American Art and Architecture
1. Seventeenth-cen
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1. Seventeenth-century colonial architecture in New England and Virginia was strictly European in origin. In Spain's eastern colony, St. Augustine, the Castillo de San Marcos (1672-87) was also built along European lines--on the model of European fortifications circa 1500. (A local material, shell-limestone, rendered the fort nearly impervious the mortar attack.) But in New Spain the available labor force, limits on materials, the demands of the climate, and an existing indigenous tradition of permanent building meant that native forms were the basis of colonial architecture. In the Southwest the Spaniards were not in danger of attack by other Europeans and their settlements were primarily the work of missionaries who adopted the Native Americans' pueblo style. These large apartment complexes were constructed by puddling--applying a layer of wet adobe and allowing it to dry before the next layer was added. The Spaniards developed the use of sun-dried adobe bricks, which speeded the process, and added bracket capitals for each set of support posts. These innovations can be seen in the Palace of the Governors at Santa Fe (1610-14). The Spanish monks also brought monumental scale to pueblo architecture when they sought, as in San Estevan at Acona, New Mexico (1629-42) to build churches on what they felt was an appropriate scale. In Virginia the vast majority of buildings were wood-frame houses built in the Tudor style. The surviving col
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leads to the conclusion that he was a less than perfect portraitist. But Copley was a singular talent and, though a work such as the beautiful portrait of Mrs. Thomas Boylston (1766) gave the wealthy New England merchant class exactly the type of presentation they wanted, he decided to leave for England. He was unsympathetic toward the coming revolution and believed Joshua Reynolds and others who told him that the rough edges needed to be taken off his style by exposure to European culture. Had he remained in America his influence might have changed the course of portrait painting. But he left Peale and others to pursue a more sedate course.
After Independence Gilbert Stuart's (1755-1828) Federal style set a new standard. Portraits such as his Thomas Jefferson (1805-7) display his great debt to the eighteenth-century English masters, such as Reynolds. But the gravity and restrained elegance of his work met the need for a democratic elegance suitable to the new republic. The next important phase, led by Thomas Sully (1783-1872), was romantic in orientation. His elegant, swiftly-painted picture of Robert Gilmore, Jr. (1823) shows Sully's abilities as well as his defects--idealization of sitters' appearance and a tendency
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Pages = 36 (250 words per page)
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