Shown from the chest up, a cleanshaven, middle-aged man with pale skin and silvery gray hair, wearing a white, ruffled shirt under a velvety black, high-necked jacket, looks out at us in this vertical portrait painting. His body is angled to our left, and he turns his face slightly to look at us with gray eyes under slightly arched eyebrows. He has a long nose and his thin lips are closed in a straight line. Shadows define slightly sagging jowls along his jawline and down his neck. His light gray hair is pulled back from his forehead and swells in bushy curls over his ears. Part of a black ribbon seen beyond his shoulder ties his hair back. Light illuminates the person from our left and creates a golden glow on the light brown background behind him.
Gilbert Stuart, George Washington, c. 1821, oil on wood, Gift of Thomas Jefferson Coolidge IV in memory of his great-grandfather, Thomas Jefferson Coolidge, his grandfather, Thomas Jefferson Coolidge II, and his father, Thomas Jefferson Coolidge III, 1979.5.1

Early American Painting

Early American art includes works made by settlers in what we now know as the United States. Before the American Revolution, artists documented life in the colonies of New Spain and New England. And in the early decades of the United States, many artists represented the new nation through portraits of its early leaders.

  • A man with pale white skin sits and a man with light brown skin stands in front of a cave-like, rocky outcropping in this vertical portrait painting. The light-skinned man closer to us has dark brown hair, and the light falls more strongly on him. He sits propped on or against a rock with his body angled to our left, and he looks off into the distance in that direction. He wears a scarlet-red overcoat, a white waistcoat, and moccasins. What appears to be an animal skin painted on the underside with red, tan, and black geometric patterns is tied around his chest and falls over his left arm, on our right. With that hand, he holds a musket like a walking stick. He also holds a black cap ornamented with beads and feathers on his other knee. The man with brown skin stands in shadow behind the other man, to our left. His body faces us, and he looks at the seated man. A dark cloak encircles his shoulders and is gathered around his waist. A strap crosses his bare chest and the strap, bracelets, and a feathered headdress seem to be beaded. Large gold rings curve from his earlobes up over his ears. A puff of smoke emerges from the top of the long, painted stick he holds, suggesting it is a pipe. He holds his left hand, on our right, at his chest, and points subtly to our left, perhaps to the landscape seen through a break in the rocky outcropping. There, in front of a waterfall in the distance, a small group of people with light brown skin gather around a camp fire in front of a tent-like structure.
  • Shown from the chest up, a cleanshaven, middle-aged man with pale skin and silvery gray hair, wearing a white, ruffled shirt under a velvety black, high-necked jacket, looks out at us in this vertical portrait painting. His body is angled to our left, and he turns his face slightly to look at us with gray eyes under slightly arched eyebrows. He has a long nose and his thin lips are closed in a straight line. Shadows define slightly sagging jowls along his jawline and down his neck. His light gray hair is pulled back from his forehead and swells in bushy curls over his ears. Part of a black ribbon seen beyond his shoulder ties his hair back. Light illuminates the person from our left and creates a golden glow on the light brown background behind him.
  • Shown from the chest up, a cleanshaven man with pale, rosy skin and curled white hair looks off to our right against a dark, olive-green curtain in the background of this vertical portrait painting. His shoulders are angled slightly to our right, and he looks into the distance with blue eyes. His right brow, to our left, is arched, and his eyes are deeply set. His flushed cheeks and jowls sag a bit around his closed mouth, and there are lines under his eyes. His white gray hair seems to be pulled back from his forehead and swells in bushy curls over his ears. Part of a black ribbon seen beyond his shoulder may tie his hair back. He wears a bright white, high-necked, ruffled shirt under a black jacket. Light illuminates the man and the green curtain from our left.
  • Shown from the chest up, a balding, light-skinned man wears a port-red vest and coat in this vertical portrait painting. The man’s shoulders are angled to our right, but he turns his head to look at us from the corners of gray eyes under heavy, brown brows. His under-eyes are shaded blue and lined with wrinkles. He has a bumped nose, bow-shaped lips, a round chin, fleshy, flushed cheeks, and sagging jowls. His white hair sweeps up and to either side of a bald patch, painted with a white sheen, on the top of his head. Curls come down over each ear and longer hair in the back is tied with a black ribbon. He wears a white ruffled cravat under the deep red vest and coat, both of which have gold-colored buttons down the front. The background lightens from earth brown in the upper left corner to paler, peanut brown in the lower right.
  • A middle-aged, light-skinned man stands facing and looking at us, leaning on one arm propped on a tall rock in a landscape in this vertical portrait painting. The man looks out with dark blue eyes under curved black brows. He has a prominent nose, his full apricot-colored lips are closed, and there is a shadow of a beard on his smooth cheeks. He has a receding hairline, and his wavy, ash-gray hair curls around his high, white collar. The man wears a tawny-brown topcoat with white, ruffled cuffs at his wrists, and a long brown vest with fabric-covered buttons. He wears matching brown, knee-length pantaloons with white stockings, and black shoes with gold buckles. His feet are widely planted as he leans on the tall rock on his left elbow, to our right. His elbow rests on an open book on the tall, narrow rock, shaped like a podium. Writing visible in the thick book reads, “Nolumus Leges Angliae mutari.” He points with his other index finger to our right. Behind the man and to our right is a gray, stone statue of a woman wearing flowing robes. She holds a pair of scales in one hand a tall staff with a bell-like form at the top in the other elbow. The statue is angled toward the man, and the tall base on which she stands is carved with the words, “Co LEX ANGLI.” A tree with sickle-shaped leaves and peach-colored fruit spans the height of the composition behind the statue. Near the lower left corner of the composition, two halves of a piece of paper, torn from corner to corner, lies on the ground with the edges curling up. The writing on the paper reads, “Imperial Civil Law — Sumary proceeding.” A thick tree trunk curves in a shallow S shape up along the left edge of the canvas, behind the man. Fern-green jimson weed, clover, small flowers, and rocks carpet the ground beneath and around the man. In the distance, to our left, a man wearing a red coat, a tricorn hat, and holding a musket leads a mule carrying a pack, while sheep graze to our right. Pockets of azure-blue sky are visible beyond gray clouds to our left and fluffy, flaxen-yellow clouds to our right.
  • A pale-skinned woman wearing a shimmering, pearl-white dress stands next to a harp, which is taller than she is, in this vertical portrait painting. The woman’s body faces us, but she angles her head slightly to our right. She looks up and off into the distance with gray-blue eyes under dark, curved brows. She has an oval face with a narrow chin. Her cheeks are flushed, and her full pink lips are closed. Her hair is pulled up, and chin-length curls frame her face. A ruffle, perhaps of lace, lines the low neckline of her dress, which has a sheen suggesting satin or silk. The gown has short, cap sleeves and falls in a narrow A-line to her pointed white shoes. One foot rests on a pedal at the base of the harp, and behind her is a low stool with a round, dark orange upholstered seat and a wood pedestal base. A topaz-blue brocade-patterned scarf with fringed narrow ends falls over one of the woman’s shoulders, down her back, across the stool, and then puddles on the floor. The woman’s right arm, on our left, rests over the upward curving neck of the harp. She holds a T-shaped tuning key in that hand. Her other hand reaches across her body to touch the strings. The crown of the harp is ornately carved with leaves, and the instruments rests on low, clawed feet. The carpet or floor is patterned with concentric circles and patterned rings in peach, moss green, soft yellow, and pink. A gray stone column rises to our right behind the woman, and a ledge spans the rest of the space behind her. The landscape beyond has hills and trees leading back to the horizon, which comes about halfway up the composition. Parchment-brown clouds swirl against a muted blue sky above. The artist signed the work as if his initials and date were written on the base of the harp. The intwined letters T and S are followed by the date, 1818.
  • Three small children with pale pink skin sit and stand among a group of animals to our right as a group of eight indigenous people with light brown skin gather with eight white-skinned men near a riverbank in the distance to our left in this horizontal painting. The children and animals take up the right two-thirds of the composition. They gather on a flat-topped spit of land, which is covered in grass. All three children have blond hair and rounded features. Two sit on the ground at the bottom center of the painting. The largest animal is a caramel-brown bull, which stands next to a pale golden lion. The other animals are smaller in scale, and include a tiger, wolf, sheep, goats, cows, bears, and a jaguar, all sitting or standing at rest around the bull and lion. At the top center of the group of animals, one child stands over the lion’s back and has one arm around the tiger’s shoulders, and another child at the lower center touches the jaguar’s nose. A tree with olive-green, rust-red, and harvest-yellow leaves grows up the right edge of the canvas, in front of a tall, forest-green bush. On another spit of flat-topped, elevated grassy land to our left, six of the indigenous people stand in a row, wearing feathered headdresses. Two more kneel in front, creating a U-shape. The two in front wear loin cloths, and all eight wear gold earrings and necklaces. They face a gathering of eight men wearing tricorn hats, long coats, waistcoats, knee-length britches, and stockings in shades of gray, blue, white, brown, and orange. One of these men hold up a roll of cloth lifted out of a chest. Trees with spindly trunks and golden yellow canopies reach into the top corner of the painting along the left edge. The river extends into the distance beyond this group, with pale, sage-green hills carpeted in trees. Puffy white clouds float across a sky that deepens from pale shell pink along the horizon to light blue along the top. The features of the animals and children are painted simply and appear rather flat, giving them an almost cartoonish look.
  • A young man shown from the waist up behind a tabletop takes up the left half of this vertical portrait, and a geranium in a terracotta pot takes up the right half of the painting. The man has pale, peachy skin and dark brown hair. He wears a pair of glasses with small oval lenses, a white neckcloth, and a brown coat. He looks down and to our left. He holds a second pair of silver-rimmed glasses in his right hand on the table, and his left hand, on our right, rests on the edge of the terracotta pot. The tall, leggy geranium nearly reaches the upper edge of the canvas and has two clusters of small red flowers near its top. The young man and plant are shown against a fawn-brown background. The artist signed and dated the painting in white letters in the lower right corner: “Rem Peale 1801.”

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A middle-aged, light-skinned man stands facing and looking at us, leaning on one arm propped on a tall rock in a landscape in this vertical portrait painting. The man looks out with dark blue eyes under curved black brows. He has a prominent nose, his full apricot-colored lips are closed, and there is a shadow of a beard on his smooth cheeks. He has a receding hairline, and his wavy, ash-gray hair curls around his high, white collar. The man wears a tawny-brown topcoat with white, ruffled cuffs at his wrists, and a long brown vest with fabric-covered buttons. He wears matching brown, knee-length pantaloons with white stockings, and black shoes with gold buckles. His feet are widely planted as he leans on the tall rock on his left elbow, to our right. His elbow rests on an open book on the tall, narrow rock, shaped like a podium. Writing visible in the thick book reads, “Nolumus Leges Angliae mutari.” He points with his other index finger to our right. Behind the man and to our right is a gray, stone statue of a woman wearing flowing robes. She holds a pair of scales in one hand a tall staff with a bell-like form at the top in the other elbow. The statue is angled toward the man, and the tall base on which she stands is carved with the words, “Co LEX ANGLI.” A tree with sickle-shaped leaves and peach-colored fruit spans the height of the composition behind the statue. Near the lower left corner of the composition, two halves of a piece of paper, torn from corner to corner, lies on the ground with the edges curling up. The writing on the paper reads, “Imperial Civil Law — Sumary proceeding.” A thick tree trunk curves in a shallow S shape up along the left edge of the canvas, behind the man. Fern-green jimson weed, clover, small flowers, and rocks carpet the ground beneath and around the man. In the distance, to our left, a man wearing a red coat, a tricorn hat, and holding a musket leads a mule carrying a pack, while sheep graze to our right. Pockets of azure-blue sky are visible beyond gray clouds to our left and fluffy, flaxen-yellow clouds to our right.

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We look onto the side of a rowboat crowded with nine men trying to save a pale, nude young man who flails in the water in front of us as a shark approaches, mouth agape, from our right in this horizontal painting. In the water, the man floats with his chest facing the sky, his right arm overhead and the other stretched out by his side. Extending to our left, his left leg is bent and the right leg is straight, disappearing below the knee. His long blond hair swirls in the water and he arches his back, his wide-open eyes looking toward the shark behind him. To our right, the shark rolls up out of the water with its gaping jaws showing rows of pointed teeth. In the boat, eight of the men have light or tanned complexions, and one man has dark brown skin. The man with brown skin stands at the back center of the boat, and he holds one end of a rope, which falls across the boat and around the upper arm of the man in the water. Another man stands at the stern of the boat, to our right, poised with a long, hooked harpoon over the side of the boat, ready to strike the shark. His long dark hair blows back and he wears a navy-blue jacket with brass buttons, white breeches, blue stockings, and his shoes have silver buckles. Two other men wearing white shirts with blousy sleeves lean over the side of the boat, bracing each other as they reach toward the man in the water. An older, balding man holds the shirt and body of one of this pair and looks on, his mouth open. The other men hold long oars and look into the water with furrowed brows. The tip of a shark’s tail slices through the water to our right of the boat, near the right edge of the canvas. Along the horizon line, which comes three-quarters of the way up the composition, buildings and tall spires line the harbor. The masts of boats at port creates a row of crosses against the light blue sky. Steely gray clouds sweep across the upper left corner of the canvas and the sky lightens to pale, butter yellow at the horizon.

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This square portrait shows the head and shoulders of a young woman in front of a spiky bush that fills much of the background except for a landscape view that extends into the deep distance to our right. The woman's body is angled to our right but her face turns to us. She has chalk-white, smooth skin with heavily lidded, light brown eyes, and her pale pink lips are closed. Pale blush highlights her cheeks, and she looks either at us or very slightly away from our eyes. Her brown hair is parted down the middle and pulled back, but tight, lively curls frame her face. Her hair turns gold where the light shines on it. She wears a brown dress, trimmed along the square neckline with gold. The front of the bodice is tied with a blue ribbon, and the lacing holes are also edged with gold. A sheer white veil covers her chest and is pinned at the center with a small gold ball. The bush fills the space around her head with copper-brown, spiky leaves. A river winds between trees and rolling hills in the distance to our right. Trees and a town along the horizon, which comes about halfway up the painting, is pale blue under an ice-blue sky.

Painting

Since ancient times, artists have made paintings to tell stories or capture beauty. They’ve used egg tempera, oil, and more recently acrylic to create compositions of all shapes and sizes. The results include radiant altarpieces, striking portraits, luminous landscapes, and abstract expressions.

Portraits

Portraits represent people, either real or imagined, attempting to capture their appearance or essence. Some artists explored the human form and emotions through portraits of loved ones. Others made a living depicting wealthy or important people. And artists like Rembrandt van Rijn and Vincent van Gogh frequently used themselves as models.