文摘
Since 1790, New York City has commissioned portraits to commemorate the lives and deeds of "those great and good men who have done honor and service to our Country." Generals, presidents, military and naval heroes, foreign dignitaries, New York State Governors, and New York City Mayors make up this diverse collection, housed in the same three-story federal-style building for almost two centuries. The collection contains portraits by some of America's most renowned painters, including John Trumbull, John Vanderlyn, Thomas Sully, John Wesley Jarvis, George Catlin, Charles Wesley Jarvis and Samuel F. B. Morse.;Unlike many other collections that have been dispersed over time, the City Hall portrait collection remains largely intact. Moreover, the collection is still on view in the building for which many of the commissions were originally intended. The New York City Hall portrait collection thus provides us with a series of portraits that require study not just individually, but also as a group, for they were commissioned as a series of works by and for municipal government.;As New York City, along with the rest of the nation, moved from the monarchical to democratic forms of government, traditional forms of visual representation, particularly portraiture, came into question. The goal of this study is to provide a detailed analysis of the changes in the meaning of portraiture, through a close examination of the first forty years of the City Hall collection, from 1790 to 1830---covering the post-Revolutionary period, federalism, and the initial growth of the mercantile city. This study will explore the diverse motivations behind the portrait commissions, particularly in relationship to notions of nationalism, patriotic pride, and the role of the arts in the development of a sense of civic identity. In order to clarify these motivations, the discussion focuses on the commissioning process, including who proposed the commission, the political circumstances surrounding the sitter, the process used for the selection of the artist, relationships among the artists and those involved in the selection process, the artists' responses to the commissions, and the reception of the portrait by the press and by the public.
