These tensions hinted at the changes that would shape American art as the bonds that connected Americans to British culture were challenged during the first generation of the New Republic in both academic and primitive painting. What is unique to Colonial but more directly Revolutionary and Early Republic portraiture is that despite being executed with classical British styles, tensions of divided loyalties were indirectly evident. A British cultural identity was so ingrained in the upper class that despite different political views, loyalists and patriots both expected fine art to maintain British qualities even after the Revolution.
These consumption patterns defined American elite art well into the beginning of the New Republic. Colonial and Revolutionary art adhered to British cultural norms because colonials desired to purchase portraiture that mirrored the styles that their contemporaries in England were purchasing portraiture was a signifier of one‘s high social position. This project argues that as identities of art patrons changed, artists amended their styles in the hopes of realizing the greatest profits as customer demand was the greatest force in setting American artistic styles.Īmerican primitive or folk portraits can be viewed as the sister of Colonial and Revolutionary portraiture. Middle class Americans demanded to be part of a material culture previously restricted to the upper-classes by reinterpreting art to fit into their expanding but still limited budgets. The development of a unique American identity and the emergence of a middle class in Nineteenth Century society explains why artists broke from British traditions. By the early parts of the nineteenth century, a unique, and quintessentially American style emerged, a phenomenon which scholars have not yet adequately explained. American portraiture/American identity : transformations in American art, 1730-1860 WCU Author/Contributor (non-WCU co-authors, if there are any, appear on document) Matthew Robert Blaylock (Creator) Institution Western Carolina University (WCU ) Web Site: Advisor Jessica SwiggerĪbstract: Between the Colonial period and the Early Republic, American portraiture changed in style and in subject matter.
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