Picturing America Review
National Endowment for the
Humanities
2010 - 2011
• From cylindrical clay jars gracing a 1000
A.D. home to baskets serving a mobile
society,
• everyday objects yield glimpses into
America’s past.
• They chart a proud history of
craftsmanship and traditions handed down
from generation to generation.
• The Anasazi, Sikyátki, Pueblo, and
Washoe tribes of the American Southwest;
South Carolina basket weavers of West
African heritage; and coastal Alaskan
artisans—all have helped shape America’s
rich heritage of handicrafts.
• This Catholic mission in San Antonio now
stripped to bare stone was originally
plastered white and adorned with red,
blue, yellow, and black painted designs. It
was built to serve as a barrier against
French expansion into Texas. Made using
local materials and artisans, the stonefaced adobe structure features a floor plan
that reflected Catholic traditions.
• Various artists (18th century): Spanish
Colonial Architecture of the 17th, 18th, and
19th century stretched across America's
Spanish southwest. It was an amalgam of
Moorish, Romanesque, Gothic, and
Renaissance influences, modified to meet
frontier needs.
• This portrait, an idealized view of labor
consistent with the democratic ideals of
the New World, depicts Paul Revere as a
working craftsman.
• At the time of this portrait Revere was a
successful silversmith—not an American
hero.
• Still, Copley captured the heroic qualities
of physical strength, moral certainty, and
intelligence that allowed Revere to play a
pivotal role in American history.
• John Singleton Copley (1738–1815): Born
in Boston and largely self-taught, Copley
had an extraordinary talent for recording
the physical characteristics of his subjects.
• This skill made him the foremost colonial
artist in America.
• Now, more than 200 years later, Copley’s
portraits endure as significant works of art
because of their reach beyond
documentation to depict his subjects’
personality, profession, and social
position.
• Shiny silver teapots—of different sizes and
shapes—reflect the economic climate and
political upheaval taking place in the
United States during the time of their
production.
• Once reserved for the 17th-century well todo, silver wares became available to a
larger audience with the opening of silver
mines in the West and technological
advancements such as electroplating and
industrialization.
• Various silversmiths (18th, 19th, and 20th
centuries): From pre-revolutionary
craftsmen to the big-name machine
manufacturers of the 20th century, the
silver trade remained a thriving business in
the United States across three centuries.
• Grant Wood's bird's-eye-view of Revere's
legendary ride offers a whimsical, childlike interpretation of Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow's well-known poem. The artist's
desire to preserve American folklore was
part of his greater scheme to forge a
national identity through art and history.
• Grant Wood (1892-1942): A trained artist
best known for his paintings depicting the
American Midwest, Wood emulated the
primitive, unschooled style of American
folk artists. His work reflects his
commitment to a truly American style—
one that would link the present to the past
and preserve the stories of the country's
heritage.
• This full-length portrait deftly captures
Washington’s role as an orator, leader, and
father of his country. Washington’s choice
of attire—a plain black suit and no wig—
conveys his belief that the United States
president was not a king, but a citizen of a
land where all men were created equal.
• Gilbert Stuart (1755–1828): Stuart learned
art abroad in the European tradition, but
his style was all his own. Known for his
ability to set subjects at ease, he believed
inner character was reflected in a person’s
physical features. Stuart’s portraits of
George Washington, whom he described
as a man of great passions, are among his
most famous works.
• With defeats mounting and morale sinking,
George Washington led his army across
the icy river on Christmas night, 1776.
Emanuel Leutze’s life-sized canvas vividly
shows the courage and sacrifice
demonstrated by America’s founders
during a time when victory and
independence were an uncertain
conclusion.
• Emanuel Leutze (1816-1868): Although
this German-born painter immigrated to
the United States decades after the
Revolutionary War, the democratic ideals
of that time inspired his art.
• His carefully researched interpretations of
historical events won him lucrative private
and government commissions, including
work displayed in the U.S. Capitol today.
• Although it displays clear classical
influences in pose and posture, this largerthan-life-sized marble statue of Benjamin
Franklin has a naturalistic style.
• Hiram Powers’s contemporaries objected
to portraying historical figures in
contemporary dress, but the sculptor
chose to depict the founding father
accurately, in a realistic mid-18th century
wardrobe—from his tricorne hat to his
cotton hose.
• Hiram Powers (1805-1873): A highly
successful, largely self-taught
Neoclassical sculptor, Powers emigrated
to Italy to further boost his career in the
United States.
• His government commissions, influenced
by the classical Roman sculptures of
Europe, can be found standing in the U.S.
Senate and House collections today.
• Landscape paintings were especially wellliked in the 19th century, when urban
dwellers viewed rural life as a remedy for
the problems of industrialization.
• Thomas Cole’s split representation of the
Connecticut Valley depicts the inherent
conflict between wilderness and civilization
that characterized westward expansion.
• Thomas Cole (1801–1848): As a teenager,
Cole immigrated to America from England,
and went on to found the National
Academy of Design in New York City.
• A master of pastoral landscapes, Cole set
out to capture the beauty and majesty of
rural America in his paintings.
• N. C. Wyeth’s romanticized cover illustration for
James Fenimore Cooper’s novel The Last of the
Mohicans did much to create an enduring image
of the American Indian as a “noble savage.”
• Though his depiction of Uncas as a formidable
warrior—complete with bare chest, animal skin
skirt, and bow and arrow—departed from the
author’s character description, it remained true
to the country’s fascination with its Native
American heritage.
• N. C. Wyeth (1882-1945): Wyeth was both
a realist painter and a highly successful
illustrator.
• Two trips to the Adirondacks—where he
tramped through the woods and cooked
over an open fire to get a feel for the
wilderness—inspired his cover illustration
for the popular book The Last of the
Mohicans.
• The graceful, bending position of John
James Audubon’s flamingo allowed the
artist to fit his subject—depicted close to
actual size—on a single page.
• The silhouette emphasized the elegant
curve of the bird’s body and captured its
distinctive markings and trademark shade
of pink. Audubon’s watercolors serve as
an invaluable record of early American
wildlife.
• John James Audubon (1785–1851): Born
in the West Indies, Audubon moved to
America at 18 and became the country’s
dominant wildlife artist.
• A naturalist painter, he showed his
subjects—including the monumental Birds
of America—in vivid watercolors, much as
they would appear alive in their natural
habitat.
• Catlin painted this portrait from memory,
years after becoming friends with the
second chief of the Mandan people.
• It appears as the title-page illustration of
his book about living among the tribes of
the Missouri River. Catlin’s manuscript—
and some 500 paintings—provide
testimony not only to the country’s
fascination with American Indians but also
to the artist’s ambition to document
disappearing frontier cultures.
• George Catlin (1796–1872): The selftrained Catlin was a successful portrait
painter in Philadelphia.
• Intrigued by the North American Indian, he
set out on a 2,000-mile journey along the
Missouri River (in what is now North
Dakota) to create the most thorough visual
record of the indigenous cultures of the
frontier.
• As Americans became more politically
active in the mid-1800s, legislators wanted
to express their identity in their
statehouses.
• Like many new state capitol buildings,
Ohio’s Greek Revival statehouse recalled
the birthplace of democracy.
Construction—which took some 20 years
to complete—was also rife with politics
among competing architects and
designers.
• Thomas Cole (1801–1848) and others: A
landscape painter with no building
experience, Cole took third-place in the
competition for Ohio’s new state capitol,
yet a modified version of his design was
chosen one year later.
• Cole’s plan called for a compact,
rectangular structure with pilasters and a
columned porch. Over the years, several
architects would also put their imprint on
the building.
• In this crowded composition, Bingham
suggests the inclusiveness of democracy.
Young or old, rich or poor, all of the men
gathered at the foot of the courthouse on
Election Day appeared as equals.
• The lack of a single dramatic focus
emphasized the ideal that no one vote was
worth more than another.
• George Caleb Bingham (1811–1879):
Known as the “Missouri artist” for the state
where he lived and worked, Bingham
painted everyday scenes in striking detail.
• His realistic style would offer an accurate
account of frontier life for generations to
come.
• This large, panoramic landscape of the
Yosemite Valley pulls the viewer into the
dramatic scene. Missing in the painting are
any people—only a shroud of golden light
breaks through the clouds.
• In Bierstadt’s scenario, the viewer
discovers that before so magnificent a
landscape, human beings dwindle to
insignificance.
• Albert Bierstadt (1830–1902): Born and
educated in Germany, Bierstadt was a
landscape artist captivated by the majesty
of the American West.
• His romantic paintings—especially popular
with East Coast audiences—helped satisfy
Americans’ curiosity about the great
frontier.
• Black Hawk’s ledger book provides
invaluable visual testimony to the nation’s
Native American heritage.
• His drawings revealed intriguing details of
the Lakota people—from manner of dress
to social customs. In doing so, he captured
a way of life fast disappearing as settlers
moved West in increasing numbers and
tribes were moved to reservations.
• Black Hawk (c. 1832–1890): A spiritual
leader of a tribe of Lakota Indians, Black
Hawk was asked in 1880 to record the
natural world and culture of his people.
• His drawings—for which he received 50
cents apiece—followed a long tradition of
Plains Indian art that documented history
as a memory aid for oral renditions of tribal
history. Scholars believe Black Hawk died
at Wounded Knee.
• This image of a soldier returning to his
farm after the Civil War refers to both the
desolation of war and the country’s hope
for the future.
• While the farmer’s scythe called to mind
the bloodiest battles fought—and lives
lost—in fields of grain, the bountiful crop of
golden wheat could also be seen as a
Christian symbol of salvation.
• Even in the aftermath of the worst
disasters, Winslow Homer seems to say,
life has the capacity to restore itself.
• Winslow Homer (1836–1910): Boston-born
Homer was a successful illustrator, oil painter,
and watercolor artist whose works have become
classic images of 19th-century American life.
• In his Civil War illustrations for Harper’s Weekly,
Homer focused on the commonplace activities of
a soldier—rather than the climax of combat.
• When he returned to civilian life, Homer
continued to depict ordinary events, some of
which documented the veteran’s return from the
front.
• Looking older than his 55 years, Lincoln seemed
more like a regular person than a president in
his dark suit, white shirt, and crooked bowtie.
• Alexander Gardner, known for his candid
photographs, did nothing to flatter the
president’s haggard features.
• Instead, he let Lincoln’s expression reveal his
weary and worried countenance during the last
long weeks of the Civil War.
• Alexander Gardner (1821–1882): One of a team
of photographers hired to make a visual record
of the Civil War, Gardner opened his own
Washington, D.C., studio in 1863.
• He became known for his portraits of uniformed
soldiers heading off to war—and his candid
photos of President Abraham Lincoln—at a time
when photography was still a new medium.
• The Shaw Memorial, in Boston Common,
depicts a resonant, courageous act of the
Civil War, in which the first regiment of
African American soldiers recruited for the
Union Army fought a doomed battle on a
South Carolina fortress.
• Although Colonel Robert Shaw, on
horseback, is prominent, the bronze relief
is the first American memorial dedicated to
individuals united for a cause, rather than
to a single military hero.
• Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848-1907):
Born in Dublin and trained in Europe,
Saint-Gaudens created many noted Civil
War monuments, as well as American
coins and intimate portraits of notable and
society figures.
• The sculptor made the complex Shaw
Memorial into a 14-year labor of love,
striving to realistically depict each soldier
as an individual and making up to 40
different portrait studies in preparation.
• A thrifty way to make use of leftover fabric,
at a time when fabric could be scarce and
expensive, quilts soon took on aesthetic
and social dimensions in the hands of their
makers in every region of America.
• Ingenuity, abstract invention, and the
traces of changing American technology
are revealed in the quilts handed down
through families and displayed in
museums today.
• Various artists: The work of AfricanAmericans in slavery, of farmwomen
settling the West, of Amish women
descended from those who came to
America seeking religious freedom—quilts
can tell many American stories.
• Scholars, for instance, see traces of kente,
a woven textile style from Ghana and the
Ivory Coast, in the complex matrix of
diagonal ladders in the quilt made by
Hannah and Emm Greenlee.
• On Philadelphia’s Schuylkill River, rowing
was a democratic and passionately
followed sport.
• John Biglin was a superstar athlete of the
time, and the depiction of the rower in
excellent racing form, at the precise
moment before dipping the oars, reveals
his dedication and strength in competition.
• Thomas Eakins (1844-1916): Born in
Philadelphia, Eakins returned from art training in
Paris with a conviction unique in his time: to
realistically depict scenes from American life.
• His decision never varied, though it was
occasionally as controversial as it was admired.
Acute observation and a tireless study of
anatomy, nature, and even burgeoning
technology informed his work, and he found
ample subject matter in the rapidly progressing
America of the late 19th century.
• John Singer Sargent painted this well-known
image of the young Homer Saint-Gaudens as an
intimate portrait for his friend, the sculptor
Augustus Saint-Gaudens, who was the boy’s
father.
• In this and all his portraits of wealthy American
youth, Sargent abandoned the sentimental
approach of his contemporaries and painted
them more naturalistically, with a keen,
psychologically penetrating eye.
• In this image, he captures the impatience of the
beautifully dressed young Homer with the boy’s
expression and slumping pose.
• John Singer Sargent (1856-1925): Sargent
was among a noted group of American
expatriate artists, writers, and composers
who around the turn of the century felt
they could find strong training and a
sympathetic audience only in Europe.
• However, they brought the freshness and
spirit of American exploration with them.
• As a “society painter,” Sargent chronicled
the vast infusion of wealth that also swept
in with the Americans in Europe during the
Gilded Age.
• When America officially entered World War I, the
nation largely regarded it as cause for support
and celebration.
• Along New York’s Fifth Avenue, flags of the
allied nations were hung in a welcoming gesture,
creating a patriotic pattern of red, white, and
blue.
• Childe Hassam prominently placed the American
flag, affirming his belief that America was now
engaged in a morally imperative “fight for
democracy,” as he put it, throughout the world.
• Childe Hassam (1859-1935): Hassam was a
major figure in the American Impressionism
movement.
• As he studied in Paris, he gravitated away from
the rule-bound darkness of traditional art studios
and toward painters working outdoors,
portraying a world of color and light in new ways.
• Returning to America, he seized on the
energetic bustle of New York City as one of his
recurrent subjects, capturing scenes of
movement and change in loose brushwork and
firm composition.
• The Brooklyn Bridge was hailed as a
marvel of American engineering ingenuity.
• When it was built in 1883, its two towers
were the tallest structures in the Western
Hemisphere.
• Photographer Walker Evans turned its
bold form and sweeping lines into a classic
American image, both an icon of
modernity and a monument that belongs
to history.
• Walker Evans (1903-1975): As one of the first to
bring photography forward from simple
documentary to a fine art, Evans was the eye
behind some of the most enduring images of
America’s 20th century.
• As part of a government project during the Great
Depression, he photographed farm families,
revealing both hardships and indomitable spirits.
• Later, he rode the New York subways with a
camera hidden in his coat to produce candid
images of the changing urban scene.
• Originally created for the Gothic revival
mansion of Boston real estate magnate
Loren Delbert Towle, Tiffany’s composition
was divided into lancet windows,
reminiscent of a medieval cathedral.
• The traditional subject matter, a mountain
stream flowing into a placid pool, is
infused with strong spiritual overtones.
• The window was designed to alter in
reaction to the changing intensity of
natural light.
• Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933): The son of
the founder of the New York jewelry store that
bears his name, Tiffany turned his training as a
painter to the medium of colored glass.
• He filled American mansions and buildings with
luminous windows, screens, and decorative
items.
• As an American in the aesthetic movement, he
was one of several who worked to introduce art
into everyday life.
• Tiffany said his primary consideration was
always simply “the pursuit of beauty.”
• At first glance, viewers see a familiar,
reverently painted family scene.
• Yet the details hint at an underlying
tension, as well as the strictures of late
19th-century society.
• Mary Cassatt (1844-1926): From
Japanese prints to French impressionism,
Mary Cassatt’s work borrows from an
international range of influences.
• Yet her defiance of convention—studying
art rather than taking the domestic role
expected of a 19th-century woman—
reflects a distinctively American spirit of
independence.
• To Joseph Stella, this structure was the
“shrine containing all the efforts of the new
civilization of America.”
• His Futurist rendition of the Brooklyn
Bridge was inspired by a night alone on its
promenade, surrounded by New York’s
noises and pulsating colors, feeling both
hemmed in and spiritually uplifted by the
city.
• Joseph Stella (1877-1946): An Italian
immigrant who relocated to New York City,
Stella believed that the revolutionary new
art movement of Futurism could best
capture the dynamism of modern life and
the machine age.
• This bucolic title belies the painting’s
subject matter: a lone, anonymous figure
dwarfed in an enormous sea of factories.
• According to Charles Sheeler, factories
had become a “substitute for religious
expression.”
• At the time of its creation, the painting was
viewed as depicting the triumph of
American ingenuity.
• Charles Sheeler (1883-1965): Ford Motor
Company commissioned Sheeler, a
professional photographer, to take six
weeks of pictures of its immense plant
west of Detroit.
• The experience inspired Sheeler’s
Precisionist paintings, which used sharply
defined, geometric forms and an
emotionally detached style to depict the
modern, industrialized world.
• The competitive climate of 1920’s
Manhattan drove the creation of this
building, which ultimately surpassed even
the Eiffel Tower in height.
• Van Alen made it distinctive through
inventively applied Art Deco design, using
machine-age motifs such as hubcaps and
radiator caps, and American eagle heads
in place of traditional gargoyles.
• William Van Alen (1883-1954): Brooklyn-born
architect William Van Alen was renowned for his
progressive, flamboyant designs.
• His main contribution to American architecture
was to apply to modern skyscrapers the visual
vocabulary of Art Deco, a style that emphasized
streamlined motifs and often employed
nontraditional materials.
• After the Chrysler Building’s completion, Walter
Chrysler accused Van Alen of taking bribes from
contractors, and his career ended in obscurity,
not even meriting an obituary in The New York
Times.
• As the railroad tracks rattle by a oncegrand Victorian home, so intersect the
themes of modern progress and historical
continuity.
• The painting’s bleakness suggests that
Edward Hopper found little to celebrate in
America’s post-World War I urbanization.
• Edward Hopper (1882-1967): Believing
that American art should capture the
character of the nation, Hopper rejected
European influences and instead chose to
depict the modern life around him.
• He is known for his unsentimental
depictions of urban isolation, solitary
buildings, and commonplace landscapes.
• How can one enjoy a civilized life within
nature?
• Frank Lloyd Wright responded with
American ingenuity to create one of the
most original and groundbreaking
buildings in modern architecture.
• The dwelling is suspended above a
waterfall and nestled into a mountainside,
blending modern conveniences with views
that make it appear to be a part of nature
itself.
• Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959): One of
America’s most influential architects,
Wright was known for practicing organic
architecture, which promotes harmony
between a building and the natural world.
• Fallingwater, commissioned by Pittsburgh
department store magnate Edgar J.
Kaufmann, is one of his most well-known
works.
• Inspired by the musical storytelling of West
Africa’s griots, Lawrence employed a
painted and written narrative to invoke
how African-American families “came up”
from the South to settle in cities such as
New York, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland,
and Pittsburgh.
• Jacob Lawrence (1917-2000): “I always
wanted to be an artist but assumed I’d
have to work in a laundry,” Lawrence once
said.
• Fortunately the thriving 1920 Harlem arts
community and artists such as Charles
Alston and Augusta Savage helped
nurture him into one of America’s premier
African-American artists.
• Created during the heart of the Civil Rights
Movement, this collage depicts a bustling
city neighborhood with a serene bird at its
center.
• It also marked a new artistic direction for
Romare Bearden, who for the remainder
of his career continued to create collages
often referred to as “visual poetry.”
• Romare Bearden (c. 1911-1988): What is
black art?
• As part of the Spiral group of artists,
Bearden approached the question from an
optimistic, upward-moving attitude and
became one of the first artists to depict
black popular culture from an AfricanAmerican point of view.
• His work drew from his own life in North
Carolina, Harlem, Pittsburgh, and New
York City.
• Adorning the walls of Nashville’s Country
Music Hall of Fame and Museum, this
mural has five distinct scenes depicting
the music of ordinary Americans.
• It preserves an image of American
folkways that were rapidly disappearing,
from barn dances to church spirituals to
Appalachian ballads.
• Benton was 85 when he painted this
mural; it was his final work.
• Thomas Hart Benton (1889–1975): Born in
Missouri, Benton was primarily a muralist
who gained popularity in the 1930s with
fluid, sculpture-like paintings that
depicted—and spoke to—ordinary people.
• He rejected the European influence on
American art and aimed to paint
meaningful, intelligible subjects that would
hold broad, popular appeal.
• This iconic photograph of a 32-year-old
impoverished mother and her three
children does not show a single detail of
the destitute pea pickers’ camp where they
lived.
• Still, it evokes the uncertainty and despair
resulting from continual poverty.
• Featured in newspapers nationwide, this
photo and others from the camp shocked
America’s conscience and spurred the
federal government to ship 20,000 pounds
of food to California migrant workers.
• Dorothea Lange (1895–1965): A
photographer for President Franklin D.
Roosevelt’s Resettlement Administration,
Lange was hired to document the lives of
poverty-stricken migrant workers in
California during the Great Depression.
• She set out to “register the things about
those people that were more important
than how poor they were—their pride, their
strength, their spirit.”
• With America fully engaged in World War II,
President Roosevelt’s administration blanketed
the nation with messages about four essential
human freedoms at the core of democracy.
• The messages failed to gain traction until
Norman Rockwell put them into portraits.
• This painting, the first of the four, helped spur
the nation to action.
• More than one million people saw Rockwell’s
works during a nationwide tour, which helped to
sell more than $133 million in war bonds.
• Norman Rockwell (1894–1978): A wellknown illustrator for one of America’s most
popular magazines, The Saturday Evening
Post, Rockwell considered himself the heir
of the great illustrators who left their mark
during World War I.
• Like them, he wanted to contribute
something substantial to his country.
Rockwell gained renown for his eye for
detail and ability to capture something
universal in the commonplace.
• HAVE A GREAT SUMMER VACATION!!
• BE SAFE AND GOD BLESS YOU.
•
MRS. SMITH