Gilbert Stuart (1755-1828) was the best portrait-painter of all the
early men, and his work holds very high rank even in the schools of to-day. He
was one of the first in American art-history to show skilful accuracy of the
brush, a good knowledge of color, and some artistic sense of dignity and
carriage in the sitter. He was not always a good draughtsman, and he had a
manner of laying on pure colors without blending them that sometimes produced
sharpness in modelling; but as a general rule he painted a portrait with force
and with truth. He was a pupil of Alexander, a Scotchman, and afterward an
assistant to West. He settled in Boston, and during his life painted most of the
great men of his time, including Washington.
Single Piece Paintigns
FIG. 104.—W. M. HUNT. LUTE
PLAYER.
Vanderlyn (1776-1852) met with adversity all his life long, and
perhaps never expressed himself fully. He was a pupil of Stuart, studied in
Paris and Italy, and his associations with Aaron Burr made him quite as famous
as his pictures.
Washington Allston (1779-1843) was a painter whom the
Bostonians have ranked high in their art-history, but he hardly deserved such
position. Intellectually he was a man of lofty and poetic aspirations,
decorative painting, but as an
artist he never had the painter's sense or the painter's skill. He was an
aspiration rather than a consummation. He cherished notions about ideals, dealt
in imaginative allegories, and failed to observe the pictorial character of the
world about him. As a result of this, and poor artistic training, his art had
too little basis on nature, though it was very often satisfactory as decoration.
Rembrandt Peale(1787-1860),
oil paintings on canvas for sale, like his father, was a painter of Washington
portraits of mediocre quality.
Jarvis (1780-1834) and
Sully
(1783-1872) were both British born, but their work belongs here in America,
where most of their days were spent. Sully could paint a very good portrait
occasionally, though he always inclined toward the weak and the sentimental,
especially in
his portraits of women.
Leslie (1794-1859) and
Newton (1795-1835)
were Americans, but, like West and Copley, they belong in their art more to
England than to America. In all the early American painting the British
influence may be traced, with sometimes an inclination to follow Italy in large
compositions.
canvas paintings for sale
THE MIDDLE PERIOD in American art dates from 1825 to about 1878.
During that time, something distinctly American began to appear in the landscape
work of
Doughty (1793-1856) and
Thomas Cole (1801-1848). Both men
were substantially self-taught, though Cole received some instruction from a
portrait-painter named Stein. Cole during his life was famous for his Hudson
River landscapes, and for two series of pictures called The Voyage of Life and
The Course of Empire. The latter were really epic poems upon canvas,
art oil painting for sale, done with
much blare of color and literary explanation in the title. His best work was in
pure landscape, which he pictured with considerable accuracy in drawing, though
it was faulty in lighting and gaudy in coloring. Brilliant autumn scenes were
his favorite subjects. His work had the merit of originality and, moreover, it
must be remembered that Cole was one of the beginners in American landscape art.
Durand (1796-1886) was an engraver until 1835,
art oil paintings online, when he began painting
portraits, and afterward developed landscape with considerable power. He was
usually simple in subject and realistic in treatment, with not so much
insistence upon brilliant color as some of his contemporaries.
Kensett
(1818-1872) was a follower in landscape of the so-called Hudson River School of
Cole and others, though he studied seven years in Europe. His color was rather
warm, his air hazy, and the general effect of his landscape that of a dreamy
autumn day with poetic suggestions.
F. E. Church(1826-[A]) was a pupil of
Cole,
modern abstract art oil painting, and has followed him in seeking the grand and the startling in mountain
scenery. With Church should be mentioned a number of artists—
Hubbard (1817-1888),
Hill (1829-,)
Bierstadt (1830-),
Thomas Moran (1837-)—who have achieved reputation by canvases of the
Rocky Mountains and other expansive scenes. Some other painters of smaller
canvases belong in point of time, and also in spirit, with the Hudson River
landscapists—painters, too, of considerable merit, as
David Johnson
(1827-),
Bristol (1826-),
Sandford Gifford (1823-1880),
McEntee(1828-1891), and
Whittredge (1820-), the last two very good
portrayers of autumn scenes;
A. H. Wyant (1836-1892), one of the best and
strongest of the American landscapists;
Bradford (1830-1892) and
W. T.
Richards (1833-), the marine-painters.
modern oil paintings of flowers
