Filmmaker Tobe Carey shows Movie About John Vanderlyn Revealing Artist’s Brilliant Talent and Dark Nature
by Donna Deeprose
First things first: The title of the film that Tobe Carey showed at the October program of the Town of Lloyd Historical Preservation Society was “The First Artist in America: The Life and Times of John Vanderlyn – Artist.” Vanderlyn wasn’t chronologically the first American artist – unless he rates the title by being born in 1775, the year the American Revolution began.
It was Aaron Burr who gave Vanderlyn that honorific. But what he probably meant, the movie quickly proposes, was first – or best – in terms of soul, integrity, and vocation, rather than merely addressing the marketplace. The movie reveals all those qualities in the works shown – the artist’s prodigious talent and his determination to paint historical works despite the lack of interest among art-buying Americans. The result was accolades from many of his fellow artists and appreciation from a few people in high places, but not enough to keep him from poverty, anger and resentment toward those who criticized him, and depression fed by the negatives he constantly faced. Vanderlyn was born a country lad in Kingston, NY, and after many travels returned there to die, discouraged and disheartened, the film reports, “to lay down, a beggar among his ungrateful countrymen.”
But in between, what a life! And what a collection of work he left for future generations to appreciate. His family was poor. His grandfather, Pieter Vanderlyn, had been a successful portrait painter, whose works still hang on walls in Ulster County. But his father scraped out a living painting signs and coaches, a fate much more anticipated for young John than the path he set out on when he headed for New York City as a young man. Despite financial difficulties his parents had sent him to Kingston Academy, where he studied with the sons of the elite. After graduating he found a job in an art supplies store in New York City, where he met and impressed Aaron Burr, who arranged for him to go to Philadelphia and work in the studio of portrait painter Gilbert Stuart. It was common then to make multiple copies of a painting and sell them all. It was also common for the portraitist to turn the initial work of copying over to apprentices. Vanderlyn became known as a superb copyist, and soon Stuart told the young man, “It’s time to let you go. You are already much more talented than I am. It’s time for you to go to Paris.”
With the blessing of both Stuart and Burr, Vanderlyn moved to Richmond Hill to live with Burr and brush up on his French. Burr then sent him to Paris to study and Vanderlyn became enchanted with the neoclassical style of painting popular in Europe at the time. Not so popular in America, Vanderlyn was to discover, where, as the movie relates, people wanted pictures of landscapes on their walls, not pictures of people in togas, and definitely not, as Vanderlyn was later to discover, pictures of people with no clothes at all.
For years, Vanderlyn travelled back and forth between France, where he soon won a drawing contest hands-down, and America, where he made money painting portraits to support himself. His self-portrait earned him an honor attained by few American artists – a showing at the Paris Salon. But in Paris, he was told the best artists don’t settle for being portrait painters; they become history painters. Vanderlyn took this to heart. The movie follows his life as told through his best-known pictures:
Pictures of Niagara Falls, which he painted on the advice of Aaron Burr, then got the idea that he could make engravings and circulate them among people interested in annexing Canada. Unfortunately for Vanderlyn, it took years to get the whole project done, and sales were not spectacular.
The Death of Jane McCrea (1805), portrays an historical fact – a young woman being slaughtered by two Mohawk mercenaries, who were assigned to escort her to the camp of her fiancé, an officer of the British Army during the American Revolution. The escorts however decided it would be more profitable to scalp her and sell her beautiful hair. Way in the background is her beloved racing fruitlessly to her aid. Vanderlyn painted him in a blue, rather than red, jacket, perhaps for political reasons? The movie notes that the picture is characterized by both savagery and bodice-ripping – selling sex, the narrator comments. Not something Americans were likely to buy copies of to hang in their homes.
Caius Marius Amid the Ruins of Carthage (1807) – definitely a toga picture of the kind not appreciated by American art-buyers, but honored in France with a Napoleon gold medal. The movie narrator point outs out how Vanderlyn expresses in his subject’s countenance both disappointed ambition and meditation on revenge. To support himself Vanderlyn pawned and reclaimed the medal several times, until finally he lost claim to it as one purchaser kept it.
Did Napoleon see in the picture an allusion to himself, the movie’s narrator ponders. Napoleon wanted to buy it for the Louvre, but Vanderlyn refused despite his financial problems. At the time, he was planning a very different project – a public art gallery in New York City, and he wanted to place the picture there.
Ariadne, Asleep on the Island of Naxos (1809-14). If Vanderlyn had never painted anything but Ariadne, he would be remembered, the movie narrator maintains. A gorgeous classical nude, based upon a sleeping statue stolen by Napoleon, the picture was sure to shock Americans. Although a copy was commissioned by a steamboat line, travelling up and down the Hudson River, it was too much for the boat’s patrons. In France, the Royalists were back in power and they too rejected the painting, considering it tainted by its association with Napoleon.
Panoramic View of the Palace and Gardens of Versailles (1818-19). Vanderlyn began to think that a way to interest Americans in history paintings was to bring them panoramic views of historical locations. Having been enchanted by Versailles during his stays in France, he settled on it for his new masterpiece. At the same time, he began planning his New York City Public Gallery and persuaded the City Council to lease him land on which to build it. It was to cost him one peppercorn per year for nine years, after which it could be reclaimed by the City. Vanderlyn was assured by his supporters that the City would never take it back. So he went ahead and built a large Rotunda to display his work. When finished, the upper floor housed the giant curved Panorama and the lower floor served as a gallery for his smaller works.
Vanderlyn ingeniously slipped famous figures, including the Russian Czar and King Louis 18th of France as well as himself, among the groups of people scattered about the gardens of Versailles. But success was underwhelming. At 25 cents a visitor, it was a financial failure. Vanderlyn hired his nephew to staff it while he ran himself ragged looking for portrait commissions. But eventually the City reclaimed the land and Rotunda, paying Vanderlyn $3000 for his building, which became a courthouse, a post office, and city offices before being torn down in the 1870s.
Meanwhile an embittered John Vanderlyn rolled up his Panorama, gathered his paintings, and toured the country, being stopped in various places because of Ariadne’s nudity.
Landing of Columbus (1847), depicting Columbus and his crew landing on an island in the West Indies, their first steps onto the New World. Commissioned by Congress, the work hangs in the Rotunda of the Capitol. Vanderlyn created the work in France, with the assistance of a French painter to execute the American artist’s design. That was a common practice in Europe, but was viewed with scorn by some in the United States. Still, the Landing of Columbus was more widely circulated than any other Vanderlyn painting, the movie points out, since it was engraved on the $5 bill, and later on a stamp.
In his later years, the unhappy Vanderlyn was known to say that if he could live his life over, he’d paint quick unimportant things because people can’t tell the difference. He died, in poverty, at age 77. But the Panorama now hangs in New York’s Metropolitan Museum, and his other works in other top museums.
by Donna Deeprose
First things first: The title of the film that Tobe Carey showed at the October program of the Town of Lloyd Historical Preservation Society was “The First Artist in America: The Life and Times of John Vanderlyn – Artist.” Vanderlyn wasn’t chronologically the first American artist – unless he rates the title by being born in 1775, the year the American Revolution began.
It was Aaron Burr who gave Vanderlyn that honorific. But what he probably meant, the movie quickly proposes, was first – or best – in terms of soul, integrity, and vocation, rather than merely addressing the marketplace. The movie reveals all those qualities in the works shown – the artist’s prodigious talent and his determination to paint historical works despite the lack of interest among art-buying Americans. The result was accolades from many of his fellow artists and appreciation from a few people in high places, but not enough to keep him from poverty, anger and resentment toward those who criticized him, and depression fed by the negatives he constantly faced. Vanderlyn was born a country lad in Kingston, NY, and after many travels returned there to die, discouraged and disheartened, the film reports, “to lay down, a beggar among his ungrateful countrymen.”
But in between, what a life! And what a collection of work he left for future generations to appreciate. His family was poor. His grandfather, Pieter Vanderlyn, had been a successful portrait painter, whose works still hang on walls in Ulster County. But his father scraped out a living painting signs and coaches, a fate much more anticipated for young John than the path he set out on when he headed for New York City as a young man. Despite financial difficulties his parents had sent him to Kingston Academy, where he studied with the sons of the elite. After graduating he found a job in an art supplies store in New York City, where he met and impressed Aaron Burr, who arranged for him to go to Philadelphia and work in the studio of portrait painter Gilbert Stuart. It was common then to make multiple copies of a painting and sell them all. It was also common for the portraitist to turn the initial work of copying over to apprentices. Vanderlyn became known as a superb copyist, and soon Stuart told the young man, “It’s time to let you go. You are already much more talented than I am. It’s time for you to go to Paris.”
With the blessing of both Stuart and Burr, Vanderlyn moved to Richmond Hill to live with Burr and brush up on his French. Burr then sent him to Paris to study and Vanderlyn became enchanted with the neoclassical style of painting popular in Europe at the time. Not so popular in America, Vanderlyn was to discover, where, as the movie relates, people wanted pictures of landscapes on their walls, not pictures of people in togas, and definitely not, as Vanderlyn was later to discover, pictures of people with no clothes at all.
For years, Vanderlyn travelled back and forth between France, where he soon won a drawing contest hands-down, and America, where he made money painting portraits to support himself. His self-portrait earned him an honor attained by few American artists – a showing at the Paris Salon. But in Paris, he was told the best artists don’t settle for being portrait painters; they become history painters. Vanderlyn took this to heart. The movie follows his life as told through his best-known pictures:
Pictures of Niagara Falls, which he painted on the advice of Aaron Burr, then got the idea that he could make engravings and circulate them among people interested in annexing Canada. Unfortunately for Vanderlyn, it took years to get the whole project done, and sales were not spectacular.
The Death of Jane McCrea (1805), portrays an historical fact – a young woman being slaughtered by two Mohawk mercenaries, who were assigned to escort her to the camp of her fiancé, an officer of the British Army during the American Revolution. The escorts however decided it would be more profitable to scalp her and sell her beautiful hair. Way in the background is her beloved racing fruitlessly to her aid. Vanderlyn painted him in a blue, rather than red, jacket, perhaps for political reasons? The movie notes that the picture is characterized by both savagery and bodice-ripping – selling sex, the narrator comments. Not something Americans were likely to buy copies of to hang in their homes.
Caius Marius Amid the Ruins of Carthage (1807) – definitely a toga picture of the kind not appreciated by American art-buyers, but honored in France with a Napoleon gold medal. The movie narrator point outs out how Vanderlyn expresses in his subject’s countenance both disappointed ambition and meditation on revenge. To support himself Vanderlyn pawned and reclaimed the medal several times, until finally he lost claim to it as one purchaser kept it.
Did Napoleon see in the picture an allusion to himself, the movie’s narrator ponders. Napoleon wanted to buy it for the Louvre, but Vanderlyn refused despite his financial problems. At the time, he was planning a very different project – a public art gallery in New York City, and he wanted to place the picture there.
Ariadne, Asleep on the Island of Naxos (1809-14). If Vanderlyn had never painted anything but Ariadne, he would be remembered, the movie narrator maintains. A gorgeous classical nude, based upon a sleeping statue stolen by Napoleon, the picture was sure to shock Americans. Although a copy was commissioned by a steamboat line, travelling up and down the Hudson River, it was too much for the boat’s patrons. In France, the Royalists were back in power and they too rejected the painting, considering it tainted by its association with Napoleon.
Panoramic View of the Palace and Gardens of Versailles (1818-19). Vanderlyn began to think that a way to interest Americans in history paintings was to bring them panoramic views of historical locations. Having been enchanted by Versailles during his stays in France, he settled on it for his new masterpiece. At the same time, he began planning his New York City Public Gallery and persuaded the City Council to lease him land on which to build it. It was to cost him one peppercorn per year for nine years, after which it could be reclaimed by the City. Vanderlyn was assured by his supporters that the City would never take it back. So he went ahead and built a large Rotunda to display his work. When finished, the upper floor housed the giant curved Panorama and the lower floor served as a gallery for his smaller works.
Vanderlyn ingeniously slipped famous figures, including the Russian Czar and King Louis 18th of France as well as himself, among the groups of people scattered about the gardens of Versailles. But success was underwhelming. At 25 cents a visitor, it was a financial failure. Vanderlyn hired his nephew to staff it while he ran himself ragged looking for portrait commissions. But eventually the City reclaimed the land and Rotunda, paying Vanderlyn $3000 for his building, which became a courthouse, a post office, and city offices before being torn down in the 1870s.
Meanwhile an embittered John Vanderlyn rolled up his Panorama, gathered his paintings, and toured the country, being stopped in various places because of Ariadne’s nudity.
Landing of Columbus (1847), depicting Columbus and his crew landing on an island in the West Indies, their first steps onto the New World. Commissioned by Congress, the work hangs in the Rotunda of the Capitol. Vanderlyn created the work in France, with the assistance of a French painter to execute the American artist’s design. That was a common practice in Europe, but was viewed with scorn by some in the United States. Still, the Landing of Columbus was more widely circulated than any other Vanderlyn painting, the movie points out, since it was engraved on the $5 bill, and later on a stamp.
In his later years, the unhappy Vanderlyn was known to say that if he could live his life over, he’d paint quick unimportant things because people can’t tell the difference. He died, in poverty, at age 77. But the Panorama now hangs in New York’s Metropolitan Museum, and his other works in other top museums.
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