Digiacomantonio. I wanted to end the series with something instructive, of course, but also, not light and frothy by any means, but something a little less serious. For those of you to respond to competitiveness, i have a couple door prizes i will give out at the end to people who can answer a couple questions that might occur during the talk, but mostly this is going to be visual. We are going to wade through two centuries of works of art, mostly paintings, some statuary of George Washington portrayed in art. I should say a little bit about myself. I said i am chief historian, i am not an art historian, but anyone who appreciates the of doing city history, understands you have to work with art understands that is how people express themselves when they are at their best and sometimes their worst, as well see. When i taught a course at Gw University on George Washington, i made sure there was one lecture on George Washington in the art and i refined it a little bit for todays purposes, but bear in mind this is primarily intended for a college crowd. I like i lay no claim to being an art historian, so if any of the professional artist historians in the room want to call the on anything, try to bite your tongue until afterwards and we will get to it. Styles across time. Things to be looking for as we go through the top. We will be looking at portraiture and contemporary print, basically ways washington was portrayed to his contemporaries while he was alive. Moving on, history painting and genre art, basically washington in images of historic scenes that actually took place or that artists wanted it to take place. And that is the iconography, a broader topic very exciting topic, that covers almost the entire time since washington was alive. Attitudes across time. In history painting we find botulism botulism bachelorism versus realism. You will see the romantic style developed where these stories are tapped primarily for the emotions they evoke. And that again, the genre style and iconography with issues of ancestor worship versus characters and parodies of the attitudes toward history. We start off at the very first portrait of George Washington. This is the one that he enters the stage of history on, literally wearing the uniform they believe. We know he was wearing a uniform, most likely this uniform when he appeared at the Second Continental Congress in 1775, showing things getting to a point where militarism may be an option. At this point in time, it is only 1772. 1772 marks a very quiet period during the imperial crisis between Great Britain and some of it, not all of its colonies, only 13 of the colonies in north america. So, you are wrong to say this is a picture of a George Washington militant. This is a picture of George Washington, virginia gentry who is very proud to be a member of the British Empire. It is a portrait that he had to do begrudgingly. Martha made him to it when a painter Charles Willson peale showed up at his doorstep in 1772. We know it is 1772 from records, we know the washington is proud to be a member of the British Empire, showing off in the background exactly what the empire is, unsurveyed wilderness spreading out to the west and his pocket is the marching orders for when he was in office for the frenchindian war. He is proud to be a member of the British Empire, serving with the british army in fighting off the french. That is what this represents. The revolutionary war started, Charles Willson peale is still the guy we rely on. Charles Willson Peale had several children, naming each of them after a famous artist. You have probably heard of rembrandt, rafael and they all wanted to paint washington. At one point in his career, washington had been sitting all day for various peale sittings. And he said, ive been wellpealed. [laughter] this was relatively early in washingtons military career dated 1779 but is based on a prototype that he did in 1776. This painting shows, in the left, you may recognize the symbolism in his victory at princeton. Peale was very smart. Thing. Ized he had a good he had a prototype and he decides he can just keep reproducing it for people. This one for the spanish in congress. So, he made about 17 of these overall. Peale also painted George Washington at the federal convention the summer of 1787 in philadelphia. I thought this was interesting because he was still wearing the generals uniform. He has not quite relinquished his claim to fame as a general yet, even while he is sitting as the president of a civilian organization. John trumbull painted this painting in 1794 for martha. A very small painting called washington at times point where it is outside of new york city. Probably had just come back from england at the time, so he wanted to make a mark for himself in the seat of government in new york city. Everyone thought this painting was one of the best. Certainly people in his own family, his adopted stepson thought it was the best portrait ever done of washington. He did a version of it for the corporation the city of new york, the first work of art that was bought by the city of new york. He painted another version of it for the city of charleston, not to be outdone by new york city. Charleston wanted their own version, but trumbull is not that savvy of a businessperson. So, in the background, he couldve painted anything he wanted. He painted the battle of trenton and when you are from charleston, this battle is not going to work. Charleston says, we do not want it. Thank you very much. Trumbull kept it and we will see what he did with it a little later on. The third of the trifecta of early portraits was the Gilbert Stuart. The National Gallery had a great exhibit on Gilbert Stuart several years ago. I hope you got to see it. He did three prototypes. Remember, i mentioned peale when he recognized he had a good thing he stuck with it. Gilbert stuart realized he had three good things, and most of the portraits he did of George Washington were just spinoffs of the three prototypes. The first one he did is called the bond portrait in 1795. It was done right after Gilbert Stuart comes right from england where he studied under benjamin west. He actually, like three or four of the early portraitists in the early republic were from new england. Flowers in the wilderness, is what they like to call the early painters in the early colonies. Trumbull had a hard time selling the career of a painter to his family. His father was the governor of colonial connecticut reminded athens. New haven is no it would be a hard sell for his son. Gilbert stuart had a little bit more to go from, from rhode island, little bit more success in the british aisles primarily in ireland. Before he comes back to the he paintstes in 1775 his first one of George Washington for a guy named bond. Most of the portraits Gilbert Stuart paints, the prototypes and the copies are named for the owners. This is the vaughn portrait. The next one is the famous portrait from 1796. 75 replicas of this were made during stuarts own lifetime. Maybe some of you know the story. I have done some Research Still cannot decide if it is apocryphal or not. He was commissioned to do this by the family. They are both at the National Portrait gallery. Gilbert stuart realized he had a good thing, did not want to give it up, so technically he only had to deliver it once it was done, so he made sure it was never done. He continued to use it as the prototype. The third is also here in washington called the lansdowne portrait. It was painted in 1796. You might recognize it. It is basically just the head plopped on the body. This enabled Gilbert Stuart to do any number of copies depending on what the commissioning patron wanted. If you wanted a certain book on the table, a background between the drapes and so on. It was a very lucrative deal for Gilbert Stuart. It was painted for the binghams. A fabulously wealthy family and philadelphia. Landownse was a nobleman in london, the revolutionary war. I will not tell you where there is another one of these in washington, d. C. I will not tell you where this. We can talk about that later if you want. These are all private portraits done by very wellpaying patrons. It would cost a lot of money to do a portrait. Regular people wanted to see what George Washington looked like as well and so you find images of George Washington and all kinds of articles for public consumption. Showss a scarf that George Washington, but you can tell as well as i ust a guy in aut tricorn hat. What is interesting about this is the saying around it. It does identified as George Washington, the founder and protector of american liberty and independence. If you were here for the talk couple weeks ago, that might resonate a little with you. That was something very close to the titles of the senate actually ended up doing for George Washington, but the house rejected it. In the popular mind, it was not such an outlandish title, the commanderinchief. This is the cover of an almanac from boston in 1778, chance for you to show off. What just happened in 1778 . The year before 1778. A major event in American History. The battle of saratoga, ok. So, if youre making an almanac in 1778, you want to honor the victor of saratoga, which was not George Washington. It was horatio gates. You see there is the glorious washington and gates identified. I do not know which one is which because neither of them look like either of the people they are purported to be and that is precisely the point. You just threw up a wood cut, a cheap woodcut and see what happened. As a matter of fact, these images were interchangeable with almost any other person in colonial america. That was the point. So people that wanted to consume images of washington in the public sphere still had to wait for something more accurate. They had to wait even longer than 1796, which is when this page from a textbook for Young Americans comes out. Again, it identifies George Washington. To me, it is ben franklin. I do not know. [laughter] there were 11 with blocks cut for this textbook to represent 22 people, so you can tell. The only thing that would separate them is the addition of a tricorn hat sometimes. This is what people had to work with. Eventually, the portraitists we talked about trumbull, stuart realized he had a good thing going with engravings. They could take trumbulls projected charleston portrait in 1792 and turn it into an engraving. America did not have the capability of doing an engraving of this quality, so trumbull had to send it off to england. This became probably the most popular engraving of George Washington in the early 19thcentury. Edward savage started painting washington for harvard in 1789 and again, he realized, why should i just do one when i could do a print of it and sell many . He does a simple print of George Washington in 1792. What i find interesting about this, they are one of the few that show washington wearing the badge of the society of cincinnati. I have only see others that are only in print, not in portrait. Those of you that know the history know that washington had a very ambivalent relationship with the society of cincinnati and precisely because he was the president pretty much for life until he died. Savage was another new englander. You can see new englanders might have a reputation as part of their. Puritan legacy for not appreciating art. We all know of course new Englanders Rodney forefront of art. Were on the forefront of art. This is a version of something he did from his own print before. This shows 3 4 of washington and shows him holding a map. I wish you could see it all. It is a map of washington, d. C. , which holds center stage, the most famous Edward Savage we have, the portrait he did of the 1796 it was finished. He started in 1789 when he did just the washington head. He realized he wanted to get the whole family and this was the and only one of washingtons first family ever done. A talk on washington several years ago, about west in general, because through the opening, the drawn curtains, you can see the Potomac River valley which was washingtons key to opening up the west in securing the west to america through access to the atlantic seaboard. Washington owned a lot of acreage along the potomac. More out west though. And of course, he gave his name isthe city whose map martha pointing at with her fan. Of the things about this portrait is it is so fun to read and when i teach my class and teach them how to read a document, i am not limiting myself to little documents. Anything can be a document. To be read, ok. So like a painting needs to be read, and so this one should be read as washington being a family man. We can see that, very, very proud of the city that would bear his name. I want to draw attention to the fact that and you are sorry to miss this point, there is apostolicort of an succession that is going on. From the city of washington where he is resting his left hand and the right hand is on the shoulder of his adopted grandson. His hand is resting on a globe, so if you wanted to read into this, you could say, this is washington, d. C. , extending its influence over the entire globe. Pretty cheeky stuff for 1796, but from the perspective today, it is interesting to read and again, you would be sorry to miss that point. The man on the right, the africanamerican servant is not william lee. I cannot remember the name of the guy. Historians do know this stuff and feel confident of who he is but it is not washingtons manservant at least. There are so many gizmos to operate. The other thing we have to think thank Edward Savage for is he painted the first image we have of mount vernon. In 1791. D it it was not displayed until 1802, but he gets the distinction of having the first one on campus. This is actually of mount vernon, you can see it today. The first one the people would have seen that began a long tradition of upholding mount vernon as an icon, which it really is today. Lets face it, you see any house with columns and typically as it has a coppola you will think it is a mount vernon spinoff. This is the first mount vernon in public print in his resignation in 1789. If i omitted saying the authors name, that is one of the reasons you can make up the list, i do not want to take responsibility for remembering to take that out point that out. Besides this being the first public image of mount vernon is that it is supposed to honor George Washingtons resignation. Notwithstanding the fact that he is wearing a generals uniform, it is an image to honor his resignation from presidency two years earlier. Washingtons whole career was really a career of surrendering power and this is going to be very, very important later on. We will touch on it right now with probably the most important image of washington as someone who surrenders power. Washington to cincinnatus. Cincinnatus was a roman general in the early days of the roman republic, not the empire, who surrendered, who gave up farming when he was called by his country, fought the enemy, came back and resumed farming instead of holding onto dictatorial powers. Much like washingtons career called from his plantation to serve as commanderinchief, and when he resigns in 1783, it was one of the most amazing acts in human history. George the third said, if he gives up power, he will be the most famous man in history. So we see George Washington as cincinnatus. This is the installation of his famous statue in the virginia statehouse in richmond in 1796. Again, this is something we can read. What are some of the things you notice . You notice the , a word that was perfectly fine to use then but has gotten a Bad Reputation they were a symbol of unity, basically axe handles to symbolize coming together. There is more strength in a bunch of sticks than just one stick. Washingtons cloak is draped over it as if to say, yes, the power is there but it is neutralized by my cloak. He has hung up his sword, again he is surrendering military power and it is replaced by a cane. The plow was waiting behind him. Very much a farmer just like cincinnatus. We all know bro amedisys apotheosis, this is an apotheosis closer than bro amedisys by john james or let in 1802. By this time, washingtons face is readily identifiable. We are past the time when he is looking like ben franklin across on the cover of an almanac. We are at the point were almost everyone recognizes Gilbert Stuarts face, it is multitasking. You have got to read this. I call it an orgy of allegories, so many things going on you do not want to miss. The obvious ones, of course, are the phrygian cap, many of us represent that which represents liberty given to enslaved people. Liberty itself is stamping on a snake, which was harkening back to eden. The time when snakes were evil. We find father time here with a n hourglass. These are universal symbols of times passage. I want to call attention to the native american at the lower right. This is probably the most historically factual message of this entire scene because in fact no president equaled George Washington in the humanitarian policy he showed toward the native americans. Ev