American portraiture captures rich conversations between
artists, musicians, and singers. On the occasion of the Smithsonian’s Year of
Music, this essay explores the interplay of art, music, and portraiture in the
United States, from the Early Republic to today.
During the eighteenth century, artists were often inspired
to portray individuals and groups in the act of playing instruments or singing.
A popular theme was the informal family concert, which exemplified the harmony
and personal values shared by the represented members. An example is the
painting Family of Dr. Joseph Montégut (c. 1797-1800), which has been
attributed to José Francisco Xavier de Salazar y Mendoza. It depicts a
French surgeon who has settled in New Orleans. He is surrounded by his wife,
great aunt, and children, who are about to play for their parents. Two hold flutes,
while a daughter’s hands are poised on the pianoforte keys. This composition of
a French Creole family in Spanish-governed New Orleans presents a vision of
musical and domestic harmony, which had precedents in European art tradition. https://www.crt.state.la.us/louisiana-state-museum/collections/visual-art/artists/jos-francisco-xavier-de-salazar-y-mendoza
From the 1790s through the 1830s, theater and concert
performances proliferated and by the mid-nineteenth century, music had become a
public commodity. A leading European virtuoso, the Swedish singer Jenny Lind, toured
the United States from 1850-1852, in part with the sponsorship of P.T. Barnum. Many
American artists portrayed the popular “Swedish Nightingale,” including Francis
Bicknell Carpenter, whose 1852 oil painting depicts Jenny Lind in costume,
holding a musical score book.
Jenny Lind by Francis Bicknell Carpenter, oil on canvas, 1852. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Eleanor Morein Foster in Honor of First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton (NPG.94.123)
From 1892 to 1895, the Czech composer Antonín Dvořák was director of the National Conservatory of Music in
America. His famous symphony From the
New World (1893) reflected his interest in African American and Native
American music. He promoted the idea that American classical music should
follow its own models instead of imitating European composers. Dvořák
helped inspire our composers to create a distinctly American style of classical
music. By the twentieth century, many American composers, such as Leonard
Bernstein, Aaron Copland, George Gershwin, and Charles Ives incorporated diverse
musical genres into their compositions, including folk, jazz, and blues.
As a composer, pianist, and conductor, Leonard Bernstein made
a profound impact on American music by collaborating with the performing arts. His
interests ranged from classical music and ballet to jazz and musicals. In an
oil portrait of 1960, René Robert Bouché portrayed Bernstein in a moment of
reflection, with the papers of the musical score he is writing scattered across
the desk in front of him.
Leonard Bernstein by René Robert Bouché, oil on canvas, 1960. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Springate Corporation. © Denise Bouche Fitch (NPG.92.3)
The composer George Gershwin and his brother, lyricist Ira
Gershwin, were also highly versatile, having collaborated on popular musicals
and a folk opera. Both brothers also painted interesting self-portraits, which
can be viewed in the Gershwin collection in the Music Division of the Library
of Congress. In a 1934 oil portrait in the collection of the National Portrait
Gallery, George Gershwin represented himself in profile with a musical score
and his hand alighting upon the piano keys.
Self-Portrait by George Gershwin, oil on canvas board, 1934. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Ira Gershwin. © Estate of George Gershwin (NPG.66.48)
The following year, the Gershwin brothers debuted Porgy
and Bess, “an American folk opera,” which broke new ground in musical
terms. Soprano Leontyne Price appeared in the 1952 revival touring production
of Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, which brought her first major success. Less
than a decade later, in 1961, Price became the first leading African-American
opera star when she made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera. Bradley Phillips
created this formal oil painting of Leontyne Price within a stage setting in
1963. It is one of several portraits he made of the singer. The artist
expressed the admiration he felt for her immense talent when seeing her perform
onstage.
Leontyne Price by Bradley Phillips, oil on canvas, 1963. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Ms. Sayre Sheldon (NPG.91.96)
Artists Thomas Eakins and George P.A. Healy also created portraits
of singers and musicians. In the medium of painting, these artists were able to
convey the intensity and precision of the musicians in their performances. Thomas
Eakins asked his model Weda Cook to repeatedly sing a particular phrase from
Felix Mendelssohn’s oratorio Elijah, so
he could explore the position and movement of her mouth and vocal chords for
his portrait Concert Singer (1890-1892).
In this manner, he recreated the immediate sense of a formal concert with the contralto
singing on the stage and the conductor’s hand and baton raised in the lower corner.
https://www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/42499.html
George P.A. Healy visited virtuoso Franz Liszt in Rome and created
this 1868-1869 oil portrait of him playing the piano in an inspired moment. Healy
even convinced the composer to allow Ferdinand Barbedienne to cast his hands in
bronze, an artifact Healy later kept in his studio. https://callisto.ggsrv.com/imgsrv/FastFetch/UBER1/ZI-9HFT-2014-JUN00-SPI-142-1
Both artists not only portrayed the physical characteristics of musicians and
singers but also the inner passion and mental concentration they brought to
their performances. As such, they recreated the emotional spirit of the music
for viewers.
James McNeill Whistler thought about his paintings in terms
of musical titles and themes. He created not only portraits of musicians but also
discussed the subtle tonalities of his more abstract urban scenes and landscapes
in musical terms. In 1878, Whistler defended the titles of his paintings: “Why
should not I call my works ‘symphonies,’ ‘arrangements,’ ‘harmonies,’ and ‘nocturnes’?...As music is
the poetry of sound, so is painting the poetry of sight, and the subject-matter
has nothing to do with harmony of sound or of colour.” This analogy between
music and painting was Whistler’s primary means for defending his paintings
against criticism. Indeed, he published this defense in the journal The World during his libel lawsuit
against critic John Ruskin, who referred to Whistler’s 1875 oil painting of
fireworks in London, Nocturne in Black
and Gold: The Falling Rocket, as “flinging a pot of paint in the public’s
face.” https://www.dia.org/art/collection/object/nocturne-black-and-gold-falling-rocket-64931
Whistler’s use of music as a metaphor for painting was intended to build
support for the concept that color, form, and painterly technique were the
primary elements of an artwork. Whistler brought this correlation of painting
and music to public attention with his artworks, which in turn influenced other
artists and musicians.
Regional painter Thomas Hart Benton praised “James McNeill
Whistler[’s art]...tone, colors harmoniously arranged…Whether you can
distinguish one object from another or not, whether the thing painted looks
like a man, woman, or dog, mountain, house or tree, you have harmony and the
grandest artistic aim, it is the truly artistic aim.” Benton was a self-taught
and performing musician who invented a harmonica tablature notation system used
in current music tutorials. He was also a cataloguer, collector, transcriber,
and distributor of popular music. He had musical gatherings for family and
friends at his home in Kansas City. These sessions were commemorated on a 1942 recording
by Decca Records called Saturday Night at
Tom Benton’s, which featured chamber and folk music. Benton’s friend, the
popular actor and singer Burl Ives, shared his passion for American songs.
During the Great Depression, Ives traveled the country gathering and playing
folk songs, and Benton made sketches of folk musicians in different regions. In
a 1950 lithograph titled the Hymn Singer
or the Minstrel, Benton portrayed
Ives playing the guitar.
Burl Ives by Thomas Hart Benton, lithograph on paper, 1950. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution. © T.H. Benton and R.P. Benton Testamentary Trusts/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY (NPG.85.141)
In 1973, Benton was commissioned to paint his last mural, The Sources of Country Music, for the
Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, with support from the
National Endowment for the Arts. He decided the mural “should show the roots of
the music–the sources–before there were records and stars,” and he created a
lively, flowing composition of country folk musicians, singers, and
dancers. https://www.arts.gov/about/40th-anniversary-highlights/thomas-hart-bentons-final-gift
Artist LeRoy Neiman featured Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong,
Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Charlie Parker, Benny Goodman, and other
famous jazz performers in his group portrait Big Band (2005), which is held at the Smithsonian National Museum
of American History. It took Neiman ten years to complete this mural-size
tribute to eighteen jazz masters, which the LeRoy Neiman Foundation presented to
the Smithsonian after the artist’s death in 2012. Neiman frequented jazz clubs,
where he befriended and sketched these performers. In 2015, the LeRoy Neiman
Foundation donated funds to the Smithsonian towards the expansion of jazz
programing during the annual celebration. See the following two part guide to
this group portrait of jazz greats: https://americanhistory.si.edu/blog/neiman-jazz
and https://americanhistory.si.edu/blog/neiman-jazz-2
One can discover further portraits and biographies of
notable composers, musicians, and singers in the Catalog of American Portraits
(CAP). In 1966, the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery founded the CAP, a
national portrait archive of historically significant subjects and artists from
the colonial period to the present day. The public is welcome to access the
online portrait search program of more than 100,000 records from the museum’s
website: https://npg.si.edu/portraits/research/search
The Smithsonian is celebrating the Year of Music with a wide
variety of collection highlights and programs. To learn more, please visit: https://music.si.edu/smithsonian-year-music
Patricia H. Svoboda, Research Coordinator
Catalog of American Portraits, National Portrait Gallery
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