![Gilbert Stuart 1796 portrait of Washington](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/24/Gilbert_Stuart_1796_portrait_of_Washington.jpg)
Visual art of the United States or American art is
visual art
The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video, filmmaking, design, crafts and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as performing arts, conceptual art, and textile arts ...
made in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
or by U.S. artists. Before colonization there were many flourishing traditions of
Native American art
Visual arts by indigenous peoples of the Americas encompasses the visual artistic practices of the indigenous peoples of the Americas from ancient times to the present. These include works from South America and North America, which includes ...
, and where the Spanish colonized
Spanish Colonial architecture and the accompanying styles in other media were quickly in place. Early colonial art on the
East Coast initially relied on artists from Europe, with
John White (1540-c. 1593) the earliest example. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, artists primarily painted portraits, and some landscapes in a style based mainly on
English painting. Furniture-makers imitating English styles and similar craftsmen were also established in the major cities, but in the English colonies, locally made pottery remained
resolutely utilitarian until the 19th century, with fancy products imported.
But in the later 18th century two U.S. artists,
Benjamin West
Benjamin West, (October 10, 1738 – March 11, 1820) was a British-American artist who painted famous historical scenes such as '' The Death of Nelson'', ''The Death of General Wolfe'', the '' Treaty of Paris'', and '' Benjamin Franklin Drawin ...
and
John Singleton Copley, became the most successful painters in London of
history painting, then regarded as the highest form of art, giving the first sign of an emerging force in
Western art
The art of Europe, or Western art, encompasses the history of visual art in Europe. European prehistoric art started as mobile Upper Paleolithic rock and cave painting and petroglyph art and was characteristic of the period between the Paleo ...
. American artists who remained at home became increasingly skilled, although there was little awareness of them in Europe. In the early 19th century the infrastructure to train artists began to be established, and from 1820 the
Hudson River School
The Hudson River School was a mid-19th century American art movement embodied by a group of landscape painters whose aesthetic vision was influenced by Romanticism. The paintings typically depict the Hudson River Valley and the surrounding area ...
began to produce
Romantic landscape painting
Landscape painting, also known as landscape art, is the depiction of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests, especially where the main subject is a wide view—with its elements arranged into a coherent compo ...
that was original and matched the huge scale of U.S. landscapes. The
American Revolution
The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revoluti ...
produced a demand for patriotic art, especially history painting, while other artists recorded the frontier country. A parallel development taking shape in rural U.S. was the
American craft
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
movement, which began as a reaction to the
industrial revolution
The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...
.
After 1850
Academic art
Academic art, or academicism or academism, is a style of painting and sculpture produced under the influence of European academies of art. Specifically, academic art is the art and artists influenced by the standards of the French Académie ...
in the European style flourished, and as richer Americans became very wealthy, the flow of European art, new and old, to the US began; this has continued ever since. Museums began to be opened to display much of this. Developments in modern art in Europe came to the U.S. from exhibitions in New York City such as the
Armory Show
The 1913 Armory Show, also known as the International Exhibition of Modern Art, was a show organized by the Association of American Painters and Sculptors in 1913. It was the first large exhibition of modern art in America, as well as one of ...
in 1913. After World War II, New York replaced Paris as the center of the art world. Since then many U.S. movements have shaped
Modern
Modern may refer to:
History
* Modern history
** Early Modern period
** Late Modern period
*** 18th century
*** 19th century
*** 20th century
** Contemporary history
* Moderns, a faction of Freemasonry that existed in the 18th century
Phil ...
and
Postmodern art
Postmodern art is a body of art movements that sought to contradict some aspects of modernism or some aspects that emerged or developed in its aftermath. In general, movements such as intermedia, installation art, conceptual art and multimedia, ...
. Art in the United States today covers a huge range of styles.
Beginnings
![North carolina algonkin-rituale02](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e3/North_carolina_algonkin-rituale02.jpg)
One of the first painters to visit British America was
John White (c. 1540 – c. 1606), who made important
watercolor
Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (British English; see spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin ''aqua'' "water"), is a painting method”Watercolor may be as old as art itself, going back to ...
records of
Native American life on the Eastern seaboard (now in the
British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
). White first visited America as the artist and map-maker for an expedition of exploration, and in the early years of the Colonial period most other artists trained in Western styles were officers in the army and navy, whose training included sketching landscapes. Eventually the English settlements grew large enough to support professional artists, mostly portrait-painters, often largely self-taught.
Among the earliest was
John Smybert
John Smibert (rarely spelled Smybert; ; 24 March 1688 – 2 April 1751) was a Scottish-born painter, regarded as the first academically trained artist to live and work regularly in British America.
Career
Born in Edinburgh on 24 March 1688, Smi ...
(1688–1751), a trained artist from London who emigrated in 1728 intending to be a professor of fine art, but instead became a portrait painter and printseller in Boston. His friend
Peter Pelham
Peter Pelham (; – December 1751), an American portrait painter and engraver, born in England, a son of a man named "gentleman" in his will. His father, who died in Chichester, Sussex, in 1756, is revealed in letters to his son in America as ...
was a painter and printmaker. Both needed other sources of income and had shops. Meanwhile, the Spanish territories later to be American could see mostly religious art in the late
Baroque style, mostly by native artists, and
Native American cultures continued to produce art in their various traditions.
Eighteenth century
![Watsonandtheshark-original](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a3/Watsonandtheshark-original.jpg)
After the
Declaration of Independence
A declaration of independence or declaration of statehood or proclamation of independence is an assertion by a polity in a defined territory that it is independent and constitutes a state. Such places are usually declared from part or all of th ...
in 1776, which marked the official beginning of the American national identity, the new nation needed a history, and part of that history would be expressed visually. Most of early American art (from the late 18th century through the early 19th century) consists of
history painting and especially
portraits
A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expressions are predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person. For this r ...
. As in Colonial America, many of the painters who specialized in portraits were essentially self-taught; notable among them are
Joseph Badger
Joseph Badger (c. 1707–1765) was a portrait artist in Boston, Massachusetts, in the 18th century. He was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, to tailor Stephen Badger and Mercy Kettell. He "began his career as a house-painter and glazier, and ... ...
,
John Brewster Jr., and
William Jennys. The young nation's artists generally emulated the style of British art, which they knew through
prints and the paintings of English-trained immigrants such as John Smibert (1688–1751) and
John Wollaston John Wollaston may refer to:
* John Wollaston (priest) (1791–1856), Anglican clergyman and settler in Western Australia
* John Wollaston (painter)
John Wollaston (active between 1742 and 1775) was an English painter of portraits who was acti ...
(active 1742–1775).
Robert Feke
Robert Feke ( 1705 or 1707 1752) was an American portrait painter born in Oyster Bay, Long Island, New York. According to art historian Richard Saunders, "Feke’s impact on the development of Colonial painting was substantial, and his pictures ...
(1707–1752), an untrained painter of the colonial period, achieved a sophisticated style based on Smibert's example.
Charles Willson Peale
Charles Willson Peale (April 15, 1741 – February 22, 1827) was an American Painting, painter, soldier, scientist, inventor, politician and naturalist. He is best remembered for his portrait paintings of leading figures of the American Revolu ...
, who gained much of his earliest art training by studying Smibert's copies of European paintings, painted portraits of many of the important figures of the
American Revolution
The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revoluti ...
. Peale's younger brother
James Peale and six of Peale's nieces and sons—
Anna Claypoole Peale,
Sarah Miriam Peale
Sarah Miriam Peale (May 19, 1800 – February 4, 1885) was an American portrait painter, considered the first American woman to succeed as a professional artist. One of a family of artists of whom her uncle Charles Willson Peale was the most illu ...
,
Raphaelle Peale
Raphaelle Peale (sometimes spelled Raphael Peale) (February 17, 1774 – March 4, 1825) is considered the first professional American painter of still-life.
Biography
Peale was born in Annapolis, Maryland, the fifth child, though eldest survivin ...
,
Rembrandt Peale
Rembrandt Peale (February 22, 1778 – October 3, 1860) was an American artist and museum keeper. A prolific portrait painter, he was especially acclaimed for his likenesses of presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Peale's style w ...
,
Rubens Peale
Rubens Peale (May 4, 1784 – July 17, 1865) was an American museum administrator and artist. Born in Philadelphia, he was the son of artist-naturalist Charles Willson Peale. Due to his weak eyesight, he did not practice painting seriously until ...
and
Titian Peale
Titian Ramsay Peale (November 2, 1799 – March 13, 1885) was an American artist, naturalist, and explorer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was a scientific illustrator whose paintings and drawings of wildlife are known for their beauty an ...
—were also artists. Painters such as
Gilbert Stuart made portraits of the newly elected government officials,
[Gilbert Stuart Birthplace and Museum]
''Gilbert Stuart Biography''. Accessed July 24, 2007. which became iconic after being reproduced on various U.S. Postage stamps of the 19th century and early 20th century.
John Singleton Copley painted
emblem
An emblem is an abstract or representational pictorial image that represents a concept, like a moral truth, or an allegory, or a person, like a king or saint.
Emblems vs. symbols
Although the words ''emblem'' and '' symbol'' are often us ...
atic
portraits
A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expressions are predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person. For this r ...
for the increasingly prosperous merchant class, including a portrait of ''
Paul Revere
Paul Revere (; December 21, 1734 O.S. (January 1, 1735 N.S.)May 10, 1818) was an American silversmith, engraver, early industrialist, Sons of Liberty member, and Patriot and Founding Father. He is best known for his midnight ride to a ...
'' (ca. 1768–1770). The original version of his most famous painting, ''
Watson and the Shark'' (1778), is in the collection of
The National Gallery of Art while there is another version in the
Boston Museum of Fine Arts
The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 works ...
and a third version in the
Detroit Institute of Arts
The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA), located in Midtown Detroit, Michigan, has one of the largest and most significant art collections in the United States. With over 100 galleries, it covers with a major renovation and expansion project comple ...
.
Benjamin West
Benjamin West, (October 10, 1738 – March 11, 1820) was a British-American artist who painted famous historical scenes such as '' The Death of Nelson'', ''The Death of General Wolfe'', the '' Treaty of Paris'', and '' Benjamin Franklin Drawin ...
painted portraits as well as history paintings of the
French and Indian War
The French and Indian War (1754–1763) was a theater of the Seven Years' War, which pitted the North American colonies of the British Empire against those of the French, each side being supported by various Native American tribes. At the ...
. West also worked in London where many American artists studied under him, including
Washington Allston
Washington Allston (November 5, 1779 – July 9, 1843) was an American painter and poet, born in Waccamaw Parish, South Carolina. Allston pioneered America's Romantic movement of landscape painting. He was well known during his lifetime for ...
,
Ralph Earl
Ralph Earl (May 11, 1751 – August 16, 1801) was an American painter known for his portraits, of which at least 183 can be documented. He also painted six landscapes, including a panorama display of Niagara Falls.
Early life
Ralph Ea ...
,
James Earl
James Earl (May 1, 1761 – August 18, 1796) was an American painter and younger brother of fellow portrait painter Ralph Earl. He was born in Leicester, Massachusetts, and died of yellow fever in Charleston, South Carolina. He lived and worke ...
,
Samuel Morse
Samuel Finley Breese Morse (April 27, 1791 – April 2, 1872) was an American inventor and painter. After having established his reputation as a portrait painter, in his middle age Morse contributed to the invention of a single-wire telegraph ...
, Charles Willson Peale, Rembrandt Peale, Gilbert Stuart, John Trumbull,
Mather Brown
Mather Brown (baptized October 11, 1761 – May 25, 1831) was an American painter who was born in Boston, Massachusetts and was active in England.
Early life
Brown was the son of Gawen and Elizabeth (Byles) Brown, and descended from the Rev. ...
,
Edward Savage and
Thomas Sully
Thomas Sully (June 19, 1783November 5, 1872) was a portrait painter in the United States. Born in Great Britain, he lived most of his life in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He painted in the style of Thomas Lawrence. His subjects included nation ...
.
John Trumbull painted large battle scenes of the
Revolutionary War.
When
landscape was painted it was most often done to show how much property a subject owned, or as a picturesque background for a portrait.
Selection of works by early American artists
File:Jeremiah Theus Portrait of Lady Liberty 1765.jpg, Jeremiah Theus
Jeremiah Theus (sometimes Jeremiah Theüs) (April 5, 1716 – May 17, 1774) was a Switzerland, Swiss-born United States, American painter, primarily of portraits. He was active mainly around Charleston, South Carolina, in which city he remained a ...
''Portrait of Lady Liberty'', 1765
File:J S Copley - Paul Revere.jpg, John Singleton Copley, ''Paul Revere'', c. 1768–1770, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
File:Benjamin West - The Treaty of Penn with the Indians - WGA25555.jpg, Benjamin West
Benjamin West, (October 10, 1738 – March 11, 1820) was a British-American artist who painted famous historical scenes such as '' The Death of Nelson'', ''The Death of General Wolfe'', the '' Treaty of Paris'', and '' Benjamin Franklin Drawin ...
, '' The Treaty of Penn with the Indians'', 1771–72,
File:GSskater.jpg, Gilbert Stuart, '' The Skater'', 1782, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
File:Charles Wilson Peale - Self-Portrait with Angelica and Portrait of Rachel - Google Art Project.jpg, Charles Willson Peale
Charles Willson Peale (April 15, 1741 – February 22, 1827) was an American Painting, painter, soldier, scientist, inventor, politician and naturalist. He is best remembered for his portrait paintings of leading figures of the American Revolu ...
, ''Self-portrait'', c. 1782–1785, Museum of Fine Arts Houston
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), is an art museum located in the Houston Museum District of Houston, Texas. With the recent completion of an eight-year campus redevelopment project, including the opening of the Nancy and Rich Kinder Build ...
File:The Death of General Montgomery in the Attack on Quebec December 31 1775.jpeg, John Trumbull, '''', 1786, Yale University Art Gallery
The Yale University Art Gallery (YUAG) is the oldest university art museum in the Western Hemisphere. It houses a major encyclopedic collection of art in several interconnected buildings on the campus of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. ...
File:Mather Brown - Thomas Jefferson - Google Art Project.jpg, Mather Brown
Mather Brown (baptized October 11, 1761 – May 25, 1831) was an American painter who was born in Boston, Massachusetts and was active in England.
Early life
Brown was the son of Gawen and Elizabeth (Byles) Brown, and descended from the Rev. ...
, ''Portrait of Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He was previously the natio ...
'', 1786, National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.
File:Edward Savage - The Washington Family - Google Art Project.jpg, Edward Savage, ''The Washington Family
''The Washington Family'' by Edward Savage (artist), Edward Savage is a life-sized group portrait of the Washington family, including President of the United States, U.S. President George Washington, First Lady Martha Washington, two of her gra ...
'' 1789–1796, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
File:OliverAbigail.jpg, Ralph Earl
Ralph Earl (May 11, 1751 – August 16, 1801) was an American painter known for his portraits, of which at least 183 can be documented. He also painted six landscapes, including a panorama display of Niagara Falls.
Early life
Ralph Ea ...
, ''Portrait of Oliver Ellsworth and Abigail Wolcott Ellsworth'', 1792, Wadsworth Atheneum
The Wadsworth Atheneum is an art museum in Hartford, Connecticut. The Wadsworth is noted for its collections of European Baroque art, ancient Egyptian and Classical bronzes, French and American Impressionist paintings, Hudson River School lands ...
File:The Artist and His Family James Peale.jpeg, James Peale, ''The Artist and His Family'', 1795. Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts
Pennsylvania (; (Pennsylvania Dutch language, Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appa ...
File:BrewsterMotherSon.jpg, John Brewster Jr., ''Mother with Son'' (Lucy Knapp Mygatt and Son, George, of Danbury, Connecticut), 1799
File:Rembrandt Peale - Rubens Peale with a Geranium - Google Art Project.jpg, Rembrandt Peale
Rembrandt Peale (February 22, 1778 – October 3, 1860) was an American artist and museum keeper. A prolific portrait painter, he was especially acclaimed for his likenesses of presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Peale's style w ...
, ''Rubens Peale With a Geranium'', 1801, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
File:Moonlit Landscape.jpg, Washington Allston
Washington Allston (November 5, 1779 – July 9, 1843) was an American painter and poet, born in Waccamaw Parish, South Carolina. Allston pioneered America's Romantic movement of landscape painting. He was well known during his lifetime for ...
, ''Moonlit Landscape'', 1809, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts
File:Mather Brown self-portrait.jpg, Mather Brown
Mather Brown (baptized October 11, 1761 – May 25, 1831) was an American painter who was born in Boston, Massachusetts and was active in England.
Early life
Brown was the son of Gawen and Elizabeth (Byles) Brown, and descended from the Rev. ...
, ''Self-portrait'', c. 1812, American Antiquarian Society
The American Antiquarian Society (AAS), located in Worcester, Massachusetts, is both a learned society and a national research library of pre-twentieth-century American history and culture. Founded in 1812, it is the oldest historical society i ...
, Worcester, Massachusetts
Worcester ( , ) is a city and county seat of Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. Named after Worcester, England, the city's population was 206,518 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the second-List of cities i ...
File:Benjamin West, English (born America) - Benjamin Franklin Drawing Electricity from the Sky - Google Art Project.jpg, Benjamin West
Benjamin West, (October 10, 1738 – March 11, 1820) was a British-American artist who painted famous historical scenes such as '' The Death of Nelson'', ''The Death of General Wolfe'', the '' Treaty of Paris'', and '' Benjamin Franklin Drawin ...
, ''Benjamin Franklin Drawing Electricity from the Sky
''Benjamin Franklin Drawing Electricity from the Sky'' is a c. 1805 painting by Benjamin West in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. It depicts American Founding Father Benjamin Franklin conducting his kite experiment in 1752 to ascertain the electr ...
'', c. 1816, Philadelphia Museum of Art
File:1819 Passage OfThe Delaware byThomasSully MFABoston.jpeg, Thomas Sully
Thomas Sully (June 19, 1783November 5, 1872) was a portrait painter in the United States. Born in Great Britain, he lived most of his life in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He painted in the style of Thomas Lawrence. His subjects included nation ...
, '' The Passage of the Delaware'', 1819, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Nineteenth century
![The Child's Bath by Mary Cassatt 1893](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f5/The_Child%27s_Bath_by_Mary_Cassatt_1893.jpg)
The first well-known U.S. school of painting—the
Hudson River School
The Hudson River School was a mid-19th century American art movement embodied by a group of landscape painters whose aesthetic vision was influenced by Romanticism. The paintings typically depict the Hudson River Valley and the surrounding area ...
—appeared in 1820.
Thomas Cole
Thomas Cole was an English-born American artist and the founder of the Hudson River School art movement. Cole is widely regarded as the first significant American landscape painter. He was known for his romantic landscape and history painti ...
pioneered the movement which included
Albert Bierstadt
Albert Bierstadt (January 7, 1830 – February 18, 1902) was a German-American painter best known for his lavish, sweeping landscapes of the American West. He joined several journeys of the Westward Expansion to paint the scenes. He was not ...
,
Frederic Edwin Church,
Thomas Doughty and several others. As with music and literature, this development was delayed until artists perceived that the New World offered subjects unique to itself; in this case the westward expansion of settlement brought the transcendent beauty of frontier landscapes to painters' attention.
The Hudson River painters' directness and simplicity of vision influenced and inspired such later artists as
John Kensett and the ''
Luminists''; as well as
George Inness
George Inness (May 1, 1825 – August 3, 1894) was a prominent American landscape painter.
Now recognized as one of the most influential American artists of the nineteenth century, Inness was influenced by the Hudson River School at the s ...
and the ''
tonalists'' (which included
Albert Pinkham Ryder
Albert Pinkham Ryder (March 19, 1847 – March 28, 1917) was an American painter best known for his poetic and moody allegorical works and seascapes, as well as his eccentric personality. While his art shared an emphasis on subtle variations of ...
and
Ralph Blakelock among others), and
Winslow Homer
Winslow Homer (February 24, 1836 – September 29, 1910) was an American landscape painter and illustrator, best known for his marine subjects. He is considered one of the foremost painters in 19th-century America and a preeminent figure in ...
(1836–1910), who depicted the rural U.S.—the sea, the mountains, and the people who lived near them.
The Hudson River School landscape painter
Robert S. Duncanson was one of the first important
African American painters.
John James Audubon, an
ornithologist whose paintings documented birds, was one of the most important naturalist artists in the early U.S. His major work, a set of colored prints entitled ''
The Birds of America
''The Birds of America'' is a book by naturalist and painter John James Audubon, containing illustrations of a wide variety of birds of the United States. It was first published as a series in sections between 1827 and 1838, in Edinburgh and ...
'' (1827–1839), is considered one of the finest ornithological works ever completed.
Edward Hicks
Edward Hicks (April 4, 1780 – August 23, 1849) was an American folk painter and distinguished religious minister of the Society of Friends (aka "Quakers"). He became a Quaker icon because of his paintings.
Biography Early life
Edward ...
was a U.S.
folk painter and distinguished
minister of the
Society of Friends. He became a Quaker
icon
An icon () is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, in the cultures of the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Catholic churches. They are not simply artworks; "an icon is a sacred image used in religious devotion". The most ...
because of his paintings.
Paintings of the Great West, many of which emphasized the sheer size of the land and the cultures of the native people living on it, became a distinct genre as well.
George Catlin
George Catlin (July 26, 1796 – December 23, 1872) was an American adventurer, lawyer, painter, author, and traveler, who specialized in portraits of Native Americans in the Old West.
Traveling to the American West five times during the 183 ...
depicted the West and its people as honestly as possible.
George Caleb Bingham
George Caleb Bingham (March 20, 1811 – July 7, 1879) was an American artist, soldier and politician known in his lifetime as "the Missouri Artist". Initially a Whig, he was elected as a delegate to the Missouri legislature before the American C ...
, and later
Frederic Remington
Frederic Sackrider Remington (October 4, 1861 – December 26, 1909) was an American painter, illustrator, sculptor, and writer who specialized in the genre of Western American Art. His works are known for depicting the Western United Stat ...
,
Charles M. Russell, the photographer
Edward S. Curtis
Edward Sherriff Curtis (February 19, 1868 – October 19, 1952) was an American photographer and ethnologist whose work focused on the American West and on Native American people. Sometimes referred to as the "Shadow Catcher", Curtis travele ...
, and others recorded the U.S. Western heritage and the
Old American West through their art.
History painting was a less popular genre in U.S. art during the 19th century, although ''
Washington Crossing the Delaware'', painted by the German-born
Emanuel Leutze
Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze (May 24, 1816July 18, 1868) was a German-American history painter best known for his 1851 painting '' Washington Crossing the Delaware''. He is associated with the Düsseldorf school of painting.
Biography
Leutze was born ...
, is among the best-known U.S. paintings. The historical and military paintings of
William B. T. Trego
William Brooke Thomas Trego (September 15, 1858 – June 24, 1909) was an American painter best known for his historical military subjects, in particular scenes of the American Revolution and Civil War.
Biography
William B. T. Trego was b ...
were widely published after his death (according to Edwin A. Peeples, "There is probably not an American History book which doesn't have (a) Trego picture in it").
Portrait painters in the U.S. in the 19th century included untrained limners such as
Ammi Phillips, and painters schooled in the European tradition, such as Thomas Sully and
G.P.A. Healy. Middle-class city life found its painter in
Thomas Eakins
Thomas Cowperthwait Eakins (; July 25, 1844 – June 25, 1916) was an American realist painter, photographer, sculptor, and fine arts educator. He is widely acknowledged to be one of the most important American artists.
For the length ...
(1844–1916), an uncompromising realist whose unflinching honesty undercut the genteel preference for romantic sentimentalism. As a result, he was not notably successful in his lifetime, although he has since been recognized as one of the most significant U.S. artists. One of his students was
Henry Ossawa Tanner
Henry Ossawa Tanner (June 21, 1859 – May 25, 1937) was an American artist and the first African-American painter to gain international acclaim. Tanner moved to Paris, France, in 1891 to study at the Académie Julian and gained acclaim in Fren ...
, the first African-American painter to achieve international acclaim.
A
trompe-l'œil
''Trompe-l'œil'' ( , ; ) is an artistic term for the highly realistic optical illusion of three-dimensional space and objects on a two-dimensional surface. ''Trompe l'oeil'', which is most often associated with painting, tricks the viewer into ...
style of
still-life painting, originating mainly in Philadelphia, included Raphaelle Peale (one of several artists of the Peale family),
William Michael Harnett, and
John F. Peto.
The most successful U.S. sculptor of his era,
Hiram Powers
Hiram Powers (July 29, 1805 – June 27, 1873) was an American neoclassical sculptor. He was one of the first 19th-century American artists to gain an international reputation, largely based on his famous marble sculpture ''The Greek Slave''. ...
, left the U.S. in his early thirties to spend the rest of his life in Europe, where he adopted a conventional style for his idealized female nudes such as ''Eve Tempted''. Several important painters who are considered American spent much of their lives in Europe, notably
Mary Cassatt
Mary Stevenson Cassatt (; May 22, 1844June 14, 1926) was an American painter and printmaker. She was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania (now part of Pittsburgh's North Side), but lived much of her adult life in France, where she befriended Edgar De ...
,
James McNeill Whistler, and
John Singer Sargent, all of whom were influenced by French
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...
.
Theodore Robinson
Theodore Robinson (June 3, 1852April 2, 1896) was an American painter best known for his Impressionist landscapes. He was one of the first American artists to take up Impressionism in the late 1880s, visiting Giverny and developing a close frien ...
visited France in 1887, befriended
Monet
Oscar-Claude Monet (, , ; 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a French painter and founder of impressionist painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. During ...
, and became one of the first U.S. painters to adopt the new technique. In the last decades of the century
American Impressionism
American Impressionism was a style of painting related to European Impressionism and practiced by American artists in the United States from the mid-nineteenth century through the beginning of the twentieth. The style is characterized by loose ...
, as practiced by artists such as
Childe Hassam
Frederick Childe Hassam (; October 17, 1859 – August 27, 1935) was an American Impressionist painter, noted for his urban and coastal scenes. Along with Mary Cassatt and John Henry Twachtman, Hassam was instrumental in promulgating Impressioni ...
and
Frank W. Benson, became a popular style.
Selection of notable 19th-century works
Image:Edward Hicks - Peaceable Kingdom.jpg, Edward Hicks
Edward Hicks (April 4, 1780 – August 23, 1849) was an American folk painter and distinguished religious minister of the Society of Friends (aka "Quakers"). He became a Quaker icon because of his paintings.
Biography Early life
Edward ...
, ''Peaceable Kingdom,'' c. 1834, National Gallery of Art
File:John James Audubon - Washington Sea Eagle.jpg, John J. Audubon, ''Washington Sea Eagle'', c. 1836–1839, Smithsonian American Art Museum
Image:George Caleb Bingham 001.jpg, George Caleb Bingham
George Caleb Bingham (March 20, 1811 – July 7, 1879) was an American artist, soldier and politician known in his lifetime as "the Missouri Artist". Initially a Whig, he was elected as a delegate to the Missouri legislature before the American C ...
, '' Fur Traders Descending the Missouri'', c. 1845, Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
File:George Catlin - Ball-play of the Choctaw--Ball Up - Google Art Project.jpg, George Catlin
George Catlin (July 26, 1796 – December 23, 1872) was an American adventurer, lawyer, painter, author, and traveler, who specialized in portraits of Native Americans in the Old West.
Traveling to the American West five times during the 183 ...
, ''An Indian Ball-Play'' c. 1846–1850, Smithsonian American Art Museum
File:George Caleb Bingham - Daniel Boone escorting settlers through the Cumberland Gap.jpg, George Caleb Bingham
George Caleb Bingham (March 20, 1811 – July 7, 1879) was an American artist, soldier and politician known in his lifetime as "the Missouri Artist". Initially a Whig, he was elected as a delegate to the Missouri legislature before the American C ...
, ''Daniel Boone Escorting Settlers through the Cumberland Gap'', 1851–52
File:A Ride for Liberty -- The Fugitive Slaves (recto) Eastman Johnson.jpg, Eastman Johnson
Jonathan Eastman Johnson (July 29, 1824 – April 5, 1906) was an American painter and co-founder of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, with his name inscribed at its entrance. He was best known for his genre paintings, paintings of ...
, '' A Ride for Liberty – The Fugitive Slaves'', oil on paperboard, ca. 1862, Brooklyn Museum
Image:Frederic Edwin Church - Aurora Borealis - Google Art Project.jpg, Frederic Edwin Church, ''Aurora Borealis'', 1865, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
File:George Inness - Lake Albano - Google Art Project.jpg, George Inness
George Inness (May 1, 1825 – August 3, 1894) was a prominent American landscape painter.
Now recognized as one of the most influential American artists of the nineteenth century, Inness was influenced by the Hudson River School at the s ...
, ''Lake Albano'', 1869. Phillips Collection
The Phillips Collection is an art museum founded by Duncan Phillips and Marjorie Acker Phillips in 1921 as the Phillips Memorial Gallery located in the Dupont Circle neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Phillips was the grandson of James H. Laughlin ...
Image:Kensett John F The Old Pine Darien Connecticut.jpg, John Kensett, ''The Old Pine, Darien, Connecticut
Darien ( ) is a coastal town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. With a population of 21,499 and a land area of just under 13 square miles, it is the smallest town on Connecticut's Gold Coast. It has the youngest population of any ...
'', c. 1872, Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
, New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
File:James Abbot McNeill Whistler 006.jpg, James Abbott McNeill Whistler
James Abbott McNeill Whistler (; July 10, 1834July 17, 1903) was an American painter active during the American Gilded Age and based primarily in the United Kingdom. He eschewed sentimentality and moral allusion in painting and was a leading pr ...
, '' Nocturne: Blue and Gold - Old Battersea Bridge'' (1872), Tate Britain
Tate Britain, known from 1897 to 1932 as the National Gallery of British Art and from 1932 to 2000 as the Tate Gallery, is an art museum on Millbank in the City of Westminster in London, England. It is part of the Tate network of galleries in ...
, London, England
File:Thomas Eakins, American - Portrait of Dr. Samuel D. Gross (The Gross Clinic) - Google Art Project.jpg, Thomas Eakins
Thomas Cowperthwait Eakins (; July 25, 1844 – June 25, 1916) was an American realist painter, photographer, sculptor, and fine arts educator. He is widely acknowledged to be one of the most important American artists.
For the length ...
, ''The Gross Clinic
''The Gross Clinic'' or ''The Clinic of Dr. Gross'' is an 1875 painting by American artist Thomas Eakins. It is oil on canvas and measures by .
The painting depicts Dr. Samuel D. Gross, a seventy-year-old professor dressed in a black frock coat, ...
'', 1875, Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts
Pennsylvania (; (Pennsylvania Dutch language, Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appa ...
File:The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit, John Singer Sargent, 1882 (unfree frame crop).jpg, John Singer Sargent, '' The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit'', 1882, Boston Museum of Fine Arts
The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 works ...
File:The Waste of Waters is Their Field.jpg, Albert Pinkham Ryder
Albert Pinkham Ryder (March 19, 1847 – March 28, 1917) was an American painter best known for his poetic and moody allegorical works and seascapes, as well as his eccentric personality. While his art shared an emphasis on subtle variations of ...
, ''The Waste of Waters is Their Field'', early 1880s, Brooklyn Museum
File:Brooklyn Museum - Moonlight - Ralph Albert Blakelock - overall.jpg, Ralph Albert Blakelock
Ralph Albert Blakelock (October 15, 1847 – August 9, 1919) was a romanticist American painter known primarily for his landscape paintings related to the Tonalism movement.
Biography
Ralph Blakelock was born in New York City on October 15, 18 ...
, ''Moonlight'', 1885, Brooklyn Museum
File:Albert Pinkham Ryder - Moonlit Cove - Google Art Project.jpg, Albert Pinkham Ryder
Albert Pinkham Ryder (March 19, 1847 – March 28, 1917) was an American painter best known for his poetic and moody allegorical works and seascapes, as well as his eccentric personality. While his art shared an emphasis on subtle variations of ...
, ''Seacoast in Moonlight,'' 1890, the Phillips Collection
The Phillips Collection is an art museum founded by Duncan Phillips and Marjorie Acker Phillips in 1921 as the Phillips Memorial Gallery located in the Dupont Circle neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Phillips was the grandson of James H. Laughlin ...
, Washington, D.C.
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
File:Ralph Albert Blakelock - Moonlight Sonata - 45.201 - Museum of Fine Arts.jpg, Ralph Albert Blakelock
Ralph Albert Blakelock (October 15, 1847 – August 9, 1919) was a romanticist American painter known primarily for his landscape paintings related to the Tonalism movement.
Biography
Ralph Blakelock was born in New York City on October 15, 18 ...
, ''Moonlight Sonata'', 1889–1892, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Image:Celia Thaxter's Garden.jpg, Childe Hassam
Frederick Childe Hassam (; October 17, 1859 – August 27, 1935) was an American Impressionist painter, noted for his urban and coastal scenes. Along with Mary Cassatt and John Henry Twachtman, Hassam was instrumental in promulgating Impressioni ...
, ''Celia Thaxter
Celia Thaxter (née Laighton; June 29, 1835 – August 25, 1894) was an American writer of poetry and stories. For most of her life, she lived with her father on the Isles of Shoals at his Appledore Hotel. How she grew up to become a writer is d ...
's Garden'', 1890, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
, New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
File:Frederic Remington - Aiding a Comrade - Google Art Project.jpg, Frederic Remington
Frederic Sackrider Remington (October 4, 1861 – December 26, 1909) was an American painter, illustrator, sculptor, and writer who specialized in the genre of Western American Art. His works are known for depicting the Western United Stat ...
, ''Aiding a Comrade'', 1890, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
File:Russell The Buffalo Hunt No 26 1899.jpg, Charles M. Russell, ''The Buffalo Hunt'', 1899, Amon Carter Museum of American Art
Amon may refer to:
Mythology
* Amun, an Ancient Egyptian deity, also known as Amon and Amon-Ra
* Aamon, a Goetic demon
People Momonym
* Amon of Judah ( 664– 640 BC), king of Judah
Given name
* Amon G. Carter (1879–1955), American pu ...
File:Winslow Homer - The Gulf Stream - Metropolitan Museum of Art.jpg, Winslow Homer
Winslow Homer (February 24, 1836 – September 29, 1910) was an American landscape painter and illustrator, best known for his marine subjects. He is considered one of the foremost painters in 19th-century America and a preeminent figure in ...
, '' The Gulf Stream'', 1899, ''oil on canvas
Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on wood panel or canvas for several centuries, spreading from Europe to the rest o ...
,'' Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
, New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
Twentieth century
![Bellows George Dempsey and Firpo 1924](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d0/Bellows_George_Dempsey_and_Firpo_1924.jpg)
Controversy soon became a way of life for American artists. In fact, much of American painting and sculpture since 1900 has been a series of revolts against tradition. "To hell with the artistic values," announced
Robert Henri
Robert Henri (; June 24, 1865 – July 12, 1929) was an American painter and teacher.
As a young man, he studied in Paris, where he identified strongly with the Impressionists, and determined to lead an even more dramatic revolt against A ...
(1865–1929). He was the leader of what critics called the
Ashcan school
The Ashcan School, also called the Ash Can School, was an artistic movement in the United States during the late 19th-early 20th century that produced works portraying scenes of daily life in New York, often in the city's poorer neighborhoods.
...
of painting, after the group's portrayals of the squalid aspects of city life.
American realism
American Realism was a style in art, music and literature that depicted contemporary social realities and the lives and everyday activities of ordinary people. The movement began in literature in the mid-19th century, and became an important te ...
became the new direction for American visual artists at the turn of the 20th century. The Ashcan painters
George Bellows,
Everett Shinn
Everett Shinn (November 6, 1876 – May 1, 1953) was an American painter and member of the urban realist Ashcan School.
Shinn started as a newspaper illustrator in Philadelphia, demonstrating a rare facility for depicting animated movement, a ...
,
George Benjamin Luks,
William Glackens
William James Glackens (March 13, 1870 – May 22, 1938) was an American realist painter and one of the founders of the Ashcan School, which rejected the formal boundaries of artistic beauty laid-down by the conservative National Academy of De ...
, and
John Sloan
John French Sloan (August 2, 1871 – September 7, 1951) was an American painter and etcher. He is considered to be one of the founders of the Ashcan school of American art. He was also a member of the group known as The Eight. He is best known ...
were among those who developed socially conscious imagery in their works. The photographer
Alfred Stieglitz (1864–1946) led the
Photo-Secession
The Photo-Secession was an early 20th century movement that promoted photography as a fine art in general and photographic pictorialism in particular.
A group of photographers, led by Alfred Stieglitz and F. Holland Day in the early 20th century ...
movement, which created pathways for photography as an emerging art form.
Soon the Ashcan school artists gave way to
modernists
Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...
arriving from Europe—the cubists and abstract painters promoted by Stieglitz at his
291 Gallery in New York City.
John Marin,
Marsden Hartley
Marsden Hartley (January 4, 1877 – September 2, 1943) was an American Modernist painter, poet, and essayist. Hartley developed his painting abilities by observing Cubist artists in Paris and Berlin.
Early life and education
Hartley was born ...
,
Alfred Henry Maurer
Alfred Henry Maurer (April 21, 1868 – August 4, 1932) was an American modernist painter. He exhibited his work in avant-garde circles internationally and in New York City during the early twentieth century. Highly respected today, his wor ...
,
Arthur B. Carles,
Arthur Dove
Arthur Garfield Dove (August 2, 1880 – November 23, 1946) was an American artist. An early American modernist, he is often considered the first American abstract painter.. Dove used a wide range of media, sometimes in unconventional combinati ...
,
Henrietta Shore,
Stuart Davis,
Wilhelmina Weber,
Stanton Macdonald-Wright
Stanton Macdonald-Wright (July 8, 1890 – August 22, 1973), was a modern American artist. He was a co-founder of Synchromism, an early abstract, color-based mode of painting, which was the first American avant-garde art movement to receive inte ...
,
Morgan Russell,
Patrick Henry Bruce
Artist Patrick Henry Bruce (3rd from left) & friends/associates in front of the entrance to a 300px
Patrick Henry Bruce (March 25, 1881 – November 12, 1936) was an American cubist painter.
Biography
A descendant of Patrick Henry, Bruce wa ...
,
Andrew Dasburg
Andrew Michael Dasburg (4 May 1887 – 13 August 1979) was an American modernist painter and "one of America's leading early exponents of cubism".
Biography
Dasburg was born in 1887 in Paris. He emigrated from Germany to New York City wit ...
,
Georgia O'Keeffe
Georgia Totto O'Keeffe (November 15, 1887 – March 6, 1986) was an American modernist artist. She was known for her paintings of enlarged flowers, New York skyscrapers, and New Mexico landscapes. O'Keeffe has been called the "Mother of Ame ...
, and
Gerald Murphy
Gerald Clery Murphy and Sara Sherman Wiborg were wealthy, expatriate Americans who moved to the French Riviera in the early 20th century and who, with their generous hospitality and flair for parties, created a vibrant social circle, particularly ...
were some important early American modernist painters. Early modernist sculptors in America include
William Zorach
William Zorach (February 28, 1889 – November 15, 1966) was an American sculptor, painter, printmaker, and writer. He won the Logan Medal of the arts. He is notable for being at the forefront of American artists embracing cubism, as well as fo ...
,
Elie Nadelman, and
Paul Manship
Paul Howard Manship (December 24, 1885 – January 28, 1966) was an American sculptor. He consistently created mythological pieces in a classical style, and was a major force in the Art Deco movement. He is well known for his large public com ...
.
Florine Stettheimer
Florine Stettheimer (August 19, 1871 – May 11, 1944) was an American modernist painter, feminist, theatrical designer, poet, and salonnière.
Stettheimer developed a feminine, theatrical painting style depicting her friends, family, and experi ...
developed an extremely personal faux-naif style.
After
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
many American artists rejected the
modern
Modern may refer to:
History
* Modern history
** Early Modern period
** Late Modern period
*** 18th century
*** 19th century
*** 20th century
** Contemporary history
* Moderns, a faction of Freemasonry that existed in the 18th century
Phil ...
trends emanating from the
Armory Show
The 1913 Armory Show, also known as the International Exhibition of Modern Art, was a show organized by the Association of American Painters and Sculptors in 1913. It was the first large exhibition of modern art in America, as well as one of ...
and European influences such as those from the
School of Paris
The School of Paris (french: École de Paris) refers to the French and émigré artists who worked in Paris in the first half of the 20th century.
The School of Paris was not a single art movement or institution, but refers to the importance ...
. Instead they chose to adopt various—in some cases
academic
An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, ...
—styles of
realism
Realism, Realistic, or Realists may refer to:
In the arts
*Realism (arts), the general attempt to depict subjects truthfully in different forms of the arts
Arts movements related to realism include:
*Classical Realism
*Literary realism, a move ...
in depicting American urban and rural scenes.
Grant Wood,
Reginald Marsh,
Guy Pène du Bois
Guy Pène du Bois (January 4, 1884 – July 18, 1958) was a 20th-century American painter, art critic, and educator. Born in the U.S. to a French family, his work depicted the culture and society around him: cafes, theatres, and in the twenties, f ...
, and
Charles Sheeler exemplify the realist tendency in different ways. Sheeler and the modernists
Charles Demuth
Charles Henry Buckius Demuth (November 8, 1883 – October 23, 1935) was an American painter who specialized in watercolors and turned to oils late in his career, developing a style of painting known as Precisionism.
"Search the history of Ame ...
and
Ralston Crawford
Ralston Crawford (1906–1978) was an American abstract painter, lithographer, and photographer.
Early life
He was born on September 5, 1906, in St. Catharines, Ontario, and spent his childhood in Buffalo, New York. He studied art beginning in ...
were referred to as
Precisionists for their sharply defined renderings of machines and architectural forms.
Edward Hopper
Edward Hopper (July 22, 1882 – May 15, 1967) was an American realist painter and printmaker. While he is widely known for his oil paintings, he was equally proficient as a watercolorist and printmaker in etching.
Hopper created subdued drama ...
, who studied under Henri, developed an individual style of realism by concentrating on light and form, and avoiding overt social content.
The American Southwest
Following the
first World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, the completion of the
Santa Fe Railroad
The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway , often referred to as the Santa Fe or AT&SF, was one of the larger railroads in the United States. The railroad was chartered in February 1859 to serve the cities of Atchison and Topeka, Kansas, and ...
enabled American settlers to travel across the west, as far as the
California
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
coast. New artists' colonies started growing up around
Santa Fe and
Taos
Taos or TAOS may refer to:
Places
* Taos, Missouri, a city in Cole County, Missouri, United States
* Taos County, New Mexico, United States
** Taos, New Mexico, a city, the county seat of Taos County, New Mexico
*** Taos art colony, an art colo ...
, the artists' primary subject matter being the native people and landscapes of the
Southwest
The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each sepa ...
.
Images of the Southwest became a popular form of advertising, used most significantly by the Santa Fe Railroad to entice settlers to come west and enjoy the "unsullied landscapes."
Walter Ufer,
Bert Geer Phillips
Bert Geer Phillips (July 15, 1868 – June 16, 1956) was an American artist and a founding member of the Taos Society of Artists. He settled in Taos, New Mexico (1898) and was a founder of the Taos art colony. He is known for his paintings of Na ...
,
E. Irving Couse,
William Henry Jackson
William Henry Jackson (April 4, 1843 – June 30, 1942) was an American photographer, Civil War veteran, painter, and an explorer famous for his images of the American West. He was a great-great nephew of Samuel Wilson, the progenitor of Am ...
,
Marsden Hartley
Marsden Hartley (January 4, 1877 – September 2, 1943) was an American Modernist painter, poet, and essayist. Hartley developed his painting abilities by observing Cubist artists in Paris and Berlin.
Early life and education
Hartley was born ...
,
Andrew Dasburg
Andrew Michael Dasburg (4 May 1887 – 13 August 1979) was an American modernist painter and "one of America's leading early exponents of cubism".
Biography
Dasburg was born in 1887 in Paris. He emigrated from Germany to New York City wit ...
, and
Georgia O'Keeffe
Georgia Totto O'Keeffe (November 15, 1887 – March 6, 1986) was an American modernist artist. She was known for her paintings of enlarged flowers, New York skyscrapers, and New Mexico landscapes. O'Keeffe has been called the "Mother of Ame ...
were some of the more prolific artists of the Southwest. Georgia O'Keeffe, who was born in the late 19th century, became known for her paintings featuring flowers, bones, and landscapes of
New Mexico
)
, population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano)
, seat = Santa Fe
, LargestCity = Albuquerque
, LargestMetro = Tiguex
, OfficialLang = None
, Languages = English, Spanish ( New Mexican), Navajo, Ke ...
as seen in ''Ram's Head White Hollyhock and Little Hills''. O'Keeffe visited the Southwest in 1929 and moved there permanently in 1949; she lived and painted there until she died in 1986.
Harlem Renaissance (1920s-1930s)
The
Harlem Renaissance was another significant development in American art. In the 1920s and 30s a new generation of educated and politically astute African-American men and women emerged who sponsored literary societies and art and industrial exhibitions to combat racist stereotypes. The movement, which showcased the range of talents within African-American communities, included artists from across America, but was centered in
Harlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and Central Park North on the south. The greater Ha ...
. The work of the Harlem painter and
graphic art
A category of fine art, graphic art covers a broad range of visual artistic expression, typically two-dimensional, i.e. produced on a flat surface. ist
Aaron Douglas and the photographer
James VanDerZee became emblematic of the movement. Artists associated with the Harlem Renaissance include
Romare Bearden
Romare Bearden (September 2, 1911 – March 12, 1988) was an American artist, author, and songwriter. He worked with many types of media including cartoons, oils, and collages. Born in Charlotte, North Carolina, Bearden grew up in New York City a ...
,
Jacob Lawrence
Jacob Armstead Lawrence (September 7, 1917 – June 9, 2000) was an American painter known for his portrayal of African-American historical subjects and contemporary life. Lawrence referred to his style as "dynamic cubism", although by his own ...
,
Charles Alston
Charles Henry Alston (November 28, 1907 – April 27, 1977) was an American painter, sculptor, illustrator, muralist and teacher who lived and worked in the New York City neighborhood of Harlem. Alston was active in the Harlem Renaissance; A ...
,
Augusta Savage,
Archibald Motley
Archibald John Motley, Jr. (October 7, 1891 – January 16, 1981), was an American visual artist. He studied painting at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago during the 1910s, graduating in 1918. Motley is most famous for his colorful chroni ...
,
Lois Mailou Jones
Lois Mailou Jones (1905-1998) was an artist and educator. Her work can be found in the collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, the Brooklyn Museum, the Museum o ...
,
Palmer Hayden and
Sargent Johnson
Sargent Claude Johnson (October 7, 1888 – October 10, 1967) was one of the first African-American artists working in California to achieve a national reputation. .
New Deal art (1930s)
![People-of-Chilmark-Benton-1920-lrg](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/55/People-of-Chilmark-Benton-1920-lrg.jpg)
When the
Great Depression worsened, president
Roosevelt's New Deal created several public arts programs. The purpose of the programs was to give work to artists and decorate public buildings, usually with a national theme. The first of these projects, the
Public Works of Art Project
The Public Works of Art Project (PWAP) was a New Deal program designed to employ artists that operated from 1933 to 1934. The program was headed by Edward Bruce, under the United States Treasury Department with funding from the Civil Works Admin ...
(PWAP), was created after successful lobbying by the unemployed artists of the
Artists Union
The Artists Union or Artists' Union was a short-lived union of artists in New York City in the years of the Great Depression. It was influential in the establishment of both the Public Works of Art Project in December 1933 and the Federal Art Pr ...
. The PWAP lasted less than one year, and produced nearly 15,000 works of art. It was followed by the
Federal Art Project
The Federal Art Project (1935–1943) was a New Deal program to fund the visual arts in the United States. Under national director Holger Cahill, it was one of five Federal Project Number One projects sponsored by the Works Progress Administrati ...
of the
Works Progress Administration
The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, i ...
(FAP/WPA) in 1935, which funded some of the most well-known
American artists
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
.
[Eric Arnesen, ed. ''Encyclopedia of U.S. labor and working-class history'' (2007) vol. 1 p. 1540]
The style of much of the public art commissioned by the WPA was influenced by the work of
Diego Rivera
Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez, known as Diego Rivera (; December 8, 1886 – November 24, 1957), was a prominent Mexican painter. His large frescoes helped establish the ...
and other artists of the contemporary
Mexican muralism movement. Several separate and related movements began and developed during the
Great Depression including
American scene painting,
Regionalism, and
Social Realism
Social realism is the term used for work produced by painters, printmakers, photographers, writers and filmmakers that aims to draw attention to the real socio-political conditions of the working class as a means to critique the power structure ...
. Thomas Hart Benton (painter), Thomas Hart Benton, John Steuart Curry,
Grant Wood, Maxine Albro, Ben Shahn, Joseph Stella,
Reginald Marsh, Isaac Soyer, Raphael Soyer, Spencer Baird Nichols and Jack Levine were some of the best-known artists.
Not all of the artists who emerged in the years between the wars were Regionalists or Social Realists; Milton Avery's paintings, often nearly abstract, had a significant influence on several of the younger artists who would soon become known as Abstract Expressionists. Joseph Cornell, inspired by Surrealism, created boxed assemblages incorporating found objects and collage.
Abstract expressionism
In the years after World War II, a group of New York artists formed the first American movement to exert major influence internationally: abstract expressionism.
This term, which had first been used in 1919 in Berlin, was used again in 1946 by Robert Coates (critic), Robert Coates in ''The New York Times'', and was taken up by the two major art critics of that time, Harold Rosenberg and Clement Greenberg. It has always been criticized as too large and paradoxical, yet the common definition implies the use of abstract art to express feelings, emotions, what is within the artist, and not what stands without.
The first generation of abstract expressionists included Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, Franz Kline, Arshile Gorky, Robert Motherwell, Clyfford Still, Barnett Newman, Adolph Gottlieb, Phillip Guston, Ad Reinhardt, James Brooks (painter), James Brooks, Richard Pousette-Dart, William Baziotes, Mark Tobey, Bradley Walker Tomlin, Theodoros Stamos, Jack Tworkov, Wilhelmina Weber Furlong, David Smith (sculptor), David Smith, and Hans Hofmann, among others. Milton Avery, Lee Krasner, Louise Bourgeois, Alexander Calder, Tony Smith (sculptor), Tony Smith, Morris Graves and others were also related, important and influential artists during that period.
Though the numerous artists encompassed by this label had widely different styles, contemporary critics found several common points between them. Gorky, Pollock, de Kooning, Kline, Hofmann, Motherwell, Gottlieb, Rothko, Still, Guston, and others were an American painters associated with the Abstract expressionism, abstract expressionist movement and in most cases Action painting (as seen in Kline's ''Painting Number 2'', 1954); as part of the New York School (art), New York School in the 1940s and 1950s.
Many first generation abstract expressionists were influenced both by the Cubists' works (which they knew from photographs in art reviews and by seeing the works at the 291 Gallery or the Armory Show), by the European Surrealists, and by Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró and Henri Matisse as well as the Americans Milton Avery, John D. Graham, and Hans Hofmann. Most of them abandoned formal composition and representation of real objects. Often the abstract expressionists decided to try instinctual, intuitive, spontaneous arrangements of space, line, shape and color. Abstract Expressionism can be characterized by two major elements: the large size of the canvases used (partially inspired by Mexican frescoes and the works they made for the Works Progress Administration, WPA in the 1930s), and the strong and unusual use of brushstrokes and experimental paint application with a new understanding of process.
Color Field painting
The emphasis and intensification of color and large open expanses of surface were two of the principles applied to the movement called Color Field painting. Ad Reinhardt, Adolph Gottlieb, Mark Rothko, Clyfford Still and Barnett Newman were categorized as such. Another movement was called Action Painting, characterized by spontaneous reaction, powerful brushstrokes, dripped and splashed paint and the strong physical movements used in the production of a painting. Jackson Pollock is an example of an Action Painter: his ''creative process'', incorporating thrown and dripped paint from a stick or poured directly from the can, revolutionized painting methods.
Willem de Kooning famously said about Pollock "he broke the ice for the rest of us." Ironically Pollock's large repetitious expanses of linear fields are characteristic of Color Field painting as well, as art critic Michael Fried wrote in his essay for the catalog of ''Three American painters: Kenneth Noland, Jules Olitski, Frank Stella'' at the Fogg Art Museum in 1965.
Despite the disagreements between art critics, Abstract Expressionism marks a turning-point in the history of American art: the 1940s and 1950s saw international attention shift from European (Parisian) art, to American (New York) art.
Color field painting continued as a movement in the 1960s, as Morris Louis, Jules Olitski, Kenneth Noland, Gene Davis (painter), Gene Davis, Helen Frankenthaler, and others sought to make paintings which would eliminate superfluous rhetoric with repetition, stripes and large, flat areas of color.
After abstract expressionism
During the 1950s abstract painting in America evolved into movements such as Neo-Dada, Post painterly abstraction, Op Art, hard-edge painting, Minimal art, Shaped canvas painting, Lyrical Abstraction, and the continuation of Abstract expressionism. As a response to the tendency toward abstraction imagery emerged through various new movements like Pop Art, the Bay Area Figurative Movement and later in the 1970s Neo-expressionism.
Lyrical Abstraction along with the Fluxus movement and Postminimalism (a term first coined by Robert Pincus-Witten in the pages of ''Artforum'' in 1969)
[''Movers and Shakers, New York'', "Leaving C&M", by Sarah Douglas, Art & Auction, Art+Auction, March 2007, V.XXXNo7.] sought to expand the boundaries of abstract painting and Minimalism by focusing on process, new materials and new ways of expression. Postminimalism often incorporating industrial materials, raw materials, fabrications, found objects, installation, serial repetition, and often with references to Dada and Surrealism is best exemplified in the sculptures of Eva Hesse.
Lyrical Abstraction, Conceptual Art, Postminimalism, Earth Art, Video, Performance art, Installation art, along with the continuation of Fluxus, Abstract Expressionism, Color Field Painting, Hard-edge painting, Minimal Art, Op art, Pop Art, Photorealism and New Realism extended the boundaries of Contemporary Art in the mid-1960s through the 1970s.
Lyrical Abstraction shares similarities with Color Field Painting and Abstract Expressionism, especially in the freewheeling usage of paint texture and surface. Direct drawing, calligraphic use of line, the effects of brushed, splattered, stained, squeegeed, poured, and splashed paint superficially resemble the effects seen in Abstract Expressionism and Color Field Painting. However the styles are markedly different.
[Aldrich, Larry. Young Lyrical Painters, Art in America, v.57, n6, November–December 1969, pp.104–113.]Thomas B. Hess on Larry Aldrich
Retrieved June 10, 2010
During the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s painters as powerful and influential as Adolph Gottlieb, Phillip Guston, Lee Krasner, Cy Twombly, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Richard Diebenkorn, Josef Albers, Elmer Bischoff, Agnes Martin, Al Held, Sam Francis, Kenneth Noland, Jules Olitski, Ellsworth Kelly, Morris Louis, Gene Davis (painter), Gene Davis, Frank Stella, Joan Mitchell, Friedel Dzubas, Paul Jenkins (painter), Paul Jenkins and younger artists like Brice Marden, Robert Mangold, Sam Gilliam, Sean Scully, Elizabeth Murray (born 1940), Elizabeth Murray, Walter Darby Bannard, Larry Zox, Ronnie Landfield, Ronald Davis, Dan Christensen, Susan Rothenberg, Ross Bleckner, Richard Tuttle, Julian Schnabel, Peter Halley, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Eric Fischl and dozens of others produced vital and influential paintings.
Other modern American movements
Members of the next artistic generation favored a different form of abstraction: works of mixed media. Among them were Robert Rauschenberg (1925–2008) and Jasper Johns (1930- ), who used photos, newsprint, and discarded objects in their compositions. Pop artists, such as Andy Warhol (1928–1987), Larry Rivers (1923–2002), and Roy Lichtenstein (1923–1997), reproduced, with satiric care, everyday objects and images of American popular culture—Coca-Cola bottles, soup cans, comic strips.
Realism has also been continually popular in the United States, despite modernism's impact; the realist tendency is evident in the city scenes of Edward Hopper
Edward Hopper (July 22, 1882 – May 15, 1967) was an American realist painter and printmaker. While he is widely known for his oil paintings, he was equally proficient as a watercolorist and printmaker in etching.
Hopper created subdued drama ...
, the rural imagery of Andrew Wyeth, and the illustrations of Norman Rockwell. In certain places Abstract Expressionism never caught on; for example, in Chicago, the dominant art style was grotesque, symbolic realism, as exemplified by the Chicago Imagists Cosmo Campoli (1923–1997), Jim Nutt (1938- ), Ed Paschke (1939–2004), and Nancy Spero (1926–2009).
Contemporary art into the 21st century
At the beginning of the 21st century, contemporary art in the United States in general continues in several contiguous modes, characterized by the idea of Cultural pluralism. The "crisis" in painting and current art and current art criticism today is brought about by pluralism. There is no consensus, nor need there be, as to a representative style of the age. There is an ''anything goes'' attitude that prevails; an "everything going on" syndrome; with no firm and clear direction and yet with every lane on the artistic superhighway filled to capacity. Consequently, magnificent and important works of art continue to be made in the United States albeit in a wide variety of styles and aesthetic temperaments, the marketplace being left to judge merit.
Hard-edge painting, Geometric abstraction, Appropriation (art), Appropriation, Hyperrealism, Photorealism, Expressionism, Minimalism, Lyrical Abstraction, Pop art, Op art, Abstract Expressionism, Color Field painting, Monochrome painting, Neo-expressionism, Collage, Intermedia painting, Assemblage (art), Assemblage painting, Digital painting, Postmodern painting, Neo-Dada painting, Shaped canvas painting, environmental mural painting, Graffiti, traditional figure painting, Landscape painting, Portrait painting, are a few continuing and current directions in painting at the beginning of the 21st century.
Notable figures
A few American artists
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
of note include: Ansel Adams, John James Audubon, Milton Avery, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Thomas Hart Benton (painter), Thomas Hart Benton, Albert Bierstadt
Albert Bierstadt (January 7, 1830 – February 18, 1902) was a German-American painter best known for his lavish, sweeping landscapes of the American West. He joined several journeys of the Westward Expansion to paint the scenes. He was not ...
, Alexander Calder, Mary Cassatt
Mary Stevenson Cassatt (; May 22, 1844June 14, 1926) was an American painter and printmaker. She was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania (now part of Pittsburgh's North Side), but lived much of her adult life in France, where she befriended Edgar De ...
, Frederic Edwin Church, Chuck Close, Thomas Cole
Thomas Cole was an English-born American artist and the founder of the Hudson River School art movement. Cole is widely regarded as the first significant American landscape painter. He was known for his romantic landscape and history painti ...
, Robert Crumb, Edward S. Curtis
Edward Sherriff Curtis (February 19, 1868 – October 19, 1952) was an American photographer and ethnologist whose work focused on the American West and on Native American people. Sometimes referred to as the "Shadow Catcher", Curtis travele ...
, Richard Diebenkorn, Thomas Eakins
Thomas Cowperthwait Eakins (; July 25, 1844 – June 25, 1916) was an American realist painter, photographer, sculptor, and fine arts educator. He is widely acknowledged to be one of the most important American artists.
For the length ...
, Jules Feiffer, Lyonel Feininger, Helen Frankenthaler, Arshile Gorky, Keith Haring, Marsden Hartley
Marsden Hartley (January 4, 1877 – September 2, 1943) was an American Modernist painter, poet, and essayist. Hartley developed his painting abilities by observing Cubist artists in Paris and Berlin.
Early life and education
Hartley was born ...
, Al Hirschfeld, Hans Hofmann, Winslow Homer
Winslow Homer (February 24, 1836 – September 29, 1910) was an American landscape painter and illustrator, best known for his marine subjects. He is considered one of the foremost painters in 19th-century America and a preeminent figure in ...
, Edward Hopper
Edward Hopper (July 22, 1882 – May 15, 1967) was an American realist painter and printmaker. While he is widely known for his oil paintings, he was equally proficient as a watercolorist and printmaker in etching.
Hopper created subdued drama ...
, Jasper Johns, Georgia O'Keeffe
Georgia Totto O'Keeffe (November 15, 1887 – March 6, 1986) was an American modernist artist. She was known for her paintings of enlarged flowers, New York skyscrapers, and New Mexico landscapes. O'Keeffe has been called the "Mother of Ame ...
, Jack Kirby, Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning, Lee Krasner, Dorothea Lange, Roy Lichtenstein, Morris Louis, John Marin, Agnes Martin, Joan Mitchell, Anna Mary Robertson Moses, Grandma Moses, Robert Motherwell, Nampeyo, Kenneth Noland, Jackson Pollock, Man Ray, Robert Rauschenberg, Frederic Remington
Frederic Sackrider Remington (October 4, 1861 – December 26, 1909) was an American painter, illustrator, sculptor, and writer who specialized in the genre of Western American Art. His works are known for depicting the Western United Stat ...
, Norman Rockwell, Mark Rothko, Albert Pinkham Ryder
Albert Pinkham Ryder (March 19, 1847 – March 28, 1917) was an American painter best known for his poetic and moody allegorical works and seascapes, as well as his eccentric personality. While his art shared an emphasis on subtle variations of ...
, John Singer Sargent, Cindy Sherman, David Smith (artist), David Smith, Frank Stella, Clyfford Still, Gilbert Stuart, Louis Comfort Tiffany, Cy Twombly, Andy Warhol, Grant Wood, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Andrew Wyeth.
See also
*Aesthetics
*Architecture of United States
*Art education in the United States
*Cinema of the United States
*History of painting
*Ledger art
*:Modern art museums in the United States, Modern art museums in the United States
*:Museums of American art, Museums of American art
*National Museum of the American Indian
*:Native American museums in New York (state), Native American museums in New York
*Photography in the United States of America
*Sculpture of the United States
*Synchromism
*Timeline of Native American art history
*Visual arts of Chicago
*Western painting
*Australian art
*Minimalism (visual arts), Minimal art
References
Sources
*
*Avery, Kevin J
''Late Eighteenth-Century American Drawings''
The Metropolitan Museum Of Art. 2000-2011 The Metropolitan Museum Of Art
*Bernet, Claus; Nothnagle, Alan L.: Christliche Kunst aus den USA, Norderstedt 2015, .
*Mayer, Lance and Myers, Gay
''American Painters on Technique: The Colonial Period to 1860''
Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2011.
*Mayer, Lance and Myers, Gay
''American Painters on Technique: 1860-1945''
Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2013.
*Pohl, Frances K
''A Social History of American Art.'' New York: Thames & Hudson, 2002 (pages 74–84, 118–122, 366–365, 385, 343–344, 350–351)
*
External links
*
American Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art
', a fully digitized 3 volume exhibition catalog
teaching resource on history of American painting
{{DEFAULTSORT:Visual Arts Of The United States
Articles containing video clips
Visual arts in the United States,