MS01.01.03.B01.F25.041

15

the resort hotel are shown spending some leisure time
imitating the big balls that took place in the celebrated
ballroom at Sulphur Springs. Subjects which emphasized
state of character among Blacks, the ability to be good
workers and provide laughter for the leisure class whites
while indulgingly patronized the status quo were popular
themes of the time and all but dominated the painting
scenes in which Blacks were seen. Lily Martin Spencer,
one of the few women artists who set out to paint genre
scenes, shows the childish pranks Blacks were likely to
engage in at the risk of entertaining the madame of the
house, in a composition such as (SLIDE #22) [u]Blind Faith [/u].
Here a trusting male servant closes his eyes and opens
wide his mouth anticipating receipt of a juicy morsel
taken from the still life of fruit on the table and
instead is given a bit of pepper or some such unpalatable
tid-bit thus amusing the leisurely posed lady of the house.

In the next series of slides, I shall discuss aspects
of the work of William Sidney Mount, a prolific painter of
people, genre scenes, landscape, fauna and things of the
common order particularly appropriate to the American scene.
Mount was born in the small village of Setauket on Long
Island November 27, 1807. At about the age of 18 he was
apprenticed to his oldest brother as a signmaker. This
exposure provided him the ease with which he was able to
move from commercial art into painting. He took advantage