Artists as Subject: Images of Artists in American Painting, 1830- 60

Between 1830 and 1860, self-portraits and other images of artists played a vital role in American artists' attempts to formulate a reputable professional identity. Though regard for American art advanced noticeably during this period, questions remained about the artist's place in a pragmatic republic. The images in this study, which were often widely exhibited, demanded recognition for artists. At the same time, they reveal the tension created by the clash between the artists' European aesthetic heritage and American democratic imperatives. This dissertation examines the roles artists assumed in portraiture and genre painting in response to their singular circumstances. Existing studies examine such works individually or as part of an artist's oeuvre, or investigate written accounts of the profession with no reference to the images. This study seeks to reconcile past approaches by offering thematic analyses of twelve artist-images through exploration of the artists' professional, social, and intellectual milieu, thereby providing the paintings with both a denser historical context and new interpretive readings. Examining the ambitious, uneasy images artists painted of themselves in light of the challenges they faced encourages re-evaluation of the standard view of antebellum American artists as stable, respected professionals. William Sidney Mount's The Painter's Triumph, for instance, long regarded as evidence of the artist's harmonious relationship with the public, also reveals Mount's paradoxically unfavorable feelings about his audience, a connotation recognized by the artist's contemporaries. Similarly, images of artists by Charles Loring Elliott, Daniel Huntington, Johannes Oertel, and others merit study for what they reveal of the artists' personal concerns and how they mirrored and shaped issues current in the broader public mind. Issues addressed in the dissertation include contrasting views of creative genius expressed in bust-length self-portraits, conceptions of art as work in portraits of artists with the tools of their trade, and the dynamics of popular taste evident in genre paintings of visitors to artist's studios. Through comparison with other "images" of artists in critical and popular writing, fiction, cartoons, and periodical illustrations, this dissertation concludes that the paintings present no single, coherent view of the antebellum American artist, but demonstrate instead the myriad private and public factors involved in constructing a professional identity acceptable to the artists' needs as creators and their public's expectations.