Day 283 - Allegorical painting of Liberty and enslaved people


January 24, 2022

When I first peered into gallery 753, I saw a wall lined with paintings of men in military uniforms and thought to myself, "A whole gallery devoted to portraits of military officers of the American Revolution."  Indeed, there are a number of such portraits,  Typically, the men are shown at full length and striking rather grand poses, with one arm outstretched and a small scene of a battle with which they were associated depicted in the background. 

In fact, the contents of the gallery are somewhat broader in scope (there's a  Copley study for his famous "Watson and the Shark," for example),  but the central theme is, in fact, the Revolution.  An introductory placard  reminds us that women and enslaved people were excluded from the Founding Fathers' vision of liberty and equality. Once again, I feel I'm being clobbered by politically correct verbiage, and I think, "Who doesn't know this?" But then, I realize that the Met has many visitors from other countries who may not be familiar with American history. Still, I suspect that foreign travelers who have the means to come to the U.S., and especially those who make it a point to go to the Met, have this kind of basic knowledge.

In any case, according to the signage, today's selection is the first known painting  by an American-born artist to address issues of slavery and freedom; perhaps that's what drew me to it. Executed in 1791-1792 by Samuel Jennings (1755-after 1834) and perhaps 16" long and 12""high, the work was a study for a large allegorical painting entitled "Liberty Displaying the Arts and Sciences, or the Genius of America Encouraging Emancipation  of the Blacks" that was commissioned by the founders of the Library Company of Philadelphia, including Benjamin Franklin (whose portrait bust by Houdon has been moved into this gallery). Liberty is shown as a blonde in a simple white dress.  Her hands rest on a stack of books, while at her feet are a bust, a globe, a telescope, and other symbols of the arts and sciences. Below her  enslaved Blacks kneel in beseeching poses, while in the background,  freed slaves dance around a Liberty Pole.  The moral of the allegory seems clear: The truly enlightened person will seek an end to slavery. The painting further suggests that education is the means of uplift for whites and Blacks alike.

A Google search answers my question: The commission was completed, and Jenkins gave the larger work to the Library in 1792.  I rarely question the Met's conservatorship, but I have to say that this small study looks as if it could use a good cleaning; the image I've reproduced is easier to "read" than the painting in situ. Nonetheless, it's gratifying to see a visual representation of the anti-slavery movement and to know that both the image and the movement date to the earliest days of the Republic.  


 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 349 - Charles Ray horse

Image
June 19, 2923  Gallery 917 holds the Philip Guston painting I wrote about earlier (day 341).  Gallery 918 is home to just one work: a huge (perhaps   16 feet long and   10 feet high) granite bas-relief by a contemporary American sculptor, Charles Ray, who was born in 1953. The bas-relief, sculpted in 2019, is entitled “Two Horses,” which are seen in full-body profile. But you have to look closely to see the second horse, whose head and neck are in much lower relief than the horse in the foreground, and whose torso is almost completely obscured. The main giveaway that more than one horse is depicted are the six hooves at the bottom of the image. The striations in the granite at the bottom of the relief suggest that the horses are fording a stream, with water  covering their lower legs. The sculptor has done a remarkable job of capturing the front horse’s bony legs, the musculature of its shoulder, the sinews of its neck, the feathery texture of its mane.   The caption notes that horses
Read more

Day 360 - The Wentworth room

Image
 May 18, 2024 When I enter this room (gallery 711), which was taken from a house in Portsmouth, New Hampshire that was built in 1695-1700 for John Wentworth and his wife, I'm immediately struck by how much grander it seems than the Ipswich room, in spirit if not in scale. (The Wentworth room appears to me to measure about 35 feet long and 20 feet wide.)  For one thing, the fireplace, set against the long wall, is framed by beautiful dark wood paneling. (Such paneling may have lined the other walls as well, but if so, it has disappeared.) The single placard presents only very basic information about the room, but it includes  a QR code, which I dutifully scan, and to my surprise, once I've joined the Met's wifi, the website opens and contains much more detail.   I have to remind myself that, as with other period rooms, the furnishings in this room didn't come from the Wentworth home. Instead, they reflect  Met curators' knowledge about furniture styles and the curato
Read more

Day 356 - Medieval sculpture

Image
 May 7, 2024 Gallery 520 is at the area behind the large choir screen in the Medieval Art galleries. (At Christmas, the front of that screen is the site of the "angel tree" and the Neapolitan creche, where I make an annual pilgrimage; the figures of peasants tending their flocks and coming to adore the Christ child never fail  to move me.)  The gallery contains tapesetries, a large coffer, and a 14th-century Italian column head showing Saint Veronica holding up her veil on which a rather ugly head of Christ appears. A display case holds a parchment from 1466-67, during the War of the Roses, that charts the genealogy of the kings of England.  Edward IV's claim to the throne is substantiated by the inclusion among his forebears of King David, Alexander the Great, King Arthur, and William the Conqueror.   Most of the gallery, however, is devoted to sculpture.  Dating from about 1325 to 1550, the statuary comes from all over Western Europe (France, Germany, the Low Countries,
Read more