Home < Library Services

Trumbull Drawings

Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgments
Benjamin West and John Trumbull
Conflicting Interpretations, Paradoxical Images

John Trumbull: A Founding Father of American Art
Daniel C. Favata

John Trumbull can rightly be considered as one of the "Founding Fathers of American Art." This complex, sometimes contradictory, always fascinating, personality remains inextricably connected not only to the development of American art, but also to the tumultuous history of the early American republic.

In the work of John Trumbull, his roles as professional artist, statesman, and dilettante combine to create an intriguing encapsulation of American art, politics, and society in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Today, the art of perhaps no other individual has become so deeply ingrained in American consciousness as that of John Trumbull. His Declaration of Independence, together with scenes representing memorable moments from the American Revolution, continue to be reproduced in countless texts, and have attained iconic status in contemporary American culture.¹

John Trumbull's involvement with American politics began upon his birth in Lebanon, Connecticut, on June 6, 1756. His father, Jonathan, was repeatedly elected representative to the Connecticut General Assembly, and in 1769 became colonial governor.² As governor, Jonathan Trumbull strongly lobbied for colonial interests. In this childhood environment, therefore, John Trumbull would have been frequently exposed to political discussions regarding the colonies and their problematic relationship with England.³ While his father was agitating for colonial rights, however, the youthful John Trumbull was quickly discovering his aptitude for and pleasure in drawing: "My taste for drawing began to dawn early.and for several years the nicely sanded floors.were constantly scrawled with my rude attempts at drawing."⁴ As his son matured, however, Governor Trumbull strongly urged him to abandon drawing, believing that such an occupation was beneath his social station. In 1772, John Trumbull enrolled at Harvard University, where his father intended him to prepare for a ministerial or legal career.⁵ While traveling to Cambridge, Trumbull visited the foremost artist in Boston at that time, John Singleton Copley.⁶ Trumbull was warmly received and granted a viewing of Copley's paintings, which made a deep impression on the aspiring adolescent artist. Trumbull was equally astounded by the high quality of living which the profession of an artist afforded Copley: "I remember his dress and appearance--an elegant looking man, dressed in a fine maroon cloth, with gilt buttons--this was dazzling to my unpracticed eye!"⁷ Copley provided material evidence that, contrary to his father's opinion, the arts could augment one's financial and social standing.

At Harvard, Trumbull thoroughly immersed himself in the fine arts, studying paintings that were displayed throughout the university, and reading extensively on art theory and practice. Trumbull also steeped himself in the Old Masters, and his earliest surviving drawing, St. Paul Preaching in Athens (cat. 19) is an apparent copy of an engraving after Raphael.⁸ Trumbull graduated from Harvard in July 1773, the youngest member of his class at the age of seventeen, becoming the first professional artist in America to receive a college degree.⁹

Upon his graduation, Trumbull returned to his hometown of Lebanon, Connecticut, where he continued in the practice of painting. This early endeavor, however, proved short-lived. With the outbreak of war in Lexington, Massachusetts on April 19, 1775, Trumbull's father arranged for him to become an adjutant of the First Regiment of Connecticut under the command of General Joseph Spencer.¹⁰ While serving in this capacity, Trumbull witnessed from a distance the Battle of Bunker Hill. This is as close as Trumbull would ever come to any of the military events that he later depicted.¹¹ During the early summer of 1775, Trumbull's map-making and drawing abilities enabled him to garner the attention of General George Washington, for whom he briefly served as second aide-de-camp. Following the British evacuation of Boston in March 1776, Trumbull was assigned to New York and promoted to the rank of Colonel, a title that he relished and retained throughout his life. At Fort Ticonderoga, Trumbull made his most significant military contribution to the American Revolution. There, Trumbull developed a plan for strengthening and defending Fort Ticonderoga (cat. 1), which won praise from Generals Benedict Arnold and Horatio Gates.¹² The following year, however, Trumbull bitterly resigned from the army, after his expected military commission arrived dated several months later than when he actually began his duties.¹³ Throughout his life, Trumbull frequently reacted to such minor slights with a similar sense of outraged indignation.

After returning home and meeting little encouragement from family to continue in his profession as an artist, Trumbull elected to move to the artistically fertile city of Boston. There Trumbull rented the former studio of John Smibert, the first artist trained in the European grand manner to settle in America.¹⁴ As Trumbull later recalled,

I hired the room which had been built by Mr. Smibert, the patriarch of painting in America, and found in it several copies by him from celebrated pictures in Europe, which were very useful to me.Mr. Copley had gone to Europe, and there remained in Boston no artist from whom I could gain oral instruction; but these copies supplied the place, and I made some progress.¹⁵

Since John Singleton Copley had departed for England, Trumbull trained himself by diligently studying Smibert's copies of Old Master paintings by Raphael, Rubens, and Van Dyck, which had remained in his studio.¹⁶

In 1780, Trumbull traveled to France, where he became briefly involved in the management of a family mercantile venture. Finding little contentment or success in this pursuit, Trumbull journeyed to England, where he presented himself to Benjamin West, Painter of Historical Pictures to George III, and one of the foremost artists in Britain.¹⁷ In Benjamin West's studio, Trumbull received much training and encouragement.¹⁸ West placed Trumbull under the tutelage of Gilbert Stuart, with whom he eventually developed a strong friendship.¹⁹ His education under Benjamin West had just begun, however, when Trumbull was arrested as a suspected spy and imprisoned for almost eight months in Bridewell, Tothill Fields.²⁰ While Trumbull maintained that his arrest was in reprisal for the execution of British Major John André,²¹ evidence suggests that he was involved in clandestine activity.²² At Bridewell, Trumbull continued to practice, studiously sketching a series of drawings from a book of male torsos most likely provided by West (cat. 32-33).²³ As Horace Walpole noted:

Mr. Trumbull.during his confinement, amused himself with painting in which he had been regularly educated. Some beautiful strokes of the above gentleman's pencil were admired in the royal academy, without an idea that they came from the gloom of prison. Ingenuity and fine taste, combined with judgment and accuracy procured him no inconsiderable share of credit in his profession.²⁴

Through the petitioning of Edmund Burke, and the surety of John Singleton Copley and Benjamin West, Trumbull was freed from Bridewell Prison and subsequently returned to America.²⁵

In January 1784, after the signing of the Treaty of Paris,²⁶ Trumbull returned to London and resumed his instruction under West while enrolling in classes at the Royal Academy (cat. 34-35). Although cognizant of his need for technical improvement, in a letter to his brother, the twenty-eight year old artist acknowledged his building frustration on seeing younger students produce superior work with apparent great ease.²⁷ While in England, and most likely at the behest of West, Trumbull began to embark upon his most significant contribution to the history of art: a series of paintings on the American Revolution.²⁸

Throughout his entire career, Trumbull fretted at the perceived polarity of his artistic vocation. Trumbull felt that mere portrait painters simply flattered vanity, and were of little use to the higher goals of society. In contrast, historical painters, those who depicted timeless subjects of eternal morality, could be counted among the most virtuous of citizens.²⁹ Many of Trumbull's American history paintings fuse these two disparate elements. While they contain numerous portraits, thereby appealing to the then prevalent American taste for accurate countenances, the common nature of these portraits is transformed through their association with a noble event.³⁰ As Trumbull explained:

But to preserve and diffuse the memory of the noblest series of actions which have ever presented themselves in the history of man; to give to the present and future sons of oppression and misfortune, such glorious lessons of their rights and of the spirit with which they should assert and support them, and even transmit to their descendants, the personal resemblance of those who have been the great actors of those illustrious scenes, were objects which gave dignity to my profession...³¹

Indeed, Trumbull believed that he possessed a moral imperative to create this series, as the only history painter personally involved in the American Revolution.³² By 1786, Trumbull had finished the first two of his paintings in this series, the Death of General Warren at the Battle of Bunker Hill and the Death of General Montgomery in the Attack on Quebec.

In his depiction of revolutionary events from the late eighteenth century, John Trumbull is often compared to Jacques-Louis David, whose works, such as The Oath of the Horatii (1785, Paris, Musee du Louvre), have become synonymous with the French Revolution. In many of David's works, ancient heroes are shown engaged in seemingly timeless actions that are immediately recognizable to the viewer, who is then asked to apply these lessons of patriotism and self-sacrifice to contemporary life. In contrast, Trumbull depicts contemporary events that showcase honor and virtue. As Irma Jaffe notes, "Whereas David's figures are symbols of the meaning of bravery, Trumbull's figures are concrete examples of bravery."³³ Despite the heightened sense of immediacy attached to the rendering of a contemporary event, however, Trumbull's art lacks the vivacity and emotional fervor of David's. This discrepancy can be partially attributed to the restrained, aristocratic background of Trumbull, which would discourage unbridled emotion.³⁴ Furthermore, the American Revolution lacked much of the horrific bloodshed, and accompanying emotional frenzy, that was to characterize the later stages of the French Revolution.³⁵

Throughout his life, Trumbull remained abreast of political happenings, particularly in the volatile social climate of Paris. In 1786, Trumbull traveled to Paris, where he visited with Thomas Jefferson, who quickly became his museum companion and subsequently urged Trumbull to undertake as a subject the signing of the Declaration of Independence.³⁶ In Paris, with Jefferson recounting the event and providing an (inaccurate) sketch of the room,³⁷ Trumbull began preparatory compositions for The Declaration of Independence, which would prove to be the most important work of his life.³⁸ In this painting, Trumbull decided to portray from life all signers, including those not present on July 4th, as well as certain non-signers. For this reason, as Irma Jaffe notes, "the painting's title is not The Signers of the Declaration of Independence but simply The Declaration of Independence, underlining its timeless, ideational, and symbolic character."³⁹ Trumbull was scrupulous in maintaining that all portraits in the Declaration should be true likenesses, and not idealized representations. For deceased signers, a likeness was to be obtained from a prior portrait, and if none existed, from an immediate family member. Therefore, between 1789 and 1793, Trumbull traveled across the eastern seaboard, collecting heads for the Declaration and other history paintings.⁴⁰ In paintings that had entered a near state of completion, these portrait heads were often added directly to the canvas. For less finished works, Trumbull created miniature oils and pencil sketches (cat. 2, 5, 7) that served as guides for the later paintings and are often counted among his best pictures.⁴¹

In 1793, John Trumbull was strongly affected by the death of Harriet Wadsworth, a young and strikingly beautiful woman whom he had unsuccessfully courted in 1790.⁴² Strongly disillusioned by this event, as well as by his lack of success in selling engravings of his work in America, Trumbull abandoned painting. From 1794 to 1800, Trumbull primarily served in a variety of diplomatic positions in France and England, foremost among them as secretary to Chief Justice John Jay for the Jay Treaty.⁴³ During his stay in France, Trumbull also became entangled in the "XYZ Affair," in which the French foreign minister Talleyrand sought 250,000 dollars from American diplomats to resolve difficulties in Franco-American relations.⁴⁴ After his sudden and unexpected marriage to the beautiful but troubled Englishwoman Sarah Hope Harvey in 1800, a decision which shocked many of Trumbull's friends, he resumed his career as a painter.⁴⁵ Departing from England in 1804, Trumbull relocated to New York, where he became quickly established as the city's pre-eminent portrait painter. While in New York, Trumbull was also appointed director, and later president, of the American Academy of the Fine Arts, a position which he used primarily to further his own reputation and career.⁴⁶ Growing concerns about Trumbull's eyesight, already damaged from a childhood accident, led him to return to England in 1808 for medical treatment. Despite his growing reputation, however, Trumbull was able to find little work, largely due to mounting political hostilities between Britain and America that would culminate in the War of 1812. With the advent of peace, Trumbull was able to secure safe transport back to New York, arriving in September 1815.

In 1816, Trumbull envisioned a project that was to consume much of his artistic efforts for the next decade, and which he considered the grandest accomplishment of his career. With the move of the United States capital to Washington in 1800, a new Capitol building was being erected which would require decoration. Due to the War of 1812, two wings of the Capitol previously constructed had been badly damaged, and the central core remained to be built. Trumbull hoped to receive a commission to adorn this central space of the United States Capitol with his American history series. As Trumbull was quick to observe, he was the best, and perhaps only, artist capable of faithfully rendering scenes from the American Revolutionary period.⁴⁷ Enlisting the support of prominent political figures such as Thomas Jefferson, Trumbull's proposal was approved. On January 27, 1817, Congress passed a resolution employing Trumbull "to compose and execute four paintings commemorative of the most important events of the America revolution, to be placed, when finished, in the Capitol of the United States."⁴⁸ For his subjects, Trumbull chose life-size replicas of the Declaration of Independence, and the Surrender of General Cornwallis at Yorktown, October 19, 1781 and added the Resignation of Washington, December 23, 1783 and the Surrender of General Burgoyne at Saratoga, October 16, 1777. All four paintings share a similar iconographic program, which emphasizes the courage and high moral conduct of America's founding fathers.⁴⁹ After much delay and squabbling over their placement, these painting were installed in the Rotunda in November 1826.⁵⁰

Despite Trumbull's crowning achievement in the Rotunda, two of his most important contributions to the history of art remained. In 1831, distraught over the financial uncertainly that had plagued his entire life as an artist, Trumbull sold many of his works to Yale College in return for an annuity of one thousand dollars a year. As Trumbull reasoned,

Funds.began to diminish, and I sold scraps of furniture, fragments of plate, &c. Many pictures remained in my hands unsold, and to all appearances unsaleable. At length the thought occurred to me.that some society might be willing to possess these paintings. I thought first of Harvard College, my alma mater, but she was rich, and amply endowed. I then thought of Yale--although not my alma, yet she was within my native state, and poor.⁵¹

Through this bequest, Trumbull established at Yale the first college art gallery in America. Furthermore, in 1837, at the age of eighty, Trumbull began work on his Autobiography, which would become the first written by an American artist. As with his engravings, however, Trumbull's book met with little enthusiasm upon its publication.⁵²

John Trumbull died on November 10, 1843. His death was announced at the National Academy of Design by prominent artist Samuel F.B. Morse, who eulogized Trumbull as one "whose name and works are amongst the earliest associations of our childhood, and whose fame is interwoven, not merely with the history of the arts of design, but also with the political history of the country."⁵³ Fordham University is very fortunate to have an unusually rich collection of drawings by this remarkable American Artist. These drawings demonstrate the wide expanse of Trumbull's skill as an artist, while also revealing the breadth of his intellect and the intensity of his patriotism.

¹ Irma B. Jaffe, Trumbull: The Declaration of Independence, London, 1976, p. 17.
² Irma B. Jaffe, John Trumbull: Patriot-Artist of the American Revolution, Boston, 1975, p. 6.
³ Jaffe 1976, p. 23.
⁴ John Trumbull, Autobiography, Reminiscences and Letters by John Trumbull from 1756 to 1841, New York, London, and New Haven, 1841, p. 5.
⁵ Helen A. Cooper, John Trumbull: The Hand and Spirit of a Painter, New Haven, Yale University Art Gallery, 1982, p. 2.
⁶ Jules David Prown, John Singleton Copley in America: 1738-1774, Cambridge, 1966.
⁷ Trumbull, p. 11.
⁸ Jaffe 1975, p. 15.
⁹ Theodore Sizer, "John Trumbull, 'Patriot-Painter' in Northern New York," New York History, v. 31, no. 3, 1950, pp. 283-84.
¹⁰ John Caldwell and Oswaldo Rodriguez Roque, American Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, vol. 1, Princeton, 1994, p. 199.
¹¹ Helen A. Cooper, "Trumbull, John" in The Dictionary of Art, vol. 31, ed. Jane Turner, New York, 1996, p. 391.
¹² Cooper 1982, p. 3. For a detailed discussion of this plan, see Jaffe 1975, pp. 27-28; Trumbull, pp. 31-32. See also Irma B. Jaffe, "Fordham University's Trumbull Drawings: Mistaken Identities in The Declaration of Independence and Other Discoveries," American Art Journal, v. 3, no. 1, 1971, p. 37.
¹³ Cooper 1982, p. 3.
¹⁴ Jaffe 1975, p. 39. See also Henry Wilder Foote, John Smibert, Painter: With a Descriptive Catalogue of Portraits and Notes on the Work of Nathaniel Smibert, New York, 1969.
¹⁵ Trumbull, pp. 49-50.
¹⁶ Jaffe 1975, p. 40.
¹⁷ Dorinda Evans, Benjamin West and His American Students, National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C., 1980-81, pp. 71-73.
¹⁸ John Wilmerding, The Genius of American Painting, New York, 1973, p. 82. For a complete discussion of Benjamin West's influence on Trumbull, see Kathryn Moore Heleniak's essay, "Benjamin West and John Trumbull," passim.
¹⁹ Jaffe 1975, p. 46.
²⁰ Jaffe 1976, p. 25.
²¹ Trumbull, pp. 316-17.
²² See Jaffe 1975, pp. 47-50.
²³ Ibid., p. 51.
²⁴ Horace Walpole, Anecdotes of Painting in England (1760-95), 5 vols., New Haven, 1937, V, p. 112, as quoted in Cooper 1982, p. 6.
²⁵ Jaffe 1975, pp. 51-52.
²⁶ November 1783
²⁷ Irma B. Jaffe, "Two Trumbull Drawings," American Art Journal, v. 17, no. 3, 1985, p. 78.
²⁸ Given the subject matter, West could not undertake the series himself due to his close connection with the king. Charles F. Montgomery and Patricia E. Kane, American Art: 1750-1800, Towards Independence, New Haven, Yale University Art Gallery, 1976, p. 98.
²⁹ For a discussion of modern history painting, see Jaffe 1975, pp. 72-77. Also Edgar Wind, "The Revolution of History Painting," Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, v. 2, 1938, pp. 116-27.
³⁰ Oswaldo Rodriguez Roque, "Trumbull's Portraits," in Cooper 1982, p. 101.
³¹ John Trumbull, "Letter to Thomas Jefferson, 1789," in John W. McCoubrey, American Art: 1700-1960, Sources and Documents, Englewood Cliffs, 1965, pp. 40-41.
³² Jules David Prown, "John Trumbull as History Painter," in Cooper 1982, p. 37.
³³ Jaffe 1975, p. 95.
³⁴ As Trumbull noted in his Autobiography, "David was naturally a kind and warm-hearted man, but ardent, sometimes even violent, in his feelings.and had brought himself to the full belief, that the blood of individuals was of no more value than water.This gave to his public life the imprint of a ferocious monster." Trumbull, pp. 228-29.
³⁵ Albert Boime, Art in an Age of Revolution, Chicago, 1987, pp.432-440.
³⁶ Irma B. Jaffe, "John Trumbull Views the French Revolution: An Unpublished Letter by the 'Patriot-Artist' of the American Revolution," Bulletin of Research in the Humanities, 1979, p. 450.
³⁷ Jaffe 1975, p. 104.
³⁸ Irma B. Jaffe, "Trumbull's The Declaration of Independence: Keys and Dates," American Art Journal, v. 3, no. 2, 1971, pp. 41-49.
³⁹ Jaffe 1975, pp. 106-7.
⁴⁰ Theodore Sizer, The Works of John Trumbull: Artist of the American Revolution, New Haven, 1950, p. 7.
⁴¹ David Meschutt, "Portraits of Daniel Morgan, Revolutionary War General," American Art Journal, v. 17, no. 3, 1985, pp. 36-37.
⁴² For a history of Trumbull's futile relationship with Harriet Wadsworth, see Jaffe 1975, pp.147-149; 160-166.
⁴³ Richard B. Morris and Ene Sirvet, "The Artist as Diplomat: John Trumbull and the Jay Mission to England," Columbia Library Columns, v. 31, no. 2, 1982, pp. 18-27. See also Jaffe 1975, p. 170-72.
⁴⁴ Cooper 1982, p. 11. Also Jaffe 1975, p. 179-182.
⁴⁵ For a discussion of Trumbull's marriage to Sarah Hope Harvey, see Jaffe 1975, pp. 190-205.
⁴⁶ Elected vice-president in 1808; president from 1817 until his resignation in 1836. As Carrie Rebora notes in "Sir Thomas Lawrence's Benjamin West for the American Academy of the Fine Arts," American Art Journal, v. 21, no. 3, 1989, p. 22, Trumbull modeled his presidency after West's at the Royal Academy.
⁴⁷ Jaffe 1975, p. 234.
⁴⁸ Trumbull, p. 262.
⁴⁹ The transcendent, timeless, and eternal message of these paintings was evident even to many British tourists visiting the Capitol, who commented favorably upon the universal values embodied in the actions of both American and British soldiers. See David B. Dearinger, "British Travelers' Views of American Art before the Civil War," American Art Journal, v. 23, no. 1, 1991, p. 57.
⁵⁰ Egon Verheyen, "John Trumbull and the U.S. Capitol," in Cooper 1982, pp. 260-271. Also Jaffe 1975, pp. 250-279, and Jaffe 1976, pp. 100-106. Artist. These drawings demonstrate the wide expanse of Trumbull's skill as an artist, while also revealing the breadth of his intellect and the intensity of his patriotism.
⁵¹ Trumbull, p. 288.
⁵² Jaffe 1975, p. 286.
⁵³ Samuel F.B. Morse, quoted in Thomas S. Cummings, Historic Annals of the National Academy of Design, Philadelphia, 1865, p. 175, as cited in Jaffe 1975, pp. 287-88.

Top of Page