![]() How do the artists convey this connection? The portraits recall a time in United States history when the idea of democracy was shifting. Both Thomas Sully’s portrait, Daniel La Motte, and Frank Blackwell Mayer’s Independence, Squire Jack Porter illustrate the sitter’s relationship to the land. Economically, American reliance on international trade with Europe began wane, in favor of the growth of industry and agriculture at home.Īrtists make choices in communicating ideas. While previous presidents rose to political prominence through family background, landed wealth in the original thirteen colonies, and education, Jackson’s humble background and Tennessee roots made his rise to the presidency a powerful metaphor for the self-reliance of the “common man.” During the Jacksonian Era, white men who did not own land gained the right to vote, and therefore more political power. ![]() Having re-asserted the new nation’s sense of independence after battling the British a second time in the War of 1812, the election in 1828 of Andrew Jackson indicated a shift towards more democratic ideals. ![]() ![]() Daniel La Motte echoes these old world trappings in the formality of his portrait and formal dress, whereas Squire Jack embodies the Jacksonian-era “common man,” casually posing on his front porch surveying his land, corn-cob pipe in hand. Americans of this era were beginning to create their own identity, leaving the trappings and traditions of Europe behind. Out was the time of the aristocratic gentleman and in was the self-made man one who did not inherit his fortune, but toiled the earth and reaped the benefits of independence fought for in the previous decades. The end of the Revolution and the dawn of the nineteenth century brought much societal change in America. Independence (Squire Jack Porter), 1858, Frank Blackwell Meyer ![]()
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