Читать книгу Sarah M. Peale America's First Woman Artist - Joan Ph.D. King - Страница 4

CHARLES WILLSON PEALE (1741-1827), Sarah's famous uncle, was a poor colonial saddle-maker with a widowed mother, wife and younger brother to provide for and a large business debt to pay. To augment his insufficient income, he constantly experimented with other trades. He taught himself sign-painting and watch repair. After seeing some crude paintings, he thought he could do as well. He read a book on the subject and traded a saddle to an artist for lessons and paints. He persisted in his efforts and impressed a group of wealthy Maryland leaders with his potential. The colony needed a good portrait artist and the men thought that Peale was a worthy candidate. They raised the money to send him abroad to study art under Benjamin West, a prominent American artist and president of the Royal Academy in London.

After two years, Peale returned to Maryland to become the best portrait artist in America. He shared his knowledge with his family, instructing his brothers in the art of painting. Finding his brother James a particularly apt pupil in need of an income-producing skill, Charles turned over to James his business of painting miniatures on ivory. Thereafter Charles devoted himself to painting full-sized portraits.

Peale's family was always first in his heart. As his many children were born, he selected their names from a dictionary of classic painters. The boys were named Raphaelle, Rembrandt, Rubens, Titian, and Vandyke, and for the girls, Angelica Kaufmann and Sophonisba Angusciola, female artists Charles admired even though they were not so well-known. When science and natural history claimed his attention, he named two sons Linnaeus and Franklin. However, the second of Charles's three wives insisted on naming her daughter, Elizabeth, after herself. As soon as the many children were old enough, he brought them into the studio and instructed them in art. His brother James also taught his children to paint.

Charles fought in the Revolutionary war. He made portraits of General Washington and nearly all of the famous soldiers and states men, intending these paintings as a record for posterity. But his energies and interests did not stop at art. He became one of the renaissance men of the 18th century. He was an inventor, mechanic, paleontologist, silversmith, watchmaker, millwright, naturalist, farmer and dentist. He even had a brief brush with politics, and dabbled in medical theory.

As his interest in natural history grew, he collected specimens of plants, animals, birds, minerals and curiosities. Eventually, these collections plus his many portraits of illustrious Americans formed the basis of a remarkable museum housed first in Philadelphia's American Philosophical Society's Building, and later in the second floor of the Philadelphia State House, which is now Independence Hall.

Charles Peale counted as friends such figures in American history as Benjamin Franklin, George Washington (Peale painted him seven times from life), Thomas Jefferson (who sent his favorite grandson to live with Peale for a year), Lafayette, Thomas Paine and countless patriots and leaders. He helped the young Robert Fulton with mechanical ideas. So boundless was his energy, enthusiasm and optimism, he believed the normal human life span was 200 years, and never considered himself as approaching old age, even at 86.

Charles and his brother James maintained close ties throughout their lives, sharing a studio for years, developing the distinctive realism that marks the Peale style. In the early years their work was so similar that many of James's finest early works were attributed to Charles. Although James painted miniatures and portraits in the manner he learned from Charles, he excelled in still life and landscapes, initiating another Peale tradition.

Sarah, James Peale's youngest daughter, grew up in this extraordinary family. She saw opportunity for herself as an artist and refused to be discouraged by public opinion that would force her into the minor role of "artist's assistant" because of her sex. Her achievements in an age of male domination can no longer be ignored. A woman of courage and independence, America's first professional woman artist has remained, except for her art, a mystery, overshadowed by the accomplishments of her uncle, father and cousins. This writing is an attempt to sweep away the dust of the last century and a half, and look not solely at her art but at the artist herself in her unique world. This is a work of fiction and imagination drawn from a study of the amazing Peale family.