Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827)

Sources

Artist

Artist of the Revolution. Charles Willson Peale used his art to further the cause of the American Revolution and to further his goal of making American art accessible to all people rather than the wealthy few.

Early Life. Born in Queen Anne’s County, Maryland, Charles Willson Peale started out as a saddler before becoming an itinerant artist. Peale received formal artistic training in 1767, when he traveled to London and studied with painter Benjamin West. After returning to the colonies in 1769 he soon achieved success as a leading portrait painter. In 1772 he painted one of his best-known works, the first portrait of George Washington. With the outbreak of the Revolution, Peale eagerly took part in the revolutionary cause. He volunteered for the militia in August 1776 and participated actively in revolutionary politics, serving on various government committees in Philadelphia between 1777 and 1780. Peale also expressed his revolutionary sympathies in his art, turning his paintings into propaganda for the revolutionary cause.

Public Art. Peale’s patriotic employment of his talents was consistent with his concept of “public art,” which he believed should serve and be supported by the public. He advocated government subsidies for artists as an alternative to the traditional reliance on the patronage of wealthy individuals. In keeping with this ideal, Peale requested and received government support to construct a triumphal arch in Philadelphia for a celebration of the Treaty of Paris in January 1784. This structure consisted of three arches adorned with Ionic columns and transparent panels depicting a wide variety of scenes appropriate to the occasion, ranging from Washington as the American Cincinnatus to a figure representing “Confederated America.” Illuminating the panels would be more than one thousand lamps. Just before the celebration, however, a rocket placed too close to the paintings set fire to them and burned them all. Although Peale was paid to re-create the arch, the fate of this project foreshadowed the later disappointment of hopes for “public art.”

Moving Pictures. Peale’s desire to combine patriotism and profit by creating art with both aesthetic value and popular appeal intensified in the years after the Revolution. One attempt to fulfill this goal was the exhibition of “moving pictures” he opened in Philadelphia in 1785. Using special machinery and lighting in combination with transparent pictures of scenes from history, nature, and literature, Peale was able to create the illusion of movement. He hoped that such innovations would attract a mass audience for his art not only from a desire for personal profit but also as a means to reconcile art with republican ideals. By exposing the people to the arts, Peale hoped to refute the traditional association between artistic development and social decay and establish a place for art in a republican culture. If the goal could be achieved it could free artists from their traditional dependence on wealthy patrons. Peale’s “moving pictures” failed to live up to these expectations, however. After a successful start public interest in the exhibition waned, and Peale closed it in 1787.

Later Life. Peale turned his attention to the natural world and focused on a museum of natural history that he had founded the year before. Even the names of his children reflected this change of emphasis. Peale named his four oldest sons after artists—Raphaelle, Rembrandt, Titian, Rubens, and Vandyke—but the names of his next two sons—Charles Linnaeus and Benjamin Franklin—recognized men who had made achievements in the sciences. Increasingly absorbed by his work for his natural-history museum, Peale declared his retirement from painting on 24 April 1794, hoping to clear the field for his sons Raphaelle and Rembrandt, who had become artists themselves. Yet Peale did not abandon art altogether. He continued to promote American artistic development and took the lead in establishing the Columbianum, a fine-arts academy founded by and for artists. Peale hoped this academy would promote the instruction and professional advancement of artists of all sorts, but, weakened by internal divisions from the start, the Columbianum did not long survive its first exhibition in 1795. In 1804 Peale returned to painting and continued to be active until his death in 1827.

Sources

Joseph J. Ellis, After the Revolution: Profiles of Early American Culture (New York: Norton, 1979);

Edgar P. Richardson, Brooke Hindle, and Lillian B. Miller, Charles Willson Peale and His World (New York: Abrams, 1983);

Charles Coleman Sellers, Charles Willson Peale (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1947).