Page 49 - Studio International - September 1968

it merited. This inhibited the creation of an well cared for. If they flatter at all, if they produce are usually surrounded by religious verses and
American tradition. Richer Americans bought their `custom-made' pictures, it is usually of children, quotations, and look like embroidery.
pictures in Europe; if they wanted portraits they since all parents need reassurance of their breeding Benjamin West (1738-1820), a near contem-
made another trip across the Atlantic, often superiority. What they all seem to possess is supreme porary of Hicks, is represented by a painting of
employing émigré Americans—Benjamin West, confidence; these simple men, in their ignorance, Sarah Ursula Rose done in 1756, a reminder of his
Copley, later Sargent and Whistler. The pattern are not worried by perspective, proportion, or even `primitive' origins, before he went to Rome.
virtually lasted until the beginning of this century. gravity. This, perhaps, is the true 'naivety' of their Even in the case where little is known of the artist,
Thus the home based 'primitive', or to use a more art, shared with later untrained painters delight- it is usually possible to suggest, from his subjects,
precise word 'itinerant' artist, created the first fully unaware of the incongruities they depict— the states in which he worked—John Durward
American tradition, home-baked and second-rate at that is, until becoming aware of our sophisticated active in Connecticut and Virginia 1766 to 1782,
the time, but now far more authentic socially and pleasure they pamper it. Beware of such naives! Ruben Moulthrop (1763-1814) in the State of New
historically than the gifted émigrés. He played a Sincerity they certainly possessed, but I am less York, Joshua Johnston active in Baltimore 1796-
vital and encouraged role in the life of the country, convinced of Mr Gardner's claim for their humour. 1834, A. Ellis working in New Hampshire 1820-
coming into his own after the Revolution with the He finds in their work an 'exuberant sense of 1830. Of others even less is known—Pieter Vanderly
development of a local, prosperous middle-class, humour' he sees as 'typical of pioneer America' who came to Albany from Holland in 1718, J.
particularly in the rural areas. which, being 'natural, without compromise, is the Weiss who in 1790 painted The house of George
Unlike the modern primitive, the so-called result, perhaps, of frontier democracy'. I am as Washington, Joseph Whiting Stock known to have
simple, untutored, instinctive painter, exploring puzzled by his reasoning as by his discovery. In- painted 900 portraits, the romantic George Wash-
his fantasies and obsessions, these early Americans deed humour is a dangerous ingredient in any ington Mark (d. 1879) whose gothic landscapes
were nearer to craftsmen with a trade and a calling naive's work—there may be a native, instinctive look like ballet sets, the London-born Thomas Nast
and a public. They had a job to do, which they wit, but if they set out to make you laugh that is who settled in New York in 1846 and contributed
did more efficiently with some training. If they altogether a dangerous too-knowing occupation. to Harpers Weekly, the cryptically-named Wag-
could catch a good likeness all the better; if the The most important of the early American paint- guno whose Still life of a huge red mellon with
farmer's house and cows and meadows were de- ers is Edward Hicks (1770—l849), the only one grapes, oranges and flowers is one of the most
picted as a recognizable home-stead, one man's, not with a body of work and a biography emerging delicious pictures on view. Some of the finest are
anothers, that is what they were paid for. They solidly out of a mass of anonymity. His art, like anonymous—notably the strange view of a railway
recorded the tough, unsmiling Quaker farmers and that of so many of his colleagues, was rooted in station in 1865, a Dutch looking Still life of fruit, a
their wives in their sombre Sabbath best. The craft; a wheelwright, he also painted carts, signs. Brother and sister of 1845, and a Rousseau-like
buildings are simple and sturdy, the farms neat and He later became a devout Quaker. His landscapes Adam and Eve painted in 1830.