The Metropolitan Museum of Art GUIDE TO THE COLLECTIONS American Paintings © 1962 The Metropolitan Museum of Art Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 61-18851 The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide to the Collections AMERICAN PAINTINGS S•inc: e its foundation in 1870 the Metropolitan Mu­ 1. Overdoor panel from an seum has been a consistent patron of American art. 18th-century house, Today its collections of American painting and Somerset County, N.J. sculpture are among the most complete and signifi­ cant in existence—and they are constantly being en­ larged and improved. Most, by far, of the artists important to the history of American art are repre­ sented, in a large number of instances by outstand­ ing examples of their work. It is not now possible to hang more than a small fraction of the 3000-odd oil paintings, water colors, and drawings, except in occasional special exhibi­ tions. In these pages, however, we can briefly outline the range and richness of this material, and suggest its importance to our understanding of American art and the American experience. Before too long the Museum hopes to find the means to provide ample gallery space to show this wealth of native talent in an adequate manner. Guide to the Collections lish artists provided exemplary models. Thus the Museum's portrait of Mrs. Jerathmael Bowers by John Singleton Copley is, except for the face, and quite possibly by request of the sitter, directly copied—costume, lap dog, hairdo, and the rest— from a print after Sir Joshua Reynolds's portrait of Lady Catherine Russell. (As a matter of interesting fact, Reynolds's painting was in turn a free copy of a much earlier engraved portrait of Catherine of Bra- ganza.) Self-taught though he was, Copley was one of the first colonial painters to make a living by his brush alone, thanks to a surpassing native talent. In his American days, before he ventured into European circles, he painted much better pictures than any he had ever seen. His portrait of Mrs. Sylvanus Bourne (2), one of ten Copleys owned by the Museum, re­ veals the strong characterization, the luminous 4. The American School, by translation of textures and surfaces into paint, the Pratt (1734-1805) effect of immediate presence that won him such American Paintings prestige that he complained he hardly had time to eat his victuals as he journeyed from Boston to New York and Philadelphia fulfilling commissions. Of these brilliantly realistic likenesses John Adams said, "You can scarcely help discoursing with them, asking questions and receiving answers." As so many other American artists were to do, Copley gravitated to the London studio of Benjamin West, a self-taught Pennsylvanian who had earlier quit his native land to find greater opportunities abroad, and who found them. In 1792 he succeeded Reynolds as president of the British Royal Academy. He was in some respects the most advanced painter of his day, possibly the most widely known Ameri­ 5. George Washington, by can artist in history, at least until Whistler. West's Stuart (1755-1828) enormous allegorical and historical canvases, such as our Triumph of Love, or Love in the Three Ele­ ments, had little direct effect on the development of American art. As a teacher, however, he had a strong guiding influence on three generations of American painters who came to study with him. One of them, Matthew Pratt, a fellow Philadelphian, painted The American School (4), the most famous of American conversation pieces, representing a group of young American painters working under the direct super­ vision of West (standing) in his studio. Post-Revolutionary One of the most celebrated of West's pupils was Portraiture Gilbert Stuart, who returned to America after the Revolution, the master of a highly distinctive style of portraiture. Omitting all accessory paraphernalia such as inform and enliven Copley's paintings, Stu­ art reduced detail to a minimum, often skimping even bodies and backgrounds, and presented only the most characteristic aspects of his subjects' faces; clothes, he explained, he left to the tailor. Of his in­ numerable portraits of Washington the Museum owns, among others, a fine, early example ( 5 ), done from life, that represents Stuart's classical Ameri­ can style in its pure form. His self-portrait (6), un­ finished but brilliantly stated, is another of his 20-odd paintings in our collections. Other pupils of West returned to America to add 6. Portrait of the Artist, by their different talents to the development of a rising Stuart 6 Guide to the Collections school of native art. Two of them, Charles Willson Peale, the ex-saddler of Maryland, and John Trum­ bull, the Harvard graduate from Connecticut, are each represented by several portraits that demon­ strate their skill and their style. Margaret Strachan Harwood (7) by Peale and George Washington Be­ fore the Battle of Trenton by Trumbull are fair ex­ amples, although both men are well remembered for larger and more ambitious compositions. A full- length likeness of Colonel Marinus Willett by Ralph Earl, still another West pupil, is an imposing ex­ ample of this severe Connecticut Yankee's portrai­ ture. Two other highly gifted portraitists, Samuel F. B. 7. Margaret Strachan Har- Morse and Thomas Sully, may best represent the wood,byPeale (1741-1827) output of the next generation, the work of artists too young to remember the Revolution and who, for the most part, had the advantage of solid professional training. Sully was most prolific; he had undertaken some 2500 commissioned portraits before his death at 89 in 1872. Morse, who died the same year, thought of his portraits as hack work and he some­ what bitterly reminded himself that he would prob­ ably be remembered as inventor of the telegraph rather than as an artist. Sully's winsome Queen Vic­ toria (8), a study for a commissioned work that he painted from life, and Morse's The Muse (9), a sen­ sitive portrait in a pensive mood of his daughter Susan Walker Morse, indicate the high level of com­ 8. Queen Victoria, by Sully petence to which this generation of painters aspired. (1783-1872) Chester Harding's portrait of Stephen Van Rensse­ laer, Henry Inman's of Martin Van Buren, Samuel Lovett Waldo's of his wife, and John Neagle's like­ ness of the Philadelphia architect John Haviland are representative works by Morse's and Sully's contem­ poraries. The first American artist to head for Paris instead of to London and to Benjamin West to prepare him­ self was John Vanderlyn, from Kingston, New York. Napoleon's enthusiasm was excited by one of Van- derlyn's classical subjects that hung in the Salon of 1808 and he awarded it a gold medal. His vast Pano­ rama: Palace and Gardens of Versailles (10)—it is 165 feet long, designed to be shown in a continuous American Paintings 9. The Muse—Susan Walker Morse, by Morse (1791-1872) circle—is a fascinating picture which has delighted visitors to the Museum whenever it has been on exhibition. Still Life with Cake (11) by Raphaelle Peale, son of Charles Willson Peale, exemplifies the work of one of the finest still-life painters America has ever produced. Like his uncle, James Peale, whose work is also represented in our collections, Raphaelle de­ 10. Panorama: Palace and veloped a precise drawing and highly illusionistic Gardens of Versailles, by coloring that reminds us of Dutch and Flemish Vanderlyn (17757-1852). paintings of a century or two earlier. Detail i* VTCi 8 Guide to the Collections 12. The Deluge, attributed to Allston (i779-l843) Washington Allston, Morse's teacher, was one of the first Americans to paint the fantasy world of the imagination. Even in his figure paintings, such as A Spanish Girl, a mood of magic replaces the clarity and repose of neoclassical art. The romantic strain in American painting, which he did so much to foster, is vividly expressed in our The Deluge (12), attributed to him. Here, in a scene of dramatic in­ tensity, a monstrous storm lashes the sea, piling drowned bodies on a desolate shore where writhing serpents and a howling wolf confront the over­ whelming waters. .. - .••••••.', -'•, '....v • ' 11. Still Life with Cake, by ••" R. Peale (1774-1825) 7 wS A8 •"/•^•'. ''•'• '* * - WF . s ^^^_^^H m <r3| Wfl — — SB% Wmfagi^gg"Mi JkiCjffif t*fiZ'A ^H The Hudson River School While Allston was working in Boston, Thomas Cole, an English-born artist of meager training as a painter but with a great gift, was developing into an outstanding landscapist. His panoramic vistas, such as In the Catskills and The Oxbow (13), are expert and immensely appealing renderings of the natural American scene and they won immediate popular applause. Romantic and realistic at the same time, these and similar canvases celebrated the newly perceived beauty and the grandeur of America, as 13. The Oxbow (The Connecticut River near Northampton), by Cole (1801-1848) American Paintings 9 10 Guide to the Collections Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper, and William Cullen Bryant were celebrating it in their writings. Cole's work had a strong influence on an impor­ tant group of landscape painters known as the Hudson River school. Asher B. Durand, Thomas Doughty, John F. Kensett, and John W. Casilear are a few of the men represented in our collections who contributed to the reputation of this unorganized fraternity. To select but one from a considerable number of canvases by these very able painters, Kensett's Lake George (14) reveals that reverent re­ spect for the beauty of the landscape, stated lumi­ nously, clearly, and with detailed definition, that broadly characterized the school as a whole.