John Vanderlyn: French Neoclassicism and the Search for an American Art

John Vanderlyn (1775-1852) was the foremost neoclassical painter in the United States. Encouraged and supported by Aaron Burr, he was the first American artist to train in Paris at a time when most American painters studied in London. His decision was not casual. Vanderlyn shared an antipathy toward Great Britain and an admiration for France not only with Burr, but also with such other progressive, Republican idealists as Thomas Jefferson, Robert R. Livingston, and Joel Barlow. During a period when the new nation was seeking self-definition, these men looked not to England, but to France-especially Revolutionary France of the 1790s-as America's sister republic and cultural role model. Vanderlyn sought to establish an American art based on French neoclassicism, a style that allowed for the expression of classical, republican ideals of virtue and morality in modern terms. He endorsed the reformative, didactic impulse of French neoclassicism, and the style, as he adapted it within an American context, reflected a clear departure from the Anglo-colonial heritage of American culture.
This study focuses on the first half of Vanderlyn's career, from 1790 to 1815, encompassing his early training with Gilbert Stuart and association with Burr, his studies in Paris at the Academy and the atelier of Francois-Andre Vincent, and the period of his greatest achievements, from 1800 to 1815. While his portraits provide an index to the development of his style, the discussion centers upon his major works: the views of Niagara Falls (1803), The Murder of Jane McCrae (1804), the Caius Marius on the Ruins of Carthage (1807), the Antiope after Correggio (1809), and the Ariadne Asleep and Abandoned by Theseus on the Island of Naxos (1812). Each painting is viewed from the perspectives of French neoclassicism and American socio-political values and artistic standards. The significance of Vanderlyn's academic training and the roles of his patrons in the definition of his style are also examined at length.
When Vanderlyn returned to the United States in 1815, he realized ambitions which had motivated him since the 1790s. He constructed a gallery of art-the Rotunda-in New York City, where he exhibited the Marius and Ariadne and his copies after Old Master paintings. He intended that the gallery would educate and elevate public taste and, by providing models of excellence both from the grand tradition and in the modern neoclassical style, would establish the foundation for an American aesthetic. His belief that French neoclassicism was the proper basis for an independent, American art is summarized in an analysis of two monumental paintings from this period, the full-length portrait of President James Monroe (1821) and the panorama, Palace and Gardens of Versailles (1819). Although Vanderlyn ultimately failed to ally his art with prevailing American taste, his achievements were both sound on their own terms and instrumental in defining the role of art in the United States. Vanderlyn at least attained his personal goal of applying the French aesthetic within an American context; in the process, he produced paintings of enduring meaning and beauty.