American Art

But, as Baigell notes, Stuart was a Federalist who did not approve on the growing status of Thomas Jefferson and his more democratic ideals. The Vaughan Portrait also reflects, therefore, "the mood on the Federalist hierarchy, fearful of runaway populism . . . and anxious to fix a national image in the minds of People in america to counter endemic localism" (Baigell 36-37).

But Jefferson himself was the leading architect on the period and could express his ideas via his own designs for personal and public buildings. Right after the War of Independence Jefferson became ambassador to France wherever he was introduced towards the new Neoclassical style that took ancient Rome and Greece as its inspirations and fulfilled Jefferson's "search for an architecture which would symbolize the values on the newly established republic" (Watkin 369). His first public building was the Virginia Region Capitol (1785-99) in Richmond. The building, with its tall columns and triangular pediment, was based directly on the Maison CarrTe, "a superbly preserved Roman Republican temple" located in Nimes, France (Pierson 295). For Jefferson the Neoclassical style had a lot to supply in terms of symbolism. First, it was a complete departure from British styles. Second, it referred to European cultural roots with out referring for the dreaded monarchies of France and England. Finally it referred on the supposed freedoms and repr

 

Jefferson was a very good architect who had the opportunity to find out the art of Europe. But those who could not go to Britain, France or Italy discovered it difficult to develop a style that was grand and sophisticated ample for your new nation's pride. William Rush, for example, trained like a carver of figureheads for ships. Close to 1800 he changed direction from "an artisan working inside vernacular tradition to a sculptor aware of international styles" (Baigell 65). He made numerous statues for public buildings for instance his Justice (1824), which was carved to your monument honoring the visit from the French general Lafayette, a hero of the War of Independence. The statue was a local item intended to aid the government's effort to impress visiting Europeans. It was not terribly poor work, but Rush's art "never lost its artisanal stiffness" and it's clear from the sharpness of the lines that it was in accordance with observation of linear depictions of statues in books rather than the true issue (Baigell 65). It "would take in another generation of sculptors" to build really American work that could compete with Europe (Baigell 65).

esentative government from the ancient Roman Republic.

The bust of Jackson served the particular political functionality of presenting the populist general transformed into a president and leader. But one of the most artistically successful type of classical borrowing continued to be architectural. In the new nation's capital structures such as Robert Mills' Treasury Building (1836-42) continued Jefferson's interest during the Neoclassical style. This was an architecture that continued to express power and freedom simultaneously. Mills, who was in charge of Washington's buildings, drew on Greek and Roman architecture but produced his "porticoed and colonnaded buildings" on a huge scale that "immediately gave Washington.

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