John Banvard (November 15, 1815 – May 16, 1891) was a panorama and

portrait painter Portrait Painting is a genre in painting, where the intent is to represent a specific human subject. The term 'portrait painting' can also describe the actual painted portrait. Portraitists may create their work by commission, for public and pr ...

known for his panoramic views of the

Mississippi River Valley The Mississippi embayment is a physiographic feature in the south-central United States, part of the Mississippi Alluvial Plain. It is essentially a northward continuation of the fluvial sediments of the Mississippi River Delta to its conflu ...

. He was a pioneer in moving

panoramic painting Panoramic paintings are massive artworks that reveal a wide, all-encompassing view of a particular subject, often a landscape, military battle, or historical event. They became especially popular in the 19th century in Europe and the United St ...

Biography

John Banvard was born in New York and was educated in high school. When his father went bankrupt, he began to travel around the United States, and supported himself with paintings he exhibited. 1847 Mississippi byBanvard AmoryHall Boston detail2

1847 Mississippi byBanvard AmoryHall Boston detail2

In 1840 he began to paint large panoramas of the whole

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it f ...

valley. He traveled through the area in a boat, made preliminary drawings and supported himself with paintings and hunting. He combined the preliminary sketches and transferred them to a

canvas Canvas is an extremely durable plain-woven fabric used for making sails, tents, marquees, backpacks, shelters, as a support for oil painting and for other items for which sturdiness is required, as well as in such fashion objects as handbags ...

in a building erected for this purpose in

Louisville, Kentucky Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border ...

. His largest panorama began as 12 feet (3,6 m) high and 1300 feet (369 m) long and was eventually expanded to about half a mile (about 800 meters) although it was advertised as a "three-mile canvas". It toured around the nation, and was eventually cut up into hundreds of pieces, none of which still exist today. 1849 JohnBanvard WindsorCastle

Scientific American ''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it i ...

'' magazine published a piece under "New Inventions" in its issue of December 16, 1848, describing and illustrating Banvard's mechanism for displaying a

moving panorama The moving panorama was an innovation on panoramic painting in the mid-nineteenth century. It was among the most popular forms of entertainment in the world, with hundreds of panoramas constantly on tour in the United Kingdom, the United States, a ...

. He premiered his panorama of the Mississippi in Boston in December, 1846. After a run of nearly a year, he took the production to New York City and then to Europe, Asia and Africa and even gave

Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until Death and state funeral of Queen Victoria, her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 21 ...

private view A private view is a special viewing of an exhibition by invitation only, often an art exhibition and normally a preview at the start of a public exhibition.Alice-Azania JarvisHow to behave at a private view... ''The Independent, 10 October 2008. ...

ing. His portrait was painted in 1849 by the English artist

Anna Mary Howitt Anna Mary Howitt, Mrs Watts (15 January 1824 – 23 July 1884) was an English Pre-Raphaelite painter, writer, feminist and spiritualist. Following a health crisis in 1856, she ceased exhibiting professionally and became a pioneering drawing med ...

. During his travels he also painted panoramas in

Palestine __NOTOC__ Palestine may refer to: * State of Palestine, a state in Western Asia * Palestine (region), a geographic region in Western Asia * Palestinian territories, territories occupied by Israel since 1967, namely the West Bank (including East ...

and the

Nile River Valley The Nile, , Bohairic , lg, Kiira , Nobiin: Áman Dawū is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile is the longest river in Africa and has historically been considered the longest rive ...

. Banvard had a rivalry with panorama performers John Rowson Smith and

Richard Risley Carlisle Richard Risley Carlisle (1814–1874) was an American gymnast and acrobat who often performed as Professor Risley. He is known for developing a circus act of juggling with the feet known as the Risley act. An inveterate traveler to Europe, Aus ...

. Banvard called them imitators and "unprincipled persons". They in turn referred to the "crude efforts of the uncultivated artist" Banvard. Banvard suggested that Smith and Carlisle's panorama was actually painted by

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 United States, Native Americans in the Old West. Traveling to the We ...

, who had copied the image after his own panorama. On his return he invested part of the fortune he had made in overlooking Cold Spring Harbor on the

North Shore of Long Island The North Shore of Long Island is the area along the northern coast of New York's Long Island bordering Long Island Sound. Known for its extreme wealth and lavish estates, the North Shore exploded into affluence at the turn of the 20th centur ...

, where in 1852-55, in competition with

P. T. Barnum Phineas Taylor Barnum (; July 5, 1810 – April 7, 1891) was an American showman, businessman, and politician, remembered for promoting celebrated hoaxes and founding the Barnum & Bailey Circus (1871–2017) with James Anthony Bailey. He was ...

's palace "

Iranistan Iranistan was a Moorish Revival mansion in Bridgeport, Connecticut commissioned by P. T. Barnum in 1848. It was designed by Bohemian-American architect Leopold Eidlitz. At this "beautiful country seat"

" in

Bridgeport, Connecticut Bridgeport is the List of municipalities in Connecticut, most populous city and a major port in the U.S. state of Connecticut. With a population of 148,654 in 2020, it is also the List of cities by population in New England, fifth-most populous ...

, he proceeded to design and have built a baronial residence from its eastern shore, which, it was given out, was intended to resemble

Windsor Castle Windsor Castle is a royal residence at Windsor in the English county of Berkshire. It is strongly associated with the English and succeeding British royal family, and embodies almost a millennium of architectural history. The original cast ...

; he named the place Glenada, the glen of his daughter Ada, but the locals called it "Banvard's Folly". After his death it became a fashionable resort hotel, The Glenada. In 1875, he published in the U.S.A. a book "The Private Life of a King" which in large parts was plagiarised from one published some years earlier in the U.K. During World War II, a

Liberty ship Liberty ships were a class of cargo ship built in the United States during World War II under the Emergency Shipbuilding Program. Though British in concept, the design was adopted by the United States for its simple, low-cost construction. Mass ...

was named the S.S. ''John Banvard''. The Brooklyn-based history band Pinataland recorded a song about Banvard's travails for their 2008 album "Songs for the Forgotten Future Vol. 2". In 2016, a new musical entitled ''Georama: An American Panorama Told on Three Miles of Canvas'' premiered at the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis. The musical tells Banvard's life story through his rise and fall as an artist, his conflict with

PT Barnum Phineas Taylor Barnum (; July 5, 1810 – April 7, 1891) was an American showman, businessman, and politician, remembered for promoting celebrated hoaxes and founding the Barnum & Bailey Circus (1871–2017) with James Anthony Bailey. He was ...

and love for his wife Elizabeth. Georama was written by West Hyler, Matt Schatz, and Jack Herrick. It premiered in 2017 on August 2 through 6th at

New York Musical Theatre Festival The New York Musical Festival (NYMF) was an annual three-week summer festival that operated from 2004 to 2019. It presented more than 30 new musicals a year in New York City's midtown theater district. More than half were chosen by leading theate ...

, and starred PJ Griffith, Jillian Louis, Randy Blair, and Nick Sullivan.

Biography

See also

References

Further reading