American Cultural History

Mr. Jardines

I. The Colonial Period

• Art was limited and relatively non-existent.• Few Puritan paintings exist, mainly portraits• Puritan and Quaker religious authority rejected art because of

their opposition to the glamour and opulence of the Anglican and Catholic churches.

“Old Ship Meeting House”

• The oldest Puritan church in America

(Hingham, Mass)

Virginia Colony

• 1642 Strict social hierarchy because of new Gov. Sir William Berkley, who brought the social elite to Jamestown.

• Tobacco = cash crop profits• Art was limited because it was expensive and

social stigma (American art did not compare to English art)

• Social elite saw no value in educating the lower classes. Why did the need it?

Colonial Art• No art of value except for portraits of the social elite.

• c. 1671 Original painting: Unidentified artist, seventeenth century, Elizabeth Clarke Freake (Mrs. John Freake) and Baby Mary (New England)

II. The Republic Period (late 18c)

• Influenced by the Western frontier, Mississippi region.

• Main artists:• John Singleton Copley (1738 – 1815)• Benjamin West (1738 – 1820)• Gilbert Stuart (1755 -1828)• John Trumbull (1756 – 1843)• Charles Wilson Peale (1741 – 1827)

John Singleton Copley

Paul Revere Samuel Adams

Benjamin West

• Self Portrait William Penn’s Treaty with the Indians

Gilbert Stuart

Martha George

John Trumbull

Alexander The Declaration of Hamilton Independence

Charles Wilson Peale Charles Willson Peale's 1819 portrait of Yarrow Mamount is one of the rare portraits of African

Americans in the early 1800s. When they met Peale found Mamount, who claimed to be 134 years old, still "healthy, active and full of fun."

Thomas Jefferson