Unpublished portions of Chapter 2 of The Politics of Art Criticism
On William Page's portraits of Marcy, Morris, Duyckinck, Lowell (chapter 2):
In 1839, for example, he painted a portrait of Governor William L. Marcy, a Van Buren Democrat who ran successfully against William Seward for the governorship, until Seward finally beat him in 1840. Marcy would go on to serve under Polk, Pierce, and Buchanan and his importance to New York Democrats is perhaps emphasized by the name of the notorious postwar Tammany leader, (Boss) William Marcy Tweed. That the anti-Van Buren Herald liked Marcy’s portrait when it was exhibited at the Apollo gallery in 1839 perhaps reflects the Herald’s greater concern about Seward’s growing influence and anti-slavery position. The Whig Evening Signal, by contrast, in a dialogue between “Smith” and a “lady fair” lounging at the Apollo gallery, has the lady dislike it—though it’s a likeness, she prefers the style of Shegogue, the portrayer of Whig anti-immigrant mayor Aaron Clark.[1]
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The Herald, though sympathetic to Morris, had backed Morris’ Whig opponent, merchant J. Phillips Phoenix, for mayor. Writing just after Morris’ victory in the election, the Herald’s reviewer of the Apollo exhibition promised that he won’t speak in the trifling spirit of light gossip, as sincerity was needed in a world where common observers admire the fine, not the natural. Accordingly, the critic attacks almost all of the established artists and many of the favorites of the Knickerbocker, Mirror and Evening Post as unnatural: Inman’s painting is leaden, pretty innocents in a dirty cloud; Sully is deformed, C.G. Thompson (a portraitist favored by the Knickerbocker editor) sends in a painting as a joke to see if the vilest things will be accepted, his brother Jerome should find another profession, Edwin White is warned to stop imitating Inman, J.K. Fisher is contemptible trash, George Harvey threatens to keep painting, Cole is befouled by Turner and Martin. Only Weir’s Indian Captives, Doughty’s landscapes, Alvan Fisher’s genre paintings (Fisher explained in a letter to the Herald that his genre picture of a corn crib was an allegory of the motives of Whig politicians seeking office in order to get rich), Huntington’s lazaroni boy, and George Linen's portraits of Whig politicians are praised—though a kind word is put in for miniaturist and Stout portraitist McDougall. But Page’s portrait of Morris—Morris had been invited to the 1841 National Academy private opening--is a miserable thing.[2] This departs from the 1840 review of Page in the National Academy by Bennett, which had a similar statement of principle, that American art needed "forcible" nature, not highly finished paintings resembling wax or enamelled French snuff boxes. Bennett thought Page provided the gem of the exhibition.[3] Perhaps in the year between the two reviews, the reviewer changed--Bennett had advertised for a critic. But it also suggests Page was becoming embroiled in the growing tension among those advocating for Young America, a Native art and literature tied to expansionist national politics, whose advocates often criticized the National Academy and supported the rival Apollo, and those who--including the Herald, despite its criticisms of the clique at the National Academy--thought such an effort wrong-headed.
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Page’s supporters were Whigs (Briggs held political office under Whig Millard Fillmore), then, but his friendships with Evert Duyckinck, like Briggs active in the American Art-Union, and transcendentalist poet James Russell Lowell, as well as Page's own bent toward artistic experimentation, often aligned him with Young America Democrats. Portraits could point to these political divergences, as when James Otis, writing for the Whig Courier and Enquirer, found Page's portrait of Duyckinck's children unnatural, while Wikoff’s Republic thought it clever. The Democratic Morning News, which published Duyckinck, saw in Page's work the highest imaginable beauties.[4]
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The criticism of Page's much-admired portrait of Lowell reflects this. Editor Nathaniel P. Willis, a politically disengaged Clay Whig who was close to the Inman family, was also a Page fan. For Willis, the friendship of the artist known for his physical flesh and blood with Lowell was surprising, as Lowell is a cold, stern poet; “his sexual heart never swims in his inkstand,” though Willis says it reveals itself in his love for Page. Brother Jonathan, which was friendly to Duyckinck and Cornelius Mathews, leaders of the movement for the international copyright, echoed Willis in saying that Page’s portrait of Lowell was the best painting in the 1844 exhibition, but that there is more genius in the painting than in the head. The Whig Tribune, which was staffed by transcendentalists, not surprisingly admired Lowell, and said Page’s portrait bore away the palm, and even thought his Ecce Homo expressed something of the sublimity of grief; the anti-transcendentalist and anti-Clay Herald felt that the problem was precisely that it was too expressionless.[5] The Tribune also praised the artists associated with the new more realist style, like Elliott and Cropsey, while sharing the disdain for Rousseau’s fashion plate style. The Tribune's critics neatly tossed Willis into the sweet sad school of art with artist G.W. Flagg, though, suggesting they share the freshest, rosiest lips ever dreamed of or died upon.[6]
[1] Smith, "Fine Arts: A Lounge at the Apollo Gallery, No. 1," Evening Signal, October 28, 1839, pp. 2-3.
[2] "Apollo Gallery," Herald, April 24, 1841, p. 1, April 27, 1841, p. 2, April 29, 1841. Alvan Fisher, Letter, Herald, May 6, 1841, p. 1.
[3] "National Academy," Herald, April 21, 1840, p. 2; "National Academy," Herald, May 1, 1840, p. 4.
[4] "National Academy of Design," Courier and Enquirer, June 5, 1844, p. 1. "National Academy of Design," Republic, April 26, 1844. Morning News, September 20, 1844.
[5] New Mirror, January 20, 1844, edited by Morris and Willis. "National Academy of Design," Brother Jonathan, May 20, 1843, p. 81; Page's portrait of Mapes was ineffective. "National Academy of Design," Tribune, May 3, 1843, p. 1; Greeley?, "National Academy of Design," Tribune, May 26, 1843, p. 2, corrects the previous review's lower estimate of Ecce Homo.
[6] "National Academy of Design," Tribune, April 25, 1844, p. 2. The same critic demonstrated his knowledge of New York's transcendentalists by praising Edward Mooney's portrait of Thomas W. Whitley, calling Whitley a fine man and artist. Mooney was a student of both Inman and Page, and had commissions for both Isaac Leggett Varian, a locofoco ex-Mayor (in 1842), and according to the Tribune, a "correct" but not spirited likeness of Governor Seward (1843). Mooney also painted what the Express called a bad, "staring" portrait of McDonald Clarke, and portraits of Whitehorne and Cropsey.
On James Whitehorne and Hiram Fuller of the Evening Mirror:
James Whitehorne’s threatened suit didn’t improve the Evening Mirror’s opinion of him. Its critic called Whitehorne’s city "locofoco" commissioned portrait of Governor Silas Wright at the 1848 Academy exhibition a picture of less value than its canvas, a vile libel and worthless trash, and added that no portrait in that exhibition compared with Page’s portraits for reality.[1] Silas Wright, a close colleague of Marcy, was by then the leader of the Free Soil Democrats and supported by the Evening Post; while not a free-soiler, Fuller was the first editor in the city to nominate as Whig candidate for president Zachary Taylor, who resisted the western spread of slavery, and Fuller supported Republican candidate John Fremont in 1856. The more conservative Whig Knickerbocker, where Briggs had also been a contributor, also dismissed Whitehorne, but he remained a favorite with the Commercial Advertiser, where John Inman still had strong ties to the National Academy.
[1] "Exhibition of the National Academy," Evening Mirror, April 6, 1848, p. 2.
On JK Fisher:
In accord with its Whiggish version of a national art, the New World under Park Benjamin not only like the Herald accused the National Academy's managers of partiality and favoritism, but like the Knickerbocker published J.K. Fisher's renewed attack on both it and the Apollo Association. Writing as Jonathan Pericles, Fisher (reprinted in the New-Yorker and the Sun) in 1840 advocated for replacing the National Academy with a free public gallery. Because the American Academy was based on the English Royal Academy, it could not advance the public interest, only that of a clique (it had not exhibited Fisher since 1834). The Apollo Association, because it depended for support on wealthy amateurs, was also disqualified (it had included his paintings every year up to that one), though the New World was more hesitant to dismiss it.[2] Fisher argued that the public would support a tax for a public gallery, though opponents warned it would lead to taxes for a public library and museum of natural history. The Herald, despite saying that the National Academy persecuted the young men who provide the annual exhibitions' only signs of life, dismissed Fisher as merely a poor painter, with great pretensions and new systems.[3]
[2] Jonathan Pericles, "Letters on the Fine Arts," New World, August 8, 1840. Park Benjamin and Epes Sargeant editors.
[3] "Twaddle Letter of Mr. Fisher, historical painter," Herald, August 7, 1840, p. 2. "National Academy," Herald, July 31, 1840, p. 2.