Table Of Content£
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3311111111 01946 3510
Nineteenth-Century
American
Art
Barbara Groseclose
Oxford HistoryofArt
TitlesintheOxfordHistoryofArtseriesareup-to-date,fully-illustratedintroductions
toawidevarietyofsubjectswrittenbyleadingexpertsintheirfield.Theywillappear
regularly,buildingintoaninterlockingandcomprehensiveseries.Inthelistbelow
publishedtitlesappearinbold.
WESTERN ART EuropeanArchitecture Melanesian Art REFERENCE BOOKS
ArchaicandClassical 1750-1890 MichaelO'Hanlon TheArtofArtHistory:
GreekArt BarryBergdoll MesoamericanArt ACriticalAnthology
RobinOsborne Modern Architecture CeceliaKlein DonaldPreziosi(ed.)
Classical ArtfromGreece AlanColquhoun NativeNorthAmericanArt
to Rome Contemporary JanetBerlo&cRuthPhillips
MaryBeard&John Architecture Polynesianand
Henderson AnthonyVidler MicronesianArt
Imperial Romeand Architectureinthe AdrienneKaeppler
ChristianTriumph UnitedStates South-EastAsianArt
JasEisner DellUpton JohnGuy
EarlyMedieval Art WORLD ART
LawrenceNees WESTERN DESIGN
AegeanArtand
Late Medieval Art Twentieth-CenturyDesign
VeronicaSekules Architecture & JonathanM.Woodham
DonaldPreziosi Louise
Artin Renaissance Italy Hitchcock American Design
EvelynWelch EarlyArtandArchitecture JeffreyMeikle
Northern EuropeanArt inAfrica Nineteenth-Century
SusieNash PeterGarlake Design
Art in Europe AfricanArt GillianNaylor
1500-1750 JohnPicton Fashion
NigelLlewellyn ChristopherBreward
ContemporaryAfrican Art
Artin Europe OluOguibe WESTERN SCULPTURE
1700-1830
MatthewCraske African-AmericanArt Sculpture 1900-1945
SharonF.Patton
AUrntitinedEuSrtaotpeesa1n8d1t5h-e70 Nineteenth-Century PSecnuellpotpuereCuSritnisce 1945
AnnBermingham AmericanArt AndrewCausey
BarbaraGroseclose
ModernArt 1851-1929
Twentieth-Century PHOTOGRAPHY
RichardBrettell
AmericanArt
AfterModernArt ErikaDoss ThePhotograph
945-2000 GrahamClarke
1 Australian Art
DavidHopkins AndrewSayers Photographyinthe
WESTERN United States
ARCHITECTURE ByzantineArt MilesOrvell
RobinCormack
GreekArchitecture Contemporary
DavidSmall ArtinChina Photography
CraigClunas
RomanArchitecture THEMESANDGENRES
East European Art
JanetDelaine
JeremyHoward LandscapeandWestern
EarlyMedieval
Ancient Egyptian Art Art
Architecture MarianneEaton-Krauss MalcolmAndrews
RogerStalley
Medieval Architecture APratrtihnaIMnidtitaer SPhoretarraeirtWureest
NicolaColdstream
IslamicArt Artandthe New
RenaissanceArchitecture
ChristyAnderson IreneBierman Technology
Baroqueand Rococo JapaneseArt Artand Film
Architecture 1600-1750 Karen Brock Artand Science
HilaryBallon Women in Art
Oxford History ofArt
Nineteenth-Century
American Art
Barbara Groseclose
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UNIVERSITY PRESS
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Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Chapter 1 The Profession oftheArtist 7
Chapter2 Portraiture
35
Chapter3 The Early Nineteenth Century: Democratic Models 6i
Chapter4 The Late Nineteenth Century: DemocracyatWork 85
Chapter 5 Landscape 117
Chapter6 The American West
145
Chapter 7 Memoryand Myth: CommemorativeArt 173
Notes
119955
Timeline 204
Further Reading 2\0o7y
ArtCollectionsand Websites 221177
PictureCredits 222211
Index 227
Acknowledgements
I am grateful towhat seem to me the multitudes offriends and colleagues
whohavehelpedmeinthepreparationofthisvolume,especiallythosewho
read portions ofthe manuscript or advised me on its content: Steve Conn,
Lisa Florman, Barbara Haeger, Ruth Melville, Steve Melville, Arline
Meyer, Melissa Wolfe, Eva Heisler, Melissa Dabakis, Sarah Burns, Erika
Doss, Vivien Fryd, Ann Abrams, Rebecca Zurier, Katherine Manthorne,
William Gerdts, Sally Webster, Patricia Hills, Joy Kasson, graduate stu-
dents in the seminar on war and memory that Steve Conn and I taught,
and, above all, Simon Mason. I am indebted, as always, to Catherine
Wolner.
Barbara Grosedose
Introduction
MarkTwain (1835-1910), rantingas usualatatriflewhile takingaim at
a much larger target, corrected a French writer who dared to assert
knowledgeof'theAmericansoul':
Thereisn'tasinglehumancharacteristicthatcanbesafelylabeled'American.
Thereisn'tasinglehumanambition, orreligioustrend,ordriftofthought, or
peculiarityofeducation,orcodeofprinciples,orbreedoffolly,orstyleofcon-
versation, orpreference foraparticular subjectfordiscussion, orformoflegs
ortrunkorheadorfaceorexpressionorcomplexion,orgait,ordress,orman-
ners, ordisposition, oranyotherhumandetail, inside oroutside, thatcanra-
tionallybegeneralizedasAmerican'. l
I imagine Twain would have included art in his list ifhe'd thought
aboutit. Now, I am notbeginningthis bookbyannouncingthatthere
isnoAmericanpaintingandsculpture,butItakehispoint: 'Whenever
you have foundwhat seems to be an "American" peculiarity, you have
onlyto cross afrontierortwo, orgo downorup inthe socialscale, and
you perceive that it has disappeared. And you can cross the Atlantic
andfinditagain.'
Twain notwithstanding, a single concern preoccupied artists and
audiences for thevisual arts in the United States from the close ofthe
War ofIndependence in 1783 rightup untilTwainwrote his harangue
in 1895: is the work American? Avid viewers inspected paintings and
sculptures, seeking American' qualities. Critics, historians, andjour-
nalists proclaimed the necessity of fostering an American style and
subject matter. Yet there was little unanimity ofthought. As Twain
knew,whatis American' cannotbe pinned down to alistorlimited to
geography.
Nineteenth-CenturyAmericanArtoffers an account ofpainting and
sculpture in terms that consider their aesthetics amid political, social
and economic contexts. From this angle, whatever might be under-
stoodbythetermAmerican art'constantlyshifts andre-forms,—atem-
poral fluiditywhich, when added to regionalvariations, defies or at
—
leastinflects anyover-archingdefinitionofAmerican'.IwishIcould
have been more true toTwain's insights aboutregionalism myself, but
in this bookI have addressed the local onlyglancingly, though always
awareofitspowertopulverizethe monolith'American'.
Conversely,Twain's claim thatone may cross theAtlantic and find
[anAmerican quality] again', resonates throughout. IfI recognize the
embeddedness of things American within their predominant
European heritage, I also reconfigure the prevailing dichotomous
reading ofthe European-American cultural interchange with one in
whichthatinterchange is understoodtobe adialogue, continuous and
salutary,ratherthananintermittentlyvaluablebutinherentlycrippling
obstacle to theformationofanationalart.Thereadershouldnotinfer
from this statement an absence of other cultures in the shaping of
American art. Asian,Mexican, African, andNativeAmerican arts in-
fluencewhathas been takentobe mainstreamAmerican artindiverse
ways, thoughnoneheldsopervasiveagriponits developmentnorwas
so thoroughly conceded as European art. As African-American and
NativeAmericanartsintheUnitedStateshavealreadybeenpublished
asvolumesinthisseries,theyarenot(withafewexceptions) addressed
herein. The relevance of the art discussed in this book vis-a-vis
African- andNativeAmericans as subjects, ontheotherhand, is inte-
graltowhatithasmeantforsomethingtobeAmerican'art.
Mynarrative also spotlights the cultural and socialworkAmerican
art did in the United States duringthe nineteenth century. It is abur-
den on artto matter, and all the greaterwhen one realizes thisworkis
not all the same nor the same all the time. Like-with-like offers the
best model for such an investigation, so the chapters are, generally,
governedbysubjectcategoryanddevelopedchronologically. Take, for
example, the dominance ofportraiture after the United States gained
independence: how did that art evolve stylistically, in content, and
function, alongside the newcountry's own social and economic devel-
opment?Whatthings remainedthe same?Whatspecialrequirements
did an American situation impose? (These points are addressed in
Chapter 2.) Other chapters pose similar questions. How were artists
trained andwhat individuals, commercial developments, and institu-
tions were significant, and significant in whatway, and how did they
change? (See Chapter 1.) How was genre painting, with its scenes of
ordinarypeopleineverydaylife,informedbyconstantlymodifyingno-
tionsofpoliticalandsocialdemocracy,orviceversa(Chapters3 and4)?
Why, how, under what conditions, and at what moments does land-
scape serve as the epitome ofAmerican art history and/or American
art(Chapters5and6)?Howandwhydoesartinscribethemythsofna-
tionhood on memory in history painting and commemorative sculp-
ture, and when do these things become impo—rtant? (See Chapter 7.)
This history, inotherwords, is notthehistory itcontainshistories.
I amengagedthroughoutbycriticalandphilosophicalunderstand-
ings ofart that practise alertness to the ways in which social history
2 INTRODUCTION
— —
mightbeimplicated ornot inthe making, meaning, andreception
ofartandarthistory.Whatmaynotbe asreadilyapparentistheselec-
tion criteria for objects that raise the issues I address. Whatever one's
theoretical or methodological orientation, it is evident that art his-
tory's current centre, the so-called new art histories, encompasses
works of art from a repertoire larger (in regard to authorship) and
looser (in regard to aesthetic strictures) than was previously the case.
Although in s—ome other fields it dominates the discussion, questions
of canonicity which usually means no—t only what the canon is or
shouldbe, butalsowhyandhowitexists hoverontheperipheries of
American arthistory, an inspiration insteadofa criticalpractice. This
situationreinforces,butdoesnotdirect, thechoiceofpaintings, sculp-
tures, andpopulargraphic arts addressedinthisbook.2
I have included here discussion of both familiar and less well-
knownworks ofart. AtriskofflatteningthefieldwhenwhatIwantto
do is offer a differentviewpoint, I have been selective in the range of
artistsandworksofartbroughtintothetext,whichitselfisconstrained
bytheseries'norm.ThorniestofallhasbeenthequestionofAmerican
artists abroad. Expatriates whose works were intended exclusivelyfor
American markets, like Richard Caton Woodville (1825-55), or wno
spent considerable time in the States, like John Singer Sargent
(1856-1925), are included. But painters like Mary Cassatt (1844-1926)
andJames McNeill Whistler (1834-1903), whose art was formed and
produced entirelywithin aframeworkabroad andonlypartiallyorbe-
latedlyseeninAmerica,belongtoadifferentstory.
Somebackgroundonthe newarthistories' maybe helpfultoread-
ers. Feministarthistorychieflyaccounts fortherecentturn awayfrom
the individual genius/masterwork case study and, following a much
oldertraditionofsocialhistory, concomitantperspectives thatempha-
size societal (institutional) circumstances in the production ofart. In
1971, Linda Nochlin asked, 'Why have there been no great women
artists?' SheexposedthedisadvantagesunderwhichEuropeanwomen
artists laboured in the academywhen obliged bydecorum and bias to
forego study ofthe nude model. Her examination ofan institutional
'detail'was notintended, shewrote, toproduce adefinitive answerto a
question ofstaggeringproportions, noreven to suggest a rationale for
women's'failure'butrather'toprovideaparadigmfortheinvestigation
ofotherareasinthefield'.3
Given the sea change in art history since Nochlin wrote these
words, one is forced to ask, the 'field' ofwhat? Genderstudies, among
other things, track the discursive formation ofgender for its institu-
tional and ideological consequences in art. Anthropology shades into
—
arthistoryinstudies oftheconstructionofalterity, inwhich particu-
—
larly in American art the racial 'other' is imagined, imaged, con-
fronted, or accommodated. Art-historical practices exert pressure on
INTRODUCTION 3
whatisperceivedbysometobethediscipline'sbasisbyquestioningnot
onlythe canon's formationbuttheverypossibilityofacanon; andcul-
tural studies challenge the binaryformulation high-low, interrogating
thewholeofculturalproductionas'signifyingpractice'.
Emerging at the same time that the critic Raymond Williams
gained adherents in the United States, and sharing some ofhis and
otherMarxists' concernswith cultural constructions and hegemonies,
feminist writers destabilized art history and helped give birth to its
current state ofpolytheorization. (Indeed, I should make it clear that
there is not one 'feminism' but many feminisms, and these in turn
sometimes share interests ofother cultural projects.) The ideological
andinstitutionalshapeofarthistory,deconstructed,revealedwhatfor-
merlyconstituted thegivensofart and its history, such as the practice
ofcollectingand display, orthe interaction ofthe artistwith the social
controls aswellas the economics ofthe marketplace. Suchtopics have
movedinto the art-historicalspotlight, informingand contestingpre-
conditionednotionsofthe artobjectandits makers.
One feature of'newarthistories' thatI particularlywelcome has to
do with awillingness to avoid closure, which, though sometimes un-
settling to the reader, emphasizes tensions and contradictions within
both representation andinterpretation. Complaints that easy-to-read
texts convey the sense that the material under discussion is tidy or
transparentareasresponsivetotheproblemsof'new'arthistoryinthis
regard as rejections ofdense writing. Tidiness, I think, has to do not
onlywithmeaningbutwith'voice'aswell, andbringsup another'new'
goal: to reduce the impression surveys frequently deliver ofa single,
omniscient, authoritative Text. For me, this cuts two ways: self-con-
sciousness about myown construction ofhistory, in this Introduction
and throughout the text; and attention to the constructedness ofthe
histories onwhichI draw, andtowhichI ambeholden.
4 INTRODUCTION
