George Washington posed here
George Washington hated posing. A practical man little given to indulgence, he would have preferred riding out to inspect his vast farmland at Mount Vernon, in Virginia, or conducting business or legislative work, or just about anything else, for that matter, than to strike a pose for a painter.
But Martha wanted a canvas of her husband to add to her collection of family portraits. So in May 1772, Washington stood immobile for the better part of two days for the painter Charles Willson Peale, an acquaintance of Martha's son, Jacky. The Virginia colonel and future father of his country was dressed in the elaborate uniform of his regiment, "feeling ridiculous, all dressed up as if he were going to war," writes Hugh Howard in "The Painter's Chair: George Washington and the Making of American Art." He was, he felt, squandering "a cool and clear spring Thursday as a captive in his own house."
But by the time the great man sat for his final portrait nearly a quarter of a century later, he was resigned to the unavoidable fact that he had become a living symbol of the new nation. The traits that made Washington the consensus choice as the country's first president - his stoicism and resolve, his keen ear and deliberative calm - were already the stuff of fables, and he knew it was his duty to let his image be recorded for posterity.
More than one revolution took place during Washington's lifetime. As Howard, the author of "Thomas Jefferson, Architect," notes in his graceful account of the painters who preserved Washington's likeness through the centuries, the Colonies experienced a cultural transformation concurrent with the quest for independence. Architecture, theater, science, and art all began to find a mass audience newly eager to satisfy the life of the mind....
Read entire article at Boston Globe
But Martha wanted a canvas of her husband to add to her collection of family portraits. So in May 1772, Washington stood immobile for the better part of two days for the painter Charles Willson Peale, an acquaintance of Martha's son, Jacky. The Virginia colonel and future father of his country was dressed in the elaborate uniform of his regiment, "feeling ridiculous, all dressed up as if he were going to war," writes Hugh Howard in "The Painter's Chair: George Washington and the Making of American Art." He was, he felt, squandering "a cool and clear spring Thursday as a captive in his own house."
But by the time the great man sat for his final portrait nearly a quarter of a century later, he was resigned to the unavoidable fact that he had become a living symbol of the new nation. The traits that made Washington the consensus choice as the country's first president - his stoicism and resolve, his keen ear and deliberative calm - were already the stuff of fables, and he knew it was his duty to let his image be recorded for posterity.
More than one revolution took place during Washington's lifetime. As Howard, the author of "Thomas Jefferson, Architect," notes in his graceful account of the painters who preserved Washington's likeness through the centuries, the Colonies experienced a cultural transformation concurrent with the quest for independence. Architecture, theater, science, and art all began to find a mass audience newly eager to satisfy the life of the mind....