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Died on 10 November 1843: John
Trumbull, son of colonial Connecticut governor, US painter,
architect, and diplomat, specialized in Historical
Subjects (US War of Independence), born on 06 June 1756. He studied
under Benjamin
West.
Trumbull's importance lies in his historical
paintings memorializing events in the US War of Independence. Applying Benjamin
West’s and John Singleton Copley’s realistic innovations in history painting
to US subjects, he created a series of images, reproduced in countless illustrations,
that have become icons of US nationalism. They are also symbolic of his
lifelong political and artistic identity.
— Born in Lebanon Connecticut, John Trumbull was the son of Jonathan
Trumbull, the only colonial Royal Governor to embrace the Patriot cause.
His mother was Faith Robinson, a descendant of Pilgrim leader John Robinson.
He was also the first painter in the English American Colonies to have a
college education, being a graduate of Harvard, entering the class of 1773
in the Junior Year at age fifteen.
His father wanted him to pursue either the
ministry or law, feeling that the manual crafts were beneath the family
dignity, but once at Harvard, he lost no time making the acquaintance of
John Singleton Copley, the leading portrait painter in the Colonies. After
graduation, Trumbull taught school for a winter in Lebanon, but continued
his study of painting, much to his fathers chagrin.
At the outbreak of the War of Independence,
Trumbull marched to Boston under the command of Gen. Joseph Spencer, as
Adjutant of the 1st Connecticut Regiment. Stationed at Roxbury, he witnessed
the Battle of Bunker Hill from there, which was the closest he ever came
to any of the subjects of his great historical paintings. He came to the
attention of General Washington by drawing a plan of the enemies works in
front of the Patriot Army on Boston Neck, and was shortly thereafter appointed
his Aide-de-Camp (General Order of 27 July 1775). In June of 1776, upon
the assumption by General Gates of the command of the Army in the Northern
Department, Trumbull was appointed his Adjutant. After service at Crown
Point and Ticonderoga, he resigned on 22 February 1777, ostensibly because
his commission as a Colonel was dated some three months later than his appointment
to that rank by General Gates.
Trumbull moved to Boston and hired as a studio
the painting room built by artist John Smibert. He found still there several
copies by him from celebrated pictures in Europe, which he found very useful.'
With the exception of a short term of service as volunteer Aide-de-Camp
to General Sullivan in Rhode Island, Trumbull remained in Boston until the
autumn of 1779 when he determined to go to England to study under Benjamin
West, one of the leading painters in Europe and official Painter of Historical
Subjects to George III.
Trumbull reached London in July of 1780 and
presented to West a letter of introduction from Benjamin Franklin. He began
work immediately, occupying a painting room with Gilbert Stuart, who was
also a student under West at the time.
Trumbull was arrested on 18 November l780,
and threatened with hanging as an American spy, in retaliation for the hanging
of Major Andre, the British spy who conspired with Benedict Arnold. He was
incarcerated until June 1781, when West and Copley interceded with the king,
and he was released upon condition that he leave the kingdom.
Trumbull returned to London in 1784 to complete
his studies under West and attend classes at the Royal Academy, and the
influence of West can be clearly seen during this period. West himself desired
to do a historical series on the US War of Independence, but feared loss
of Royal Patronage, and Trumbull began to meditate seriously the subjects
of national history, of events of the War of Independence, which became
the great objects of his professional life. Trumbull's ambition, tempered
as it was by Westas influence, finally crystallized into a determination
to become the painter of the US War of Independence. Several of his historical
paintings were begun and two finished in West's studio, including The
Battle of Bunker Hill (1786).
Trumbull met Thomas Jefferson in London in
the summer of 1785. Upon his invitation Trumbull later visited Paris, and
there submitted to him his two finished paintings The Battle of Bunker
Hill and The Death of General Montgomery at Quebec. Both Jefferson
and John Adams, then Minister to Great Britain, helped Trumbull to select
ten additional events to be painted, of which Trumbull completed eight.
The sketch for The Declaration of Independence
was made at Jefferson's house in the Grille de Chaillot in 1786 with his
information and advice. Returning to London, Trumbull completed the composition
of The Declaration of Independence, The Surrender of Lord Cornwallis,
The Battle of Trenton, and The Battle of Princeton while in West's
studio. He left out the faces, however, intending to fill them in from life
whenever possible. Thus, the face of John Adams was painted in London in
the summer of 1787, Trumbull saying that just before Adams left the Court
of St. James's he: "had the powder combed out of his hair. Its color
and natural curl were beautiful, and I took that opportunity to paint his
portrait in the small Declaration of Independence".
In the autumn of 1787, Trumbull again visited
Jefferson and there painted his portrait into the same canvas, and the portraits
of the French officers in "The Surrender of Lord Cornwallis" "were
painted from life in Mr. Jefferson's house." Apparently he also left
certain details in the backgrounds to be finished later from sketches made
on the spot.
As Congress was to assemble in New York in
December of 1789, Trumbull went there to pursue his work. He also hoped
to sell engravings of his historical paintings, but that project failed.
While there he had sittings from Washington, and likewise painted the portraits
of many distinguished characters into several of the canvases, and later
he traveled throughout the country on the same errand. In addition he painted
many small portraits as pencil sketches or oil on mahogany to be used in
the scenes determined upon but not yet designed. He also visited and sketched
historic places so that he might become familiar with the actual setting
of the events he was depicting.
During these years (1789-1794) Trumbull lived,
for the most part, in the new nation's capitol, New York City (some believe
because Gilbert Stuart had taken up residence in Boston), supporting himself
by painting portraits while seeking in vain to obtain the financial backing
of the Government for his project. The portraits of this period, when Trumbull
was fresh from six years' study abroad, at least three of which were passed
under the instruction of West, are considered his best work and rank equally
with examples of any US painter of the time. He is known for fluid brushstrokes
and subtle glazes, and also produced a very few landscapes that anticipate
the Hudson River School.
Failing to obtain Government support, Trumbull
accompanied John Jay to London in May 1794, and acted as his secretary while
he was negotiating what became known as Jay's Treaty. In 1796 Trumbull was
appointed one of the commissioners to carry out one of the Articles of that
Treaty; and remained about eight years in London engaged in this work.
Trumbull returned to New York in 1804 and
sought to rebuild his practice as a portrait painter, but his ten years
of foreign service, during which time he seldom exercised his talent, seem
to have robbed his hand of much of its ability. Very few of the portraits
of this period (1804-l808) evidence his earlier talent. Trumbull attributed
his lack of success to the embargo placed by President Jefferson in the
autumn of 1808 on all commerce, which he says threatened "the prosperity
of those friends from whom I derived my subsistence," but it almost
seems as if his genius had flared for a few brief years and then gone out
forever, so marked is the division between the work of his youth and that
of later life. In any event, he once more went abroad in 1809, and was stuck
in England by the outbreak of the War of 1812, and forced to remain there
until August of 1815.
The Capitol in Washington DC having been
partially destroyed by the British in 1814, Trumbull saw the opportunity
in its restoration of realizing his ambition, and he applied for the commission
to decorate the Rotunda with enlargements from his small originals. For
this purpose several of the canvases were exhibited in the House of Representatives
in 1816 and as a result a resolution passed both houses of the Congress
to employ Trumbull to make four paintings: "Commemorative of the most
important events of the American Revolution, to be placed, when finished,
in the Capitol of the United States." Trumbull wrote to Jefferson on
26 December 1816: “The Declaration of Independence is finished
— Trenton, Princeton, and York Town which were long
since finished & engraved — I shall take them all with me to the
Seat of Government. in a few days that I may not merely talk of what I will
do but show what I have done.”
The choice of the subjects and the size of
the paintings, were left to the President. Trumbull tells of his interview
with Madison, in which the President first suggested the Battle of Bunker
Hill as one subject, but as only four of his paintings had been ordered,
he recommended The Surrender of General Burgoyne, The Surrender of Lord
Cornwallis, The Declaration of Independence, and The Resignation
of Washington. These were finally selected by President Madison and
Trumbull was engaged for the sum of $32'000 to enlarge them to a size of
eighteen feet by twelve feet, with life-size figures.
Trumbull first enlarged The Declaration
of Independence and exhibited it during the years 1818-1820 in several
cities. Public expectation was perhaps never raised so high respecting a
picture, as in the case of this painting; and although the painter had only
to copy his own beautiful original of former days, a disappointment was
felt and loudly expressed. Faults which escaped detection in the miniature,
were glaring when magnified — the tone and the coloring were not there
— attitudes which appeared constrained in the original, were awkward
in the copy — many of the likenesses had vanished." On 01 September
1818, John Quincy Adams wrote in his diary “Called about eleven o'clock
at Mr. Trumbull's house, and saw his picture of the Declaration of Independence,
which is now nearly finished. I cannot say I was disappointed in the execution
of it, because my expectations were very low; . . . I think the old small
picture far superior to this large new one.”
The Surrender of Cornwallis was
enlarged next and in turn was exhibited in New York, Boston and Baltimore
in 1820.
The Surrender of General Burgoyne'
and The Resignation of Washington were enlarged from compositions
painted at about this time, and the four enlargements were installed in
the Rotunda of the Capitol in Washington under Trumbull's supervision in
1824.
Trumbull was a first class painter in miniature.
His small portraits are in oil paints on canvas or on wood, and his work
in this field is excelled only by some of the miniatures by Malbone, and
equalled only by the best work of Fraser and Trott. The pictures of the
Battle of Trenton and Princeton, are among the most admirable
miniatures in oil that ever were painted. The same may be said of the portraits
in the small picture of the Surrender of Cornwallis. Some of Trumbull's
life-size portraits done before 1794 (when he left painting for diplomacy)
will stand the severest test, but when, however, in 1816, at the age of
sixty, he undertook to enlarge his small originals, twenty by thirty inches,
to a size twelve by eighteen feet, the result bears silent witness to the
fact that he had had no training in this branch of art and for twenty years
before he had been at best an unsuccessful painter.
Trumbull lost the sight of one eye in childhood,
and the concomitant lack of depth perception exaggerated by advancing age
may, to some extent, explain the flat look of the enlargements.
The importance of the canvases and miniatures
lies in the fact that they are original portraits from life and are the
work of Trumbull's early and brilliant youth and in a field in which he
excelled, while the enlargements therefrom are the work of his declining
years.
Trumbull attempted in vain to induce the
Government to commission him to fill the remaining panels of the Rotunda.
and failing thus to sell his collection of Revolutionary portraits to the
nation, his impaired health and failing powers brought him onto bad times,
wherein at last he sought another way by which to use his early work to
furnish support for his old age.
Trumbull tells, in his Reminiscences,
the pathetic story of how, when funds began to diminish, he was forced to
sell "scraps of furniture, fragments of plate, etc.," and of how
many pictures remained on his hands unsold, and to all appearance unsaleable.
It occurred to him that although "the hope of a sale to the nation,
or to a state, became more and more desperate from day to day," yet
some private institution might be willing to possess the paintings, making
payment therefor by a life annuity. He first considered his alma mater,
Harvard, but finally chose Yale, as it was within his native state.
Trumbull, throughout his life, appreciated
the importance of his Revolutionary portraits and never wavered from the
conviction that some day their great historic value would be recognized,
and he believed that their exhibition would be a source of revenue to the
College. The matter was suggested to the Trustees of Yale College by a friend,
and a contract, dated 19 December 1831 was signed, by which Trumbull, in
consideration of an annuity of $1000, in addition to the miniature portraits
of persons distinguished during the Revolution, and certain copies of old
masters, deeded to Yale: “Eight original paintings of subjects from
the American Revolution, viz.,
1. The Battle of Bunker's Hill.
2. The Death of General Montgomery at Quebec.
3. The Declaration of Independence.
4. The Battle of Trenton.
5. The Battle of Princeton.
6. The Surrender of General Burgoyne.
7. The Surrender of Lord Cornwallis.
8. Washington resigning his Commission.”
Yale bound itself to erect a fireproof building for the reception of the
paintings, of such form and dimensions as Trumbull should approve, and after
the paintings were arranged that they should be exhibited and the profits
first applied to the payment of the annuity, and all the profits after his
death perpetually appropriated towards defraying the expenses of educating
poor scholars in Yale College.
Trumbull afterward supervized the building
of the Trumbull Gallery, which stood upon the Yale Campus until the year
1901. He made, later, several additions, so that the Gallery in 1841, when
he wrote his Reminiscences, contained, in addition to the miniatures:
"fifty-five pictures by my own hand, painted at various periods, from
my earliest essay of the Battle of Cannae, to my last composition,
The Deluge, including the eight small original pictures of the
American Revolution, which contain the portraits painted from life.”
It is true that Trumbull chose to depict
in The Battle of Bunker's Hill and in The Death of General
Montgomery at Quebec, the success of the enemy, and in regard to Bunker
Hill he is said to have adopted the British rather than the American
account of the battle. At the same time, these canvases contain portraits
from life painted by one of the first painters of the age, a man who had
served in the War of Independence and who was familiar with the scenes of
action. Trumbull in writing to Jefferson of his qualifications to paint
the scenes of the Revolution, quite rightly stated that: "some superiority
also arose from my having borne personally a humble part in the great events
I was to describe. No one lives with me possessing this advantage, and no
one can come after me to divide the honor of truth and authenticity, however
easily I may hereafter be exceeded in elegance." (Letter to Jefferson,
11 June 1789).
Nowhere else can be found likenesses of many
of the actors in these scenes, and nowhere else can be found together so
many original portraits of persons prominent in the US War of Independence.
The Trumbull canvases and miniatures, containing about two hundred and fifty
portraits, are the most important source of original information that exists
on the likeness of these historical personages..
The inscription over Trumbull's tomb on the
Yale campus ends with these lines:
To his Country he gave his
SWORD and his PENCIL |
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