Wandering Thugs of Art

There are a lot of great period quotes that give us a good idea of how nineteenth-century writers regarded the works of folk artists. Most, if not all, of the quotes are disparaging to the point of hilarity. This particular example is noteworthy for its source, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., the physician and writer who wrote prose and poetry alongside Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and the other Fireside Poets, and published many of his works in The Atlantic Monthly, a magazine that he helped to found. His son and namesake, of course, became a famous Supreme Court Justice in the early twentieth century and wrote such iconic majority decisions as his "clear and present danger" opinion in 1919's Schenck v. United States.

But it is the opinions of the elder Holmes that concern us today, and it appears that he felt the works of folk portraitists were a clear and present danger to American society. Here is what he had to say about these traveling artists in The Atlantic Monthly in July of 1861:

"[these are the] wandering Thugs of Art whose murderous doings with the brush used frequently to involve whole families; who passed from one country tavern to another, eating and painting their way - feeding a week upon the landlord, another week upon the landlady, and two or three days apiece upon the children, as the walls of those hospitable edifices too frequently testify even to the present day."

This was so good we had to use it in our catalogue for the William Matthew Prior exhibition. But as someone who has spent a good part of his life studying and exhibiting this artwork, I can only be grateful that this is one majority opinion that has been dramatically overturned in our time.

A Complex Peace

After nine long years, George Washington had had enough of war. Returning to his beloved home, Mount Vernon, he directed his architect, Joseph Rakestraw, to create a weathervane crowned by a Dove of Peace to adorn the cupola. His instructions were specific: "I should like to have a bird (in place of the Vain) with an olive branch in its Mouth..."

While the message of the weathervane was clear, it says a lot about Washington’s practical nature and his obsession with the weather that it had to be fully functional. Accordingly, he was adamant that it be installed carefully and correctly. Writing from Philadelphia at the time the Dove of Peace was delivered to Mount Vernon, he stated: "Great pains...must be taken to fix the points truly; otherwise they will deceive rather than direct-(if they vary from the North, South, East, and West)-one way of doing this may be by my Compass being placed in a direct North line on the ground at some distance from the House."

A recent trip to Mount Vernon underscored the importance of the weathervane to the estate. It is the one object that can be seen from everywhere, and its high perch is a constant reminder of its owner’s high hopes that he and the new nation would enjoy extended peace and prosperity. The Dove of Peace  atop the cupola seen by visitors to Mount Vernon is now, of course, a replica of the original, although the other elements of the weathervane structure, including the mast, ball, and directional, are all in the same prominent location they were so carefully placed at Washington’s direction in 1787.

The Dove can still be seen, although it has been moved to an indoor gallery in the Donald W. Reynolds Museum and Education Center as part of the “At Home with the Washingtons” exhibition. It is quite startling to see the Dove up close and at eye level, but it is still a stunning example of early American metalwork. It is also in fine shape, having undergone its most recent restoration in 2008. Photographs are not allowed in the gallery, but I did find this one image from a visitor’s web album.

It is an interesting aside that the Dove’s first documented restoration coincided with another era in which the longing to Peace prevailed: 1946, in the wake of the Second World War. As an masterfully executed folk image representing a precious ideal, the Dove remains (admittedly, along with the newly restored slave quarters) one of the things that stays on your mind long after leaving Mount Vernon. As always, history is best defined by its contradictions.

King Derby's Plenty

On a recent visit to Salem I happened upon a stunning sculpture by an 18th-century carver, Simeon Skillen, Jr., who is also represented in the Fenimore Art Museum collection. He has always fascinated me because of the sheer sophistication of his work, most of which was done in the 1790s. There would have been no opportunities for formal training then, so Skillen must have learned his trade in his family's carving shop, which was widely known at the time. I think his sculptures of the human form are as good as anything being done in America. You can find more information on the family workshop in Boston's North End here.

The piece I saw in the galleries of the Peabody Essex Museum was a large, standing figure of Plenty, a nymph in Roman mythology but for this occasion dressed in an 18th-century gown and holding an overflowing cornucopia. It was carved in 1793 for Elias Hasket Derby of Salem (whose portrait by James Frothingham, also at PEM, is seen above), a very wealthy shipowner who made his money in international trade and privateering during the Revolutionary War. He is referred to as "King Derby" in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter and is sometimes (erroneously) called "America's first millionaire."

The figure of Plenty reportedly stood in Derby's formal garden at his summer farm in Salem. The garden is famous for its summer house designed by Samuel McIntire, the architect and carver for whom one of Salem's Historic Districts is now named. McIntire designed a number of homes for Derby, but this summer house is one of his most elegant creations.

Which makes it interesting to me that the summer house is adorned with two life size sculptures by Simeon Skillen, a milkmaid and a reaper. It was in this illustrious company that the figure of Plenty found herself. By contrast, our sculpture by Skillen is more modest but still superb, a bust of the Apollo as god of the sun (note the sunrise on his chest).

Two notes of interest: Derby, despite deriving all of his wealth and influence from the maritime trade, never went to sea himself; and lastly, Hawthorne got his inspiration for The Scarlet Letter from a couple of years working as a customs officer at the Custom House in Salem where, hour after endless hour, he looked out over Derby Wharf.

The Challenge of a Rural Art Museum

As part of my annual media tour to promote the Fenimore Art Museum I happened to have an interview with an arts writer for the Huffington Post. As we got talking, the conversation morphed from the subject of our new exhibitions to our exhibition philosophy, which I have always felt was shaped primarily by our location in rural New York.

The writer became so intrigued by the notion of a rural art museum tailoring its philosophy to the challenges of attracting an audience from the surrounding countryside that she asked me to contribute a blog post on the topic. A couple of months later I finally completed the assignment, and the post appeared just this past Tuesday. Here is the link to the Huffington's Arts page with my post.

The response has been tremendous; much more than I imagined. I had heard of Huffington, but had no idea it had more than 31 million unique visitors every month. That would have made me a whole lot more nervous writing my post.

Anyway, if you read the post you will get some idea of what we are doing at the museum and why. You might even cut me some slack for not keeping up with this blog as much as I used to. One can always hope.