 J. S. Copley is primarily known as John Singleton Copley
|
|
Ad Code: 2
|
from Auction House Records.
Mrs. Theodore Atkinson, Jr. (Francis Deering Wentworth)
Artwork images are copyright of the artist or assignee
|
|
|
This biography from the Archives of AskART:
|  The
crowds who visited the Copley exhibition in Washington and Houston in
1996 were a testimony to the enduring regard in which this artist is
still held in his native land. The utterly convincing realism of his
portraits of wealthy Bostonian merchants and landed gentry in the years
before the American revolution has secured him a lasting fame, a fact
which would no doubt have surprised the artist, who had complained that
'fame cannot be durable where pictures are confined to sitting rooms,
and regarded only for the resemblance they bear to their originals'.
His
attention to the minutiae of patterned lace, his polished wood and
metal surfaces, brilliant fabrics and lustrous pearls, all rendered
with a jeweler's precision, made him hugely successful at the time and
still remains a tangible symbol of the young colony's materialism and
self respect. But Copley left America for ever in 1774, and in fact
spent more years in London than he had in his native country. With a
productive and prosperous career well established at home, what drove
Copley to pull up his roots and start over again in London?
The
answer is that he was motivated by ambition. He was intent on 'gaining
a reputation rather than a fortune'. (He went on to note that it was of
course possible to acquire a fortune while in pursuit of reputation!)
He complained that 'people generally regard [portrait painting] no more
than any other useful trade, as they sometimes term it, like that of a
Carpenter, tailor or shoe maker, not as one of the most noble Arts in
the world'. Copley wanted to achieve something greater than a local
reputation as a skilled workman, and to compete with the best artists
in a wider arena, not just to be a big fish in a small, provincial
pond.
Copley had no formal artistic training but was largely
self-taught, and he knew that in order to achieve true fame he would
have to study the Old Masters at first hand. He was also aware of the
example of Benjamin West, his exact contemporary, who had left
Philadelphia in 1760 to study in Rome. Three years later West was in
London, embarked on a successful career which included being a founding
members of the Royal Academy in 1768 and in 1792 its second President,
after the death of Sir Joshua Reynolds.
Copley began sending
portraits from Boston to London for exhibition at the Society of
Artists in 1766, but he still hesitated about relocating in England,
noting that his income of 300 guineas a year at home was equal to nine
hundred in London. He was no longer a young man, and had a family in
Boston as well as a prosperous portrait practice. Eventually the art
market was threatened by the deteriorating political situation, and in
June 1774 just a few weeks away from his 36th birthday, he finally
sailed for England, leaving behind in America his wife and four
children. On August 26 he was on his way to Rome, intent on improving
himself as an artist through study of the best examples of classical
sculpture and Renaissance and Baroque painting.
It was not
until October 1775 that he was reunited with his family in London, and
this painting The Copley Family begun shortly afterwards was surely
intended as a personal celebration of the event as well as an
advertisement of his remarkable abilities as a portrait painter.
In
Boston Copley's work had been exclusively in the field of portraiture.
However, in Rome he had painted his first independent 'history'
compositions, and it was now as a History Painter that he intended to
succeed in London, hoping to support himself by the more reliable means
of portrait painting while awaiting and undertaking commissions for
history subjects. In the hierarchy of genres or types of painting at
that time, 'History' was the highest an artist could aspire to. Its
high-minded subject matter was drawn from the Bible, classical history
and mythology and epic poetry. Modern life - modern events, manners,
clothes, appearances - was considered incompatible with the grand
style, and only the idealized past could provide suitable ennobling and
uplifting subject matter. Instead of real, imperfect people, such
pictures were populated with perfected, idealized bodies for which the
source was Classical sculpture coupled with a close study of human
anatomy.
But the British public was largely indifferent to
History painting, and this lack of support was one of the reasons that
a group of artists including Sir Joshua Reynolds and Copley's
compatriot Benjamin West founded the Royal Academy in 1768. Although
West was the same age as Copley he had been successfully established in
London for more than ten years by the time of Copley's arrival. With
his painting The Death of Wolfe in 1771 he was the first to defy the
dogma that modern life could not provide subjects for the grand style,
and with it introduced the genre of the Modern History painting. The
painting depicts the tragic death of a great military hero at the
moment he had secured North America for the British Empire - thus was
in itself a noble, elevated subject. Although the protagonists are clad
in modern military dress rather than classical garb - a fact some found
shocking - West gave the scene a monumental and tragic treatment
through poses recalling traditional representations of the lamentation
over Christ, while the necessary distancing from the everyday was
provided not by the passage of time but through the introduction of the
exotic elements of a native American and a wild frontiersman.
As
an American, West's early training and experience was outside the
academic hierarchy of genres which placed biblical and classical
subjects at the top, and it was his fellow American Copley - like him
free from the oppressive weight of academic tradition - who was the
first painter to follow up West's innovation. Copley later said that he
believed 'that modern subjects are the properest for the exercise of
the pencil and far more interesting to the present Age than those taken
from Ancient History', and it was in the development of contemporary
history painting - a genre which merges portraiture, in which Copley
was so able, with the grand style - that was to be his greatest
achievement in England.
Copley's first contribution to the
development of the genre was this picture Watson and the Shark. It
depicts the dramatic rescue of the 14 year old seaman Brook Watson,
attacked by sharks as he swam in Havana Harbour. Although born in
England, orphaned as a young child Watson had been brought up by
relatives in Boston, and after the attack he was there fitted with a
wooden leg. He went on to become a prosperous merchant with trading
connections with Copley's wife's family, and in 1759 he settled in
London where his career included playing a part in the development of
Lloyds, becoming Alderman in 1784, Master of the Musicians Company,
Deputy Governor of the Bank of England and, in 1796 Lord Mayor. Watson
himself commissioned this picture, years after the event, and chose its
theme, which is one of religious salvation - expressed through the
grand manner rhetoric of visual references and religious symbolism.
Watson bequeathed the picture to Christ's Hospital with the injunction
that it be hung in the Hall for the instruction of the pupils, but it
is now in the National Gallery of Art, Washington.
As this
picture was being exhibited at the RA in 1778, an event occurred which
furnished the subject for Copley's next contemporary history painting -
the Death of the Earl of Chatham - and it is at this juncture that the
Corporation of London and Alderman John Boydell enter the story.
The
frail William Pitt, Earl of Chatham had collapsed in the House of Lords
in April 1778 while making a speech in a debate on the American War of
Independence, and had died about a month afterwards. Chatham's
political philosophy was based on trade and commercial expansion, and
as a consequence he enjoyed the support of the City of London, being
described by Alderman Boydell as 'an Encourager of Commerce, a Patron
of Liberty and a zealous friend to the Citizens of London'. The Court
of Common Council appointed a Committee to consider what mark of
respect was most fit to perpetuate his memory, and in July this
Committee asked Benjamin West to submit a design for a painting, and
the sculptor John Bacon a model for a sculpture. There is no indication
in either minutes or committee papers as to why these were the only two
artists selected, and indeed in December the Court of Common Council
refused to accept the Committee's recommendation that Bacon's model be
approved and told them to obtain further designs. However the matter
dragged on, and although Alderman Boydell published a pamphlet arguing
passionately for a painting rather than a statue, in December 1779 the
Court agreed to adopt Bacon's model. The monument was completed in the
Great Hall in 1783. Among the arguments Boydell put forward in his
pamphlet in favour of a painting was that the Corporation had recently
obtained a most suitable space, begging for paintings to decorate it -
the new Common Council Chamber built by the Corporation's Surveyor and
Clerk of Works George Dance in 1777. It was this room that was to
accommodate Copley's Gibraltar painting.
There seems to be a
long standing belief that Copley was one of the artists considered by
the Corporation for this commission, but this is not supported by the
records, which show that his friend West was the only painter
consulted; the small oil sketch which West produced for the Corporation
is now in the Kimbell Art Museum at Fort Worth. After failing to win
the Corporation's commission, West decided not to take the design any
further but generously encouraged Copley to develop his own
composition, and allowed him to base his picture on West's own sketch.
Copley had no commission for this large painting but undertook it
speculatively. It took two years to complete and contained portraits
from life of 56 peers. In 1781 Copley displayed it in a private
one-picture exhibition in the Haymarket, opened shortly after the Royal
Academy exhibition.
Copley was the originator of this sort of
one-person, one-picture exhibition, which enabled him to recoup some of
his investment in the time, labour and materials expended on the
picture through the sale of admission tickets and advance subscriptions
for an engraving of it. (As it happened, this was the only money he
made at the time from Chatham, which remained unsold until disposed of
by lottery in 1806.) Copley organized the engraving after the picture
himself, but entered into an agreement with Alderman Boydell that he
would also sell subscriptions for it at his print shop and Gallery at
90 Cheapside. And Copley's next important painting, The Death of Major
Pierson, was commissioned by Boydell for the sum of 800. Again the
rhetoric of traditional history painting is employed to ennoble a
contemporary subject, the death in St Helier, Jersey, of a gallant
young officer during the counter attack against invading French troops
in 1781 - a subject calculated to appeal to British nationalistic
sentiment. (Copley heightened this appeal by playing down the role of
the Scottish Highlanders in the event to highlight that of the English
Grenadiers.)
Completed in 1784, The Death of Major Peirson was
exhibited by Copley together with the unsold Chatham before being
exhibited again by Alderman Boydell who also oversaw production of the
engraving from it. The King spent three hours viewing the painting, and
on being told it had been painted for Boydell 'spoke in high terms of
his public spirit and encouragement of the arts'. Alderman John Boydell
was England's most energetic and important print publisher. He was also
passionate in his determination to promote a native school of history
painting and to provide opportunities for British artists. He is shown
here in a portrait by Beechey commissioned by the Corporation in 1800.
Within
only a few years of his debut at the Academy with a modern history
subject, Copley had thus entered the top rank of history painters in
England, enjoying both critical and popular success. And by the time
the King conferred the royal seal of approval on The Death of Peirson,
Copley had already received the commission from the Corporation of
London to paint The Defeat of the Floating Batteries at Gibraltar.
Source:
Vivian Knight, Guildhall Art Gallery Curator.
collage.nhil.com/Copley2/history/text/htm#1768:
|
This biography from the Archives of AskART:
|  Born in Boston, John Singleton Copley became one of America's most
famous portrait painters, spending his early career in Boston and then
settling in England where he also took up history painting. At an early
age, he was Boston's most esteemed portraitist, much sought after by
prominent persons such as Paul Revere and Samuel Adams. As a dedicated
realist, he gave foundation and form to the American tradition of
realism. He was also exceedingly interested in history painting and was
disappointed at the lack of enthusiasm Americans seemed to have for
this subject that was so popular in Europe.
His technique was
to pay great attention to actual detail, giving facts about the
subject's life such as showing Paul Revere with a piece of the silver
that signified his profession. Copley did not like flashy color or
dramatic, symbolic effect and used props only to enhance
characterization.
His father died shortly after he was born, and
his mother, who ran a tobacco shop at Long Wharf on Boston Harbor,
married portrait painter and engraver, Peter Pelham, who gave Copley
his early training. As a teenager, he was influenced by American
portraitist Robert Feke and Joseph Blackburn, an English immigrant
painter, to dispense with the hard-edged, provincial limner style for a
more advanced technique of illusionism.
In spite of his early
success, he desired more professional training and went to Europe to
study the great masters. He had been urged to come to London by Sir
Joshua Reynolds, head of the Royal Academy, and Benjamin West, renowned
expatriate American painter at the Royal Court. The fact that his
Colonial family was Loyalist to the British crown also played heavily
in this decision.
In London, Copley studied with John Smibert
and became a popular figure in English society, eventually admitted to
the Royal Academy. In this environment, his painting style also took on
more sophistication of composition and a softer, more elegant manner.
Some critics favor the directness and independence of his Colonial work
over the English paintings. In London, he, having been a friend of
West, became his competitor and grew to resent him for getting what he
felt was inflated attention. He believed his own history painting
superior to West.
In London, he developed an ingenious way of
earning money, one that riled his fellow-members of the Royal Academy
who primarily used that venue to sell their paintings. But Copley had
private showings and charged admission; he sold engravings of the
paintings and then sold the painting itself.
Sources include:
American Art Review
Michael David Zellman, 300 Years of American Art
|
This biography from the Archives of AskART:
|  In
1749, 14-year-old English sailor Brook Watson was swimming in the
harbor in Havana, Cuba when a large shark attacked him. His nearby
crewmates set out in a small boat to rescue the young sailor, but not
before the shark bit off Watson's right foot at the ankle. Several
decades later, Watson commissioned American portraitist John Singleton
Copley to depict the scene in a vivid action painting that startled
18th-century audiences and established Copley's reputation as an
accomplished artist.
Copley, who came to England in 1774, had
already drawn praise from prominent English painter Sir Joshua
Reynolds, but had yet to create a masterpiece. Watson and the Shark is
considered an important work because its depiction of humans struggling
against nature looks forward to a central theme in early 19th-century
art. But it was also remarkable for realistically portraying an
exciting, contemporary event. In fact, while Copley's painting was
displayed in London's Royal Academy in 1778, a London newspaper
published a gory account of Watson's misadventure.
In the
painting's foreground, Watson, the shark, and the rescuers are engaged
in a whirlwind of frantic movement. The dramatically positioned figures
compete for the viewer's attention, underscoring the sense of urgency.
The light shapes of the rescuers, mostly clad in white, and the pale,
corpse-like tones of Watson's body are in sharp contrast to the dark
shape of the shark, which lunges out of the shadowy, bottom right side
of the painting to attack the vulnerable boy. Watson's lower right leg
disappears in a cloud of darkness, suggesting blood, and his foot is
cropped out of the painting altogether.
Although Copley
painted historical subjects and portraits for England's upper classes
until his death in 1815, critics consider the Watson painting among his
best work. Watson enjoyed an increasingly successful career in
politics. After becoming a baronet in 1803, Watson designed a coat of
arms that included Neptune fighting a large shark, and, in the upper
part of the shield, a large, amputated right foot.
Source:
Claire Capuzzi from Zooba Art History,
www.zooba.com/servlet/ViewHistory:
|
| ** If you discover credit omissions or have additional information to add, please let us know at registrar@AskART.com. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
J. Copley is also mentioned in these AskART essays:
Paris Pre 1900
|
|
|