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By
1776 the fine art of painting as it had developed in western Europe up to
this
time
had been introduced into the American colonies though books and prints,
European
visitors and immigrants, and traveling colonists who brought back copies
(and
a few original) of old master paintings and acquaintance with European art
(5)
institutions.
By
the outbreak of the Revolution against British rule in 1776, the status of
the
artists
had already undergone change. In the mid-eighteenth century, painters had
been
willing
to assume such artisan-related tasks as varnishing, gilding teaching,
keeping
shops,
and painting wheel carriages, houses, and signs. The terminology by which
(10)
artists were described at the time suggests their status:
"limner" was usually applied to
the
anonymous portrait painter up to the 1760's: "painter"
characterized anyone who
could
paint a flat surface. By the second half of the century, colonial artists
who were
trained
in England or educated in the classics rejected the status of laborer and
thought
of
themselves as artists. Some colonial urban portraitists, such as John
Singleton
Copley,
(15)
Benjamin West, and Charles Wilson Peale, consorted with affluent patrons.
Although
subject
to fluctuations in their economic status, all three enjoyed sufficient
patronage to
allow
them to maintain an image of themselves as professional artists, an image
indicated
by their custom of signing their paintings. A few art collectors James
Bowdoin
III of Boston, William Byrd of Virginian, and the Aliens and Hamiltons of
(20)
Philadelphia introduced European art traditions to those colonists
privileged to visit
their
galleries, especially aspiring artists, and established in their respective
communities
the idea of the value of art and the need for institutions devoted to its
encouragement.
Although
the colonists tended to favor portraits, they also accepted landscapes,
(25)
historical works, and political engravings as appropriate artistic subjects.
With the
coming
of independence from the British Crown, a sufficient number of artists and
their
works
were available to serve nationalistic purposes. The achievements of the
colonial
artists,
particularly those of Copley, West, and Peale, lent credence to the boast
that the
new
nation was capable of encouraging genius and that political liberty was
congenial
to
the development of taste-a necessary step before art could assume an
important role
in
the new republic.
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