glory, glory hallelujah his truth is marching on ♪ [applause] >> kevin, ladies and gentlemen. >> american history tv visited ford's theatre in washington dc to learn about the widow lincoln, a play commission to mark the april anniversary of president lincoln's assassination 150 years ago. on the night of april 14, 1865, ever was mortally wounded at

ford's as he sat in the presidential box with his wife mary, watching the popular comedy, "our american cousin or go he died the next morning. we sat down to talk about the widow lincoln. that's monday night at 9:30 p.m. eastern on american history tv. >> all this month, the presidency, we will be focusing on the life and legacy of george washington to mark the anniversary of his birth on february 22. next, author hugh howard talks about portraits of george washington. it explores the works of gilbert stuart and john trumbull focusing on how the artist captured the spirit of the first president and how modern audiences can learn from washington.

mr. howard is the author of "the painter's chair." george washington's mount vernon hosted this hour-long event. >> good afternoon. my talk will be a little shorter than his introduction, i think but thank you. [laughter] my thanks to susan, the invitation for the miscellaneous arrangements. michael and stephen. and coming to mount vernon is always a joy. i feel like i have lots of friends here starting with mary and through carol and on and others. this is a uniformly welcoming place for scholars. and i have spent time in using the archives here.

and coming here has been able to meet to write all of the significant portions of several books i have done concerning the general. i have also wanted to join such travelers of the past, -- who will follow me today and tomorrow. you have a list of them. almost all of these folks, i know their work and admire their work. and when you write books like this one, you can only do them because other people have closed the first and i like to think i bring something new to it. you are in for a treat. now, as a narrative historian rather than a art historian or art history professor, what i do is write books. in order to do that, i look at the topography of the past and i try to identify fault lines that other people have not seen. this book is a case in point.

eight years ago, i had a conversation with my editor. i just finished a book about thomas jefferson and the early days of architecture. she said to me, what to do you want to do next? i had a couple of have ideas which i described to her. she very nicely said, i do not think so. [laughter] do you have anything else? i was completely -- at this point. i said, well, in writing about

their early architects i discovered that peele kept these amazing journals. she kept all of his letters. a wonderful resource about everything to do with culture, the late 18th century. he painted thousands of the founding fathers. so, i said -- in connection with that, john trumbull wrote an autobiography and kept his correspondence. gilbert stuart's daughter wrote an essay and he knew all the people. she looked at me, my editor did, and said, what do they have in common? completely without thinking i said, well, they all painted washington. she just pointed at me. [laughter] and it just smiled. she might as well have pointed at a map, she had given me a trail to follow, if you will. and if i read the terrain, it could open up a few of the american past for me for my readers. i had a pitch, a description

like you have to write for publishers to persuade them. and that pitch goes more or less like this -- in 1751, to pick a date, not quite arbitrarily, there were no european trained painters at work in the united states. by 1799, which was the year george washington died, there were a fair number. and again, what they had in common was george washington and the fact that they had painted him. i am going to talk about some of what i see is the most essential images of the general. i want to ask you a question

first and that is -- how many of you like having your picture taken? serious question. raising of hands. no one. [laughter] that's good. personally, i understand why no one raised their hand. one does have to be a little careful because the camera records is not always the face we want the world to see. [laughter] just ask of the daughters of the american revolution. [laughter] i had a new office photo taken a half dozen years ago. at 50, everybody has what do they deserve. it is time for me to admit to the impact of time. a photographer friend named john dolan, very gifted photographer. i warned him in most of my pictures like my drivers license, i looked like an escaped convict. he laughed and said do not

worry, it will be fine. as relaxed as i was and as good as he is at what he does, the results -- [laughter] well, they reminded me how powerful genes are. there are 2 generations of unfortunate people in my family. not all massachusetts boys take poor pictures. i want you to consider this one. when you look at jfk, i can imagine i see some of his confidence. he doesn't look nervous or anything. it appears to be easy. i think this is certainty about his look. and maybe a little bit of what his successors call a vision of thing. could it be he is thinking big thoughts? it is possible to read a

portrait. it may actually be even a valuable skill and the history business. it can teach us something about the past and perhaps ourselves. as of the risk of seeming self-involved, i want to go back to my office photo for a moment. what do we see? in this one, at some superficial level, a middle aged guy balding, his face suggests maybe too many hours working in the sun. hands clinched of nervousness, yes, at having his picture taken.

raised eyebrow suggest intellectual curiosity, maybe listening to interest, a conspiratorial sort of way. if he standing in the woods for a reason? identification with the nature? or maybe because the photographer knows a setup when he sees one and said that over there. i will like to think all of those are true. i hope all of you come away from the symposium is taking about the people you see represented in images. whether they are self-portraits done as a kid, happens to be a daughter of mine. a wedding photo. a victorian dress while at the picture was taken in the 1980's but you will have to ask my wife about that. or a tourist shot. i want to make the case that images lend themselves to a closer look of thoughtful consideration. messages from the past. portraiture meant something

different in washington's time that it does now. let me explain. by way of contrast, this was the first widely distributed picture of barack obama after he became president elect in november 2008, the transition came to higher a veteran to take his portrait. it was to be the first presidential portrait which was distributed abroad to military bases and probably imposts offices into the mix. the point, the interesting bit obama was with him for five ms. to take his picture. he was really busy. for those who do not think he didn't spend enough time learning how to be president. [laughter] he gave him five minutes. the rules were different then centuries ago.

my, my were the rules different. 200 years earlier, this is washington having his picture taken. having his picture taken, that is the correct historical construct, that is what painters did, they took pictures. it is not a photography term long before the camera came along. the most famous of washington's, gilbert stuart. and gilbert stuart to washington's picture three times. this image, which is victorian is actually based on fact. in comparison to souza, gilbert asks his subject. washington spent at least 15 hours posing for gilbert. he hated almost every one of them. he was self-conscious. i think false teeth that will do that to a person.

his false teeth, some of you may know this, where attached and had a spring that held them open. if you opened your mouth, they seemed to jump up. no wonder he appears to be holding the teeth in his mouth. washington would be the object of intense staring, very few people like that, i think. it is how paintings work. we had five minutes versus 15 hours. i think washington, had he been given the option, would've liked the five-minute approach. what we see here is gilbert stuart trying to distract washington. the painter who painted the

campus of stuart painting washington, schmultz, was the painter who did this. he left us no key but very likely the man in the uniform on washington's immediate right, a friend and confidant of washington for many years. in the foreground is a not very good likeness of martha. the pretty girl is nelly, the granddaughter. they were there to keep washington interested because as was said of him, his demeanor was reported to fall into dullness when his mind was not engage. who wants to paint a picture of a guy who looks to be bored. it is no wonder that he would be kind bored. it was all worth it because a portrait meant something. it conveyed the image of a man not only of prosperity but to

his contemporaries in the absence of photography paintings and replicas as well as rents when they were available, they were the only means of seeing the man except for in person. as you can imagine, it even with the many copies that stuart made, he made over 100 images, we do not know exactly how many. a finite of citizens were able to see. they saw slowly over a period of decades, the copies and prints made their way into various cities and territories. this for example is a collection here at mount vernon painted by stuart. it spent a century in kentucky in private homes before being donated in 1904.

unlike going that to souza and obama today, souzs posts on facebook, sometimes within minutes of them being posted sometimes these would take decades. now, a snap of a finger and it is everywhere. it was not only -- that felt portraiture strange. sometimes, it was the audience too. i want to tell you a story. in 1790, a yankee named john trumbull, came to george washington commissioned from the city of new york. before the completed campus was moved to its permanent place at city hall, a surprised if you was arranged at the president's mansion, the very early days

when the capital was in the hamptons. for much of that, -- washington sat sitting with trumbull. he was struck on the juxtaposition of trumbull, a harvard graduate, revolutionary governor, something of an ambassador, clearly a man of her find, a sophisticated guy. in comparison to the creeks, whole were far from savages. they definitely lived in a world apart. trumbull thought of them exotic as you can see from the pencil sketch. washington thought them noble, that was his word. the president had an experience and later trumbull told the story.

the president was curious to see the effect the painting would produce on the creeks' mind. place the picture in a light facing -- at washington's invitations, the indians arrived and the president greeted them formally to full of military regalia. washington invited them to walk to his house. when he reached the painting room, he opened the door and abruptly. according to trumbull, they started at seeing another great father standing in the room. they were for a moment, meet. at length, trouble to help us, one of the chief advanced and stretched out his hand to touch

it and was astonished to fill instead of a round object, a flat surface, cold to the touch. he started back. another indian placed one hand on the surface of the painting and another behind and was still more astonished that his hands almost met. some of these men, like many others, native americans african, had never seen any sort of painting before and not to mention a good one. this story which was recounted in trumbull's autobiography is an after dinner anecdote and is

with condescension that maybe we are not so comfortable with today. it encompasses how much we have changed during george washington's life. this book is about george washington, who i think despite all of the books written about him, a difficult man to understand. i regard all of the portraiture's that i talk about in the book and i could not talk about all of them because there are at least 28. i want to look at a couple of critical portraits by some the most important painters. the first was painted by charles wilson peel, a man of intense likability and many talents. his personal story, his father was a convicted felon, he investment money from the english post office. his father died relatively young but not before father and quite a large number of children and left charles' mother and charles as the oldest son to raise the family. he, as a consequence, pretty early on apprenticed to a

saddler. she acquired a watch and it broke so he taught himself watch repair. he also worked with wood and brass and taught himself upholstery work. he saw two -- let me give you look at this guy. at age 21, he found his vocation. kind of late in life to start becoming a painter. he was not to be deterred. he met up with an itinerant painter. he watched hefler execute 2 portraits. he supervised peele as he painted the other half of the face. genteel and the politicians, underwrote a visit for peele to england.

in england, he trained under expatriate patriot, benjamin west. and he learned counsel, a very thin brush, a metallic tube in his hand there. he learned of the other brushes. in those days, you had to mix all of your paint yourself and you learned about the varnishes and oil and pigments in all the had to be done. when he came back after less than two years, he brought with

him this portrait which was painted by benjamin west. and he brought with him a painter's chair, which is a chair on a pivot that enables the center to be shifted as the light of the day changes without moving the fabric. conveying the significance of that person. and by the way, the chair is in the title of my book. i am going to read you a piece from the book, speaking of the book about a 1772 portrait of a country squire. this would be his first portrait. peele's portrait was washington's first. despite the novelty, he found no joy in having his picture taken. the process he said put them in a mood that was grave and sullen.

washington came to like peele and cannot help but wonder given his on inability to concentrate, the painter could capture much of his character. i fancied the skill that his counsel put to it, disk -- pencil until it describing the man i am. it was revealing itself on the canvas and his bland expressionless look. a man who's eyes flashed with intelligence when he became engaged. his gaze went dormant when his mind wandered. as a trusted advisor later observed, his countenance was either joy or anger and full of expression and when the muscles are in a state of repose, his eyes lack animation. it was a detached washington that peele recorded.

washington's pose portrayed little, when he entered a room he filled the doorway. he stood taller than most of his contemporaries. his stature partly explained the quiet power he exuded. he had shoulders of a woodsman though he was thin through the chest and large hands and feet. the man in the picture seemed slack not, in peak, physical condition. but his pear-shaped was a result of peele's attention to sweeping curves. peele would paint washington repeatedly, at least seven

distinct portraits and multiple copies. there was one during the constitutional convention and wonder of his presidency and one during the war and after the war. it seems to me that portrait should be where it was but went off after martha's death when he built himself that fine house in arlington. speaking of washie, as he was known, i want to speak of an image as he appears. he is a massachusetts boy, born in princeton, where my father was also born, completely irrelevant. savage was probably the least naturally gifted painter of the bunch.

you can see what i mean. he had volunteered to the president of harvard. she wanted to be a painter. went to the president of harvard and said do you not want a picture of washington in your halls? the president of harvard had to say yes. savage represented himself as coming from harvard and wanted a picture and painted in this picture, which in itself is not so interesting. however, in a journey to london, savage and the idea of a big picture which was seven years in the making called "washington family." it hangs in the national gallery. in historical terms, a conversation piece which is synonymous with group portraits.

savage described it this way -- the general is seated up by a table dressed in his uniform which represents his military character. his left arm rests on the campus which shows his president ship. mrs. washington was at the other end of the table, pointing with her fan to the grand avenue. george washington -- his right hand resting on the globe. billy lee george washington's as i've mentioned, he is standing over there. his relations i would like to know more about. they want to work together. he was probably the second best horseman after george washington was reputedly the best. he was the only slave that washington freed. anyway, george washington 64th

birthday came around and this painting went on display at the gallery in philadelphia on chestnut street. for 2 bits, you could come in and see the painting. for visitors, the effect of savage's family was unique and fresh, not just because of his size, not because of a conversation piece, a group portrait was a very unusual thing at that point. the audience found a larger american vision in this painting. here is washington, a childless

man, yet father to these children and a founding father. the attentive if you were would also see the subject of the painting is twofold. behind the people is a grand view of the american landscape. it is not a george washington at the center of this piece, it is the landscape. america's natural beauty that is the focal elements. i think it is interesting to compare this painting of this conversation piece to another savage painting, which would be categorized as architectural. also on mount vernon. it is mount vernon palladium and style, flanked by the pavilions on either side with the wonderful curves. george washington brainstormed this house in the landscape. originally, this painting also done by savage, was a pure architectural birth. the figures were added.

i think it is so. and we do not know exactly who they are but almost certainly that is george on the left and probably with his granddaughter, nellie. and with a dog over there. and the lafayette. i like to think of these paintings together. the genius of savage's masterpiece, the washington family, is it offers his most essential insight -- the public wanted to see washington in his context. that is -- they are very different paintings, the two of them, one is modified architectural and the other a conversation piece. it provides washington at home and his home at a distance. the same figures are seen but

distributed differently. those who saw the images together and they were hung together at the first museum exhibit probably the first excavation ever in new york, and people who saw them came away with a sense that they knew the general a great deal better. no formal audience was required to see this man. he was a family man, not so different from the households in the 19th century pretty and to understand the general, who were feel so little of his private, this was a useful if imperfect window. moving on, i have to talk about gilbert stuart.

he is worth a lecture by himself. that will happen at 10:15 tomorrow when ellen myles speak. i will offer a narrative gloss which i am sure will be her deeper look. he was self-destructive, a drunk, she was born in a snuff factory. he was probably manic-depressive. and arthur made a very persuasive case. nevertheless, he was almost certainly the best painter of this bunch. ironically, his best paintings do not tend to be washington. nevertheless, most reproduce is his portrait, it looks a little familiar. it is based on this. this was commissioned by martha to be, along with a portrait of her, to be portraits to be hung,

which they never did. stuart didn't deliver them to martha. after martha died, he refused to hand them over to she kept a portrait on his studio. he referred -- first of all, he regarded the paintings as a legacy to his family and then they were sold. and thus the name -- the two of them hung for many years. he made many copies of them up close to 30 years before his death. he referred to the copies as his $100 bills. you could come to him and say i want a portion of washington.

he would take a porch and put it on an easel and one morning she put the preliminary painting and the second he finished and took it away. hey would be an snuff and alcohol for a while with $100. this was the third and perhaps useful of the three washington's. i say that because it is not george washington's body probably a stand in and the best guess it is stewart's landlord's son, who was much squatter and shorter than washington. and the head is much more. it was to be given to the first brit on the parliament to stand up and say the americans were not rebels and this was to be a gift. i was in london a few weeks ago and revisited one of my favorite london museums at the national portrait music now. the only american hanging on the wall that i could find was this

guy. and it is actually not stuart. act of the time, there was good reason to believe washington was the best-known and most admired person in the world and part of the reason he is hanging on the wall in london. note by the way, in drafting this, identified as a virginian, a citizen of a british colony at the time. [laughter] anyway, washington was famous but the painting became an icon just as later the other portrait would be with the dollar in the 20th century.

an important element of the lansdowne portrait occurred in 1814 and it involved another story. kirk alluded earlier to a book i published and in writing that book, i got to hang out with dolly madison. she was great. [laughter] she was more fun than george but tonight tell anybody i told you. the portraits including gilbert stuart. she is still young in this portrait, aged 36. she was a bit of a babe. certainly unafraid of showing her decollatage. her gaze is direct and intelligent. personality here, a light smile. dolly madison is probably best remembered for one hour on

august 24, a battle raging where the british have made their way across the bridge and unfortunately, the american militia have run to the hills, badly outmanned and outmaneuvered. it is a route and it means the british are coming. they are marching on washington. back at the presidents house dolly's holding dinner for james. she expects and his cabinet are going to come back. actually on the frontline and the secretary of war and several others had this meeting on horseback as they were waiting for the british to do what they were going to do. dolly thought they were going to come back. it didn't happen that way. instead, the messenger arrived a freed slave by the names of

james smith and brings word that she should flee. which eventually, dolly does but not before she deals with george. we have just look to back here. she refused to leave the general behind. she thought if the english took the white house, which was not called the white house, but the presidents house, it would be a fine finish and she did not want to them to get the painting. she ordered the lansdowne portrait, which is hanging on the wall, to be removed. a couple of servers had to take a couple of hatchets to it before the campus on a stretcher was freed. she handed over to a couple of merchants, who came to offer

their assistance, and they took off to maryland. only then could dolly go down and climbed into her carriage and go to georgetown. it is a good story, one that conveniently if ironically positions mrs. madison at the threshold of a new era. the world she knew and the world washington new, he liked her and thought she was lively and fun. the world she knew depended upon painters to portray the famous of the day. the climactic moment when the canvas meant more to the nation that it ever did. the passage of a few years brought us at this, dolly with her mom but photography whether a matthew brady or anyone else george washington and how he because of his images had extraordinary standing.

and the last several weeks, i have seen a newscast, obama standing in front of the lansdowne in the white house with the prime minister. the prime minister of india not standing too far away from this image right here, the famous portrait painted by charles wilson's son. george is a presence for a lot of reasons but these portraits are key to that, i think. in closing, i would like to go back to when image that has become so familiar it is referred to as the household washington. the unfinished canvas is enigmatic but with closer study, the viewer can realize the general narrative the end of his life has begun to relax.

his duty is done, a year before he left the presidency. we are looking at a man on his way home after a very long journey and perhaps, he has his eye on prosperity. again, i think the effort of his character is important. to understand, he contemplated and shaped and helps to invent we must seek to understand him. if he was the midwife at the birth of his country, he was also the unavoidable presence in american painting as it emerged. in early america, many regarded portraits as ungodly and in effect, no artistic culture in the colonies. in washington's time, art moved from the drawing room and displayed in galleries and public buildings. charles wilson peele made images popular as he painted the well-to-do and a show that they

would be remembered after they were gone. charles trumbull's aspirations were loftier and he painted nothing but history. savage, whose flair, was greater than his skills with a brush but nevertheless reached and his object that audience was the emerging middle class, men and women who could identify. the stone would, rugged man became the paradigm of the founding father. more than jefferson or adams or hamilton or others. none of them had the unimpeachable mix of selflessness and implied power. and the age before photography he left no negative legacy. he only -- seems only man of

america to do right on all fronts. the washington we know today through his worse and testimony of others and in the pictures offers proof positive of his instinctive, pragmatic, and quintessential character. he is also the man who always admittedly agreed to sit for yet another portrait. [laughter] it meant everything to the early painters. but i have talked long enough. i hope our idiosyncratic whetted your appetite for what will be happening in the next several talks today and tomorrow and looking and listening and learning. i imagine we all share and engage with history and connecting with the past has become one of the principal joyce of my life. it has happened because i have learned to look at things and

places like mount vernon consider the context of those things and those objects. to look for their stories and by those means, perhaps, to grasp something of meaning of the past. which i also things better enables us to think about the future. i think that is why we are here, don't you? thank you for listening. [applause] do we have time for a question or two? i think so. if there are questions. quest i read that gilbert stuart didn't really like washington all that much and he also had so few teeth when he painted the picture that they had to put

cotton in his mouth, is there any truth to that? >> i think gilbert stuart was someone who had a certain disdain for pretty much everyone. [laughter] he was kind of an unhappy character i think.

that martha thought character george better or worse than any of the others. i think george kept his counsel to himself. i think there was a consensus within the family that among his painting, a sculpture, was the very best likeness of

washington. it is absolutely wonderful. and i wonder, one the interesting things at mount vernon when you go through the dioramas, so wonderful scholarship has been invested in the george washington's represented at several different times in his life. that is based on triangulating everything that is known about washington, which includes the portraits and examination on surviving fabric. i do not think we really know what he really looks like. you look the savage portrait peele and in the portrait and almost hard to know and if you look at of the other porches they look a lot alike. [laughter] i think we have to plant it in our own minds what we like it maybe imagine what george washington's favorite. >> what about martha? >> i do not know. i do not know that she did. >> the idea of portraiture's,

within the savage entering the conversation piece, i know -- it was going to be done for money and came to crawford. where any of the other washington portraits done for money, for excavation at some point? and how did savage convince the washington family -- [no audio] >> i think it is pretty clear that washington understood he was a public manner.

and that was important. i am inclined to think it was important for him because he thought it was the right thing to do. maybe he wanted to be famous and maybe he wanted a claim and power and maybe he had ambitions desire. it always seemed to me in all the reading i've done about him that he really had a very strong public service gene to do many things he did not want to do including coming out of retirement and becoming president. really didn't want to do that. didn't really want to sit at the constitutional convention that he did it because he should. and i think the same of the portraits, he thought it was necessary to distribute his likeness and enhance his presence in culture. >> i have a question about washington's portrait in the households in the united states. >> the personal who followed me is the person who can ask