the palatial Boston Public Library (1887-1895). Perhaps the greatest architect of the generation was Henry H. Richardson, whose bold sense of mass and control of detail is evident in his Trinity Church (1872-1877), in Boston, a revival of the Romanesque style, which became popular in the United States during the 1880s.

Revival of historical styles represents only one aspect of the story, however, for in the late 19th century Americans led the way in two architectural forms: the country house and the skyscraper. The most advanced country houses were in the shingle style. This takes its name from the wooden tiles (shingles) used to cover the roofs, which were typically large and sweeping, but in fact the most important aspect of the houses built in the style is the planning. Organized in an informal, rambling fashion around a large living hall, they show the development of the open plan and easy transitions between indoors and outdoors that were to become hallmarks of the best modern architecture of the early 20th century. A good example is the Isaac Bell House (1881-1883) at Newport, Rhode Island, by McKim, Mead & White.

The development of the skyscraper was made possible by two innovations: the elevator (see lift), which was introduced to New York office buildings in the 1850s; and metal-frame construction, with which it was possible to build higher than with traditional methods. The ten-storey Home Insurance Company Building (1883-1885, demolished 1931), designed by William Le Barron Jenney, in Chicago, was the first office building to use such a metal skeleton to support the weight of all the walls and floors, and Chicago was initially the leading centre in the development of the skyscraper. The city had been virtually destroyed by fire in 1871, and the rebuilding of the commercial district gave the opportunity to use modern methods and materials on a grand scale.

The term “Chicago School” is applied to the architects who gave the city such an important position in the development of modern architecture. Chief among them was Louis Sullivan, whose work includes two of the most famous early skyscrapers: the Wainwright Building in St Louis (1890-1891) and the Guaranty Building in Buffalo (1894-1895). The powerful, clearly articulated façades of these buildings directly express the underlying frame construction, but Sullivan was also a master of decoration, the Guaranty Building, for example, being faced with delicate terracotta ornamentation. Such decoration of skyscrapers continued into the 20th century. For example, the graceful Woolworth Building (1909-1913), designed by Cass Gilbert, in New York, has Gothic ornamentation; at the time it was the tallest building in the United States.