Art from a Young Nation

We continue our tour of the Cleveland Museum of Art with a couple of galleries of art from the young United States of America.

This portrait was done by Thomas Sully, an English-born American painter.  During his lifetime he did more than 2600 paintings, most of them commissioned portraits.  (His portrait of Andrew Jackson is used on our $20 bill.)  The subject of this painting is Jean Terford David, who was born in France, moved to the United States, and served as an officer in the War of 1812.

Even the casual museum-goer does a second take when passing this portrait which appears to be a 19th century gentleman sporting a pair of sunglasses.  In fact the spectacles were thought to protect the eyes from the strong glare of an Argand lamp, a type of indoor lighting which burned whale oil.

The painter of the portrait was a person who played an important role in Cleveland's history.  Jeptha Homer Wade began as an itinerant painter, but developed in interest in the new technology of telegraphy.  He eventually founded the Western Union Telegraph Co., and was one of the richest industrialists in Cleveland.  His grandson was the founder of the Cleveland Art Museum, and he donated the land on which the museum stands as a Christmas present to the city of Cleveland.

Washington Allston was born in South Carolina, and made a name for himself as a Romantic poet and painter.  He spent several years in London, and during that time painted this portrait of Samuel Williams, a London banker.

This painting of peregrine falcons was done by the famed naturalist and artist, John James Audubon.   Audubon set out to depict every species of native North American birds.  His four volume publication, "Bird of America", contained 435 engravings based on his watercolors.  Occasionally he would use one of his watercolors to create an oil painting such as this one.

This elegant pier table, made from mahogany and marble, surely graced the home of a very wealthy family in the 1830s.

This doorway from a house built in 1821 in Painesville, Ohio, shows the Neo-Classical style that was popular in the early 1800s.

As the United States expanded westward, landscapes of the wilderness became very popular.  Thomas Cole was one of the leading landscape artists, and the founder of the so-called "Hudson River School".   This painting portrays the Adirondack Mountains in autumn.

Cole's prize student was Frederic Edwin Church.  Church was the most prominent of the second generation of "Hudson Valley" artists.  The painting is entitled "Storm in the Mountains".

Cole painted many large canvasses, and he would put them on exhibit.  Thousands of people would line up and pay 25 cents for a chance to see one of his impressive paintings.  One example is this Maine landscape called "Twilight in the Wilderness".

It was painted in 1860, and some say that the blazing sunset symbolizes the coming bloodshed of the Civil War.

In our next visit to the Cleveland Museum of Art, we will look at art from the burgeoning United States in the post-Civil War era.