MS01.01.03 - Box 01 - Folder 25 - The Black Image in American Painting 1700-1900 A Select Survey, Circa 1980

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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

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of every possible chance to see original paintings in New York City where he later worked. Mount became interested in portrait painting at the beginning of his career and worked as a portraitist while developing other themes relating to everyday life.

By the time Mount was 23 he had created a relatively small painting, though major, in which a large crowd of people were shown, all having very individualized faces in a painterly format of approximately 22" x 27". On this small canvas entitled (SLIDE #23) [u]Rustic Dance after a Sleigh Ride[/u] some thirty-one faces were seen, three of which were black. To my knowledge, this is the earliest known work by Mount in which the images of Blacks appear. Here again the music for the ensuing frolic is provided by a black musician while two black boys look on approvingly.

Hereafter, Mount was to seek out Blacks as subjects for his paintings partly because of his interest in music and also because of his acquaintance with a number of Blacks who were musicians in Stoney Brook where he lived. Actually, his treatment of the subject (SLIDE #24) [u]Farmer's Nooning[/u] was meant to show equality of sharing the noon lunch period on a Long Island farm. [u]Negro Asleep - Hay Making[/u] is the name William Sachus, an agent for Goupil and Company of New York City, gave the picture when writing to Mount about rights to reproduce it by engraving on September 1, 1852. Sachus anxiously asked for other works [deleted: by] in one letter saying, "How soon can I have one or both of theses pictures?", referring to [u]Banjo Player[/u] and [u]Bones Player[/u]. Mount responded to Sachus'

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letter eight days later on September 9 and indicated that he ".... liked the tone of it" and was ready to negotiate the sale. It is also here that we see the true convictions of Mount as he is being challenged about painting so many themes of Blacks. Mount continues his response to Mr. Sachus by saying "I will undertake those large heads (heads of Negroes) for you, although I have been urged not to paint anymore such subjects." It is by now obvious that Mount is under pressure even under the threat of economic reprisal. Mount decides to stick by his decision to continue painting black subjects further stating of Sachus, "I had as leave paint the characters of some negroes as to paint the characters of some whites, as far as the morality is concerned." Then it appears that Mount thinks very seriously here about the question of morality and the reality of the economics of patronage and ends his letter to Sachus by saying, "A Negro, is as good as a White man -- as long as he behaves himself." Mount's explanation of his portrayal of the black theme seems to suggest that he was on the verge of breaking with the stereotyped image suggesting how Blacks should be represented yet he did not take the giant step. After all, the sale of slaves as property and commodities was still a sanctioned practice accepted by the government of the United States at that time.

18 Prior to the time of this exchange of ideas on the subject or the morality of depicting black themes between Mount and his new dealer, William Sachus, Mount had painted numerous works in which Blacks were no longer subordinate props in the composition but he main subject. One must also remember that in the 19th century, paintings, comic shows, magazines, derogatory images of Blacks, and newspapers were relied upon to present media images of Blacks in the same manner that television is used today. Yet Mount was thought to be disturbing the status quo and he had to be challenged.

While Mount's treatment of the Black theme may seem compromising and indeed tame to some of us today, we must take into consideration the prevalence of myths and racial notions about the inferiority of Blacks, which was rampant though acceptable to all but a few liberal minded anti-slavery crusaders and Abolitionists at that time. In 1845 Mount had succeeded in painting a very handsome composition, now referred to as a luminist work, entitled (SLIDE #25) Eel Spearing at Setauket. In this painting a black woman poses her spear to capture an eel while the boat is oared into position by a young white boy. This is perhaps the very first time in American art that a black woman is seen as principal subject, beyond a portrait, in a composition so importantly rendered and not cast in a position of servitude.

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In 1845, Mount painted (SLIDE #26) [u]Dance of the Haymakers[/u] in which the young black barndoor drummer is seen as a principal figure. A second black person watches from the hayloft. (SLIDE #27) [u]The Power of Music[/u] was painted in 1847 and shows an attentive black man charmed by the music he hears. Not well received by critics of the time, [u]The Power of Music[/u] elicited the following caustic words from the critic of [u]The Literary World[/u] on June 5, 1847, "This picture will insure Mount a permanent reputation, if he fishes for clams all the rest of his life." 14 (SLIDE #28) Close Up of the [u]Power of Music [/u]. (SLIDE #29) [u]California News[/u] was painted in 1850 and is reminiscent in feeling of Richard Caton Woodville's (SLIDE #30) [u]War News from Mexico[/u] painted two years earlier.

This handsome portrait of a young black man playing a violin was painted in 1850. The violin is only slightly different in shape from the one Mount made and had patented at the U.S. Patent Office in Washington on June 1, 1852. The work is entitled (SLIDE #31) [u]Right and Left[/u]. (SLIDE #32) [u]The Lucky Throw[/u] is a lithograph by LaFarge & Co. done in 1851 after a painting of the same title by Mount. It illustrates the quality of the kind of reproduction that William Sachus was referred to in his earlier correspondence with Mount when he offered to reproduce Mount's work for public consumption. The picture of a young black holding the fowl he won in the throw of coins is believed by some to have been the prototype on which stereotype images of Blacks were based and copied later on business and post cards that advertised products such as hams, stoves, turkeys, pills,