SECTION 1 - via - School of Visual Arts

English. While not original, these lectures formulated a classic statement of the concepts that
had dominated European art for three centuries.
Essentially, Reynolds wanted the artist’s education to teach him 5 to strive to elevate the
thoughts, and hence the actions, of his viewers. This was to be accomplished by depicting ideal
forms in compositions stressing themes of grandeur, dignity, heroic actions, truth, etc.
Reynolds saw the ideal of art as “unfolding truths that are useful to mankind, and which make
us better or wiser, [an art which] excites ideas of grandeur, or raises and dignifies humanity.” 6
To achieve this, he defended the traditional hierarchy mentioned earlier. But in defending the
primacy of history painting, Reynolds urged the artist to use his imagination to “deviate [if
necessary], from vulgar and strict historical truth. . . . Alexander is said to have been of a low
stature: a painter ought not so represent him. . . . This is not falsifying any fact . . . a painter of
history shows the man by showing his actions.” 7
An excellent example of history painting in its late-eighteenth-century classical form is
Jacques-Louis David’s (1748-1825) Death of Socrates (1787), which was praised by Reynolds
as the most perfect picture of its kind .8 As Anita Brookner has noted, it was a painting
“conceived in a secure eighteenth-century world in which attention to the classics [and]
obedience to the philosophes [of the Enlightenment] . . . were the moulding influences” in art. 9
Socrates is about to commit suicide by drinking hemlock; he is sacrificing himself both in a
defense of truth and as an act of obedience to the laws of his society. In this large painting
(about four by six-and-half feet and located here in New York at the Metropolitan Museum of
Art), Socrates reaches for the cup of poison, but will not grasp it until he finishes speaking to
his disciples, who are extraordinarily distraught. He is going to respect the laws of Athens,
while simultaneously exercising his rights as a free person. “He was the victim of intolerance
but would demonstrate his moral supremacy by ending his life as the citizen of a state that
would no longer accept his independent views.” 10
Note how Socrates is portrayed: not realistically as an older man of sagging flesh, but rather
with a physique many athletes would be proud of. As we saw in Reynolds’ prescription, this
physical nobility reflects (for the edification of the viewer) Socrates’ moral and intellectual
nobility. As he preaches to his disciples, the painting preaches to the viewer. David’s message
seems to be that obedience to the law, however unjustly imposed, is of paramount importance
in society.
Before developing the main point I’d like to make today, I want to take a brief detour to look at
several nineteenth-century American history paintings. This will allow me to present what I
consider to be the best of the post-classical (or post-David) examples of this style of art.
Although the work of both Benjamin West (1738-1820) and John Singleton Copley (1738-
1815) contained numerous history paintings, neither depicted noble subjects from America’s
past in their art. Consequently, John Trumbull (1756-1843) is usually considered to be our first
history painter. Trumbull served in the Revolutionary War as an aide-de-camp to General
Washington and starting in 1786, he began a series of paintings on subjects from that war. His
general theme was that individual sacrifices would lead to victory and national survival; that
martyrdom was necessary in attaining victory. His Death of General Warren at the Battle of
Bunker Hill (1786) is an example of this theme. Trumbull’s Declaration of Independence, July
4, 1776 (begun in 1787 and not finished for decades) is probably the best known of any
American painting. He depicts “rationalism at work, free will in action; it stands as the
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