restaurant, when you can do so along with every other person regardless of race. that day must come." years for that day to come. grant was the last american president toehold those kind of views. announcer: sunday night at 8:00 eastern on "q&a." on "thep next presidency" chief historian william digiacomantonio talks about how artists have depicted george washington, including the famous portraits by john trumbull and others. -- john stuart and horatio greenough. this program is a little over one hour. >> i want to welcome you all to the last time, sadly, to the lunchtime lecture series at u.s. august capital historical society. chuckhe chief historian

digiacomantonio. i wanted to end the series with something instructive, of course, but also, not light and frothy by any means, but something a little less serious. for those of you to respond to competitiveness, i have a couple door prizes i will give out at the end to people who can answer a couple questions that might occur during the talk, but mostly this is going to be visual. we are going to wade through two centuries of works of art,

mostly paintings, some statuary of george washington portrayed in art. i should say a little bit about myself. i said i am chief historian, i am not an art historian, but anyone who appreciates the of doing city -- history, understands you have to work with art understands that is how people express themselves when they are at their best and sometimes their worst, as we'll see. when i taught a course at gw university on george washington, i made sure there was one lecture on george washington in the art and i refined it a little bit for today's purposes, but bear in mind this is primarily intended for a college crowd. i like -- i lay no claim to being an art historian, so if any of the professional artist historians in the room want to call the on anything, try to bite your tongue until afterwards and we will get to it.

styles across time. things to be looking for as we go through the top. we will be looking at portraiture and contemporary print, basically ways washington was portrayed to his contemporaries while he was alive. moving on, history painting and genre art, basically washington in images of historic scenes that actually took place or that artists wanted it to take place. and that is the iconography, a broader topic very exciting topic, that covers almost the entire time since washington was alive. attitudes across time. in history painting we find botulism -- botulism -- bachelorism versus realism. you will see the romantic style developed where these stories are tapped primarily for the emotions they evoke. and that again, the genre style and iconography with issues of

ancestor worship versus characters and parodies of the attitudes toward history. we start off at the very first portrait of george washington. this is the one that he enters the stage of history on, literally wearing the uniform they believe. we know he was wearing a uniform, most likely this uniform when he appeared at the second continental congress in 1775, showing things getting to a point where militarism may be an option. at this point in time, it is only 1772. 1772 marks a very quiet period during the imperial crisis between great britain and some of it, not all of its colonies, only 13 of the colonies in north america. so, you are wrong to say this is a picture of a george washington militant. this is a picture of george washington, virginia gentry who is very proud to be a member of the british empire.

it is a portrait that he had to do begrudgingly. martha made him to it when a painter charles willson peale showed up at his doorstep in 1772. we know it is 1772 from records, we know the washington is proud to be a member of the british empire, showing off in the background exactly what the empire is, unsurveyed wilderness spreading out to the west and his pocket is the marching orders for when he was in office for the french-indian war. he is proud to be a member of the british empire, serving with the british army in fighting off the french. that is what this represents. the revolutionary war started, charles willson peale is still the guy we rely on. charles willson peale had

several children, naming each of them after a famous artist. you have probably heard of rembrandt, rafael and they all wanted to paint washington. at one point in his career, washington had been sitting all day for various peale sittings. and he said, "i've been well-pealed." [laughter] this was relatively early in washington's military career dated 1779 but is based on a prototype that he did in 1776. this painting shows, in the left, you may recognize the symbolism in his victory at princeton. peale was very smart. thing.ized he had a good he had a prototype and he decides he can just keep reproducing it for people. this one for the spanish in

congress. so, he made about 17 of these overall. peale also painted george washington at the federal convention the summer of 1787 in philadelphia. i thought this was interesting because he was still wearing the generals uniform. he has not quite relinquished his claim to fame as a general yet, even while he is sitting as the president of a civilian organization. john trumbull painted this painting in 1794 for martha. a very small painting called washington at times point where it is outside of new york city. probably had just come back from england at the time, so he wanted to make a mark for himself in the seat of government in new york city. everyone thought this painting was one of the best. certainly people in his own family, his adopted stepson thought it was the best portrait ever done of washington.

he did a version of it for the corporation the city of new york, the first work of art that was bought by the city of new york. he painted another version of it for the city of charleston, not to be outdone by new york city. charleston wanted their own version, but trumbull is not that savvy of a businessperson. so, in the background, he could've painted anything he wanted. he painted the battle of trenton and when you are from charleston, this battle is not going to work. charleston says, we do not want it. thank you very much. trumbull kept it and we will see what he did with it a little later on. the third of the trifecta of early portraits was the gilbert stuart. the national gallery had a great exhibit on gilbert stuart several years ago. i hope you got to see it. he did three prototypes.

remember, i mentioned peale when he recognized he had a good thing he stuck with it. gilbert stuart realized he had three good things, and most of the portraits he did of george washington were just spinoffs of the three prototypes. the first one he did is called the bond portrait in 1795. it was done right after gilbert stuart comes right from england where he studied under benjamin west. he actually, like three or four of the early portraitists in the early republic were from new england. flowers in the wilderness, is what they like to call the early painters in the early colonies. trumbull had a hard time selling the career of a painter to his family. his father was the governor of colonial connecticut reminded athens. new haven is no

it would be a hard sell for his son. gilbert stuart had a little bit more to go from, from rhode island, little bit more success in the british aisles primarily in ireland. before he comes back to the he paintstes in 1775 his first one of george washington for a guy named bond. most of the portraits gilbert stuart paints, the prototypes and the copies are named for the owners. this is the vaughn portrait. the next one is the famous portrait from 1796. 75 replicas of this were made during stuart's own lifetime. maybe some of you know the story.

i have done some research still cannot decide if it is apocryphal or not. he was commissioned to do this by the family. they are both at the national portrait gallery. gilbert stuart realized he had a good thing, did not want to give it up, so technically he only had to deliver it once it was done, so he made sure it was never done. he continued to use it as the prototype. the third is also here in washington called the lansdowne portrait. it was painted in 1796. you might recognize it. it is basically just the head plopped on the body. this enabled gilbert stuart to do any number of copies depending on what the commissioning patron wanted. if you wanted a certain book on the table, a background between the drapes and so on. it was a very lucrative deal for gilbert stuart. it was painted for the binghams. a fabulously wealthy family and philadelphia. landownse was a nobleman in

london, the revolutionary war. i will not tell you where there is another one of these in washington, d.c. i will not tell you where this. we can talk about that later if you want. these are all private portraits done by very well-paying patrons. it would cost a lot of money to do a portrait. regular people wanted to see what george washington looked like as well and so you find images of george washington and all kinds of articles for public consumption. showss a scarf that george washington, but you can tell as well as i ust a guy in aut tri-corn hat. what is interesting about this is the saying around it. it does identified as george washington, the founder and protector of american liberty and independence. if you were here for the talk couple weeks ago, that might resonate a little with you. that was something very close to the titles of the senate

actually ended up doing for george washington, but the house rejected it. in the popular mind, it was not such an outlandish title, the commander-in-chief. this is the cover of an almanac from boston in 1778, chance for you to show off. what just happened in 1778? the year before 1778. a major event in american history. the battle of saratoga, ok. so, if you're making an almanac in 1778, you want to honor the victor of saratoga, which was not george washington. it was horatio gates. you see there is the glorious washington and gates identified. i do not know which one is which because neither of them look like either of the people they are purported to be and that is precisely the point. you just threw up a wood cut, a cheap woodcut and see what

happened. as a matter of fact, these images were interchangeable with almost any other person in colonial america. that was the point. so people that wanted to consume images of washington in the public sphere still had to wait for something more accurate. they had to wait even longer than 1796, which is when this page from a textbook for young americans comes out. again, it identifies george washington. to me, it is ben franklin. i do not know. [laughter] there were 11 with blocks cut for this textbook to represent 22 people, so you can tell. the only thing that would separate them is the addition of a tricorn hat sometimes. this is what people had to work with.

eventually, the portraitists we talked about trumbull, stuart realized he had a good thing going with engravings. they could take trumbull's projected charleston portrait in 1792 and turn it into an engraving. america did not have the capability of doing an engraving of this quality, so trumbull had to send it off to england. this became probably the most popular engraving of george washington in the early 19th-century. edward savage started painting washington for harvard in 1789 and again, he realized, why should i just do one when i could do a print of it and sell many? he does a simple print of george washington in 1792. what i find interesting about this, they are one of the few that show washington wearing the badge of the society of cincinnati. i have only see others that are only in print, not in portrait. those of you that know the history know that washington had a very ambivalent relationship with the society of cincinnati

and precisely because he was the president pretty much for life until he died. savage was another new englander. you can see new englanders might have a reputation as part of their. puritan legacy for not appreciating art. we all know of course new englanders rodney forefront of art. -- were on the forefront of art. this is a version of something he did from his own print before. this shows 3/4 of washington and shows him holding a map. i wish you could see it all. it is a map of washington, d.c., which holds center stage, the most famous edward savage we have, the portrait he did of the 1796 it was finished. he started in 1789 when he did just the washington head.

he realized he wanted to get the whole family and this was the and only one of washington's first family ever done. a talk on washington several years ago, about west in general, because through the opening, the drawn curtains, you can see the potomac river valley which was washington's key to opening up the west in securing the west to america through access to the atlantic seaboard. washington owned a lot of acreage along the potomac. more out west though. and of course, he gave his name isthe city whose map martha pointing at with her fan. of the things about this portrait is it is so fun to read and when i teach my class and teach them how to read a document, i am not limiting myself to little documents. anything can be a document. to be read, ok. so like a painting needs to be read, and so this one should be

read as washington being a family man. we can see that, very, very proud of the city that would bear his name. i want to draw attention to the fact that and you are sorry to miss this point, there is apostolicort of an succession that is going on. from the city of washington where he is resting his left hand and the right hand is on the shoulder of his adopted grandson. his hand is resting on a globe, so if you wanted to read into this, you could say, this is washington, d.c., extending its influence over the entire globe. pretty cheeky stuff for 1796, but from the perspective today, it is interesting to read and again, you would be sorry to miss that point. the man on the right, the

african-american servant is not william lee. i cannot remember the name of the guy. historians do know this stuff and feel confident of who he is but it is not washington's manservant at least. there are so many gizmos to operate. the other thing we have to think -- thank edward savage for is he painted the first image we have of mount vernon. in 1791.d it it was not displayed until 1802, but he gets the distinction of having the first one on campus. this is actually of mount vernon, you can see it today. the first one the people would have seen that began a long tradition of upholding mount vernon as an icon, which it really is today. let's face it, you see any house with columns and typically as it has a coppola you will think it is a mount vernon spinoff. this is the first mount vernon in public print in his resignation in 1789. if i omitted saying the author's

name, that is one of the reasons you can make up the list, i do not want to take responsibility for remembering to take that out -- point that out. besides this being the first public image of mount vernon is that it is supposed to honor george washington's resignation. notwithstanding the fact that he is wearing a generals uniform, it is an image to honor his resignation from presidency two years earlier. washington's whole career was really a career of surrendering power and this is going to be very, very important later on. we will touch on it right now with probably the most important image of washington as someone who surrenders power. washington to cincinnatus. cincinnatus was a roman general in the early days of the roman republic, not the empire, who surrendered, who gave up farming when he was called by his country, fought the enemy, came back and resumed farming instead

of holding onto dictatorial powers. much like washington's career called from his plantation to serve as commander-in-chief, and when he resigns in 1783, it was one of the most amazing acts in human history. george the third said, if he gives up power, he will be the most famous man in history. so we see george washington as cincinnatus. this is the installation of his famous statue in the virginia statehouse in richmond in 1796. again, this is something we can read. what are some of the things you notice? you notice the --, a word that was perfectly fine to use then but has gotten a bad reputation -- they were a symbol of unity,

basically axe handles to symbolize coming together. there is more strength in a bunch of sticks than just one stick. washington's cloak is draped over it as if to say, yes, the power is there but it is neutralized by my cloak. he has hung up his sword, again he is surrendering military power and it is replaced by a cane. the plow was waiting behind him. very much a farmer just like cincinnatus. we all know bro amedisys apotheosis, this is an apotheosis closer than bro amedisys by john james or let in 1802. by this time, washington's face is readily identifiable. we are past the time when he is looking like ben franklin across -- on the cover of an almanac. we are at the point were almost everyone recognizes gilbert stuart's face, it is

multitasking. you have got to read this. i call it an orgy of allegories, so many things going on you do not want to miss. the obvious ones, of course, are the phrygian cap, many of us represent that which represents liberty given to enslaved people. liberty itself is stamping on a snake, which was harkening back to eden. the time when snakes were evil. we find father time here with a n hourglass. these are universal symbols of time's passage. i want to call attention to the native american at the lower right. this is probably the most historically factual message of this entire scene because in fact no president equaled george washington in the humanitarian policy he showed toward the native americans.

even before washington's death, he becomes a major focus of history paintings in the grand manner. for many americans, people in the british empire or the atlantic world, the academy of -- epitome of history painting closest to his early life was magisterial death of general wolf in 1759 in the painting is done in 1771 for the king. benjamin west is a name you heard me say a few minutes ago. the three great early portraitists of washington studied under west. trumbull, gilbert stuart, and not so much peale but a painter -- all studied under benjamin west. a painter from america, pennsylvania, goes to london and sets up shop, becomes the king's

painter. naturally, americans who go to england to mimic his career gravitate toward hits -- his studio. this is benjamin west's most famous painting. most people if they know anything about it, they know it caused a scandal because quarter horror,r -- horror of it showed general james wolf and clothe if youd were. historical stage, you needed to be dressed in a toga. the fact that this kind of realistic portrayal of a general in 1759 was still kind of scandalous, even when it crosses

the atlantic into the americas, is symbolized by this engraving. this is one artist's rendition of the statute congress voted to erect of washington. -- washington as late as 1783. and you can see, well, i do not have to tell you, washington never wore a suit of armor like this. and it is not even really a toga, is it? to me, this is like a velasquez conquistador. it shows americans were still not letting go of certain tropes and iconographic tropes that they expected people to abide by and adhere to. the first american who worked on this side of the atlantic and then went on in england to do history painting as well was john singleton copley. the only reason i have this is i love this self-portrait.

it shows you the quality of the stuff he could do. he was a bostonian. another new englander. he cut his teeth in the field of history painting, the grand manner with this death -- painting "the death of lord chatham." with'sinting is composed west archival sense, the application to preserve actual moment in history. copley has the archetypical american eye for the chance to make a lot of money. so his feeling is, why just paint a picture of one person, when i can paint the picture of a lot of people and sell engravings, copies. everyone wants to see themselves in a picture, right? sure enough, he makes this so he can make an engraving. if you are in the painting come he gives you a key. automatically you have 55 patrons instead of just one. very, very clever.

the thing about this painting, ofthe way, is it is kind omer dramatizing. this is not the way it actually looked. it is not even what he says it is, it is not the death of lord chatham, it is chatham having a stroke of which he died several sugar could but the lord chatham does not sell like it will sell as well as the death of lord chatham. he went around and took images of portraits of each of these people trumbull, who studied under benjamin west, did the same thing. when he embarks on history painting, this is trumbull's famous "death of general montgomery" done in 1786. trumbull is very interesting.

i found out recently there is a new biography out about him that came out last year. i cannot with to get my hands on it. army,ved in the american went to england and was imprisoned as a spy when he was trying to learn. he might have been a spy. i don't know. that is why a want to read the book. he was trying to learn the art of painting in west's studio and befriends john and abigail adams and jefferson and they encourage him to embark in a series of american history paintings. attended about 15 or 16 of them, but only executed about eight. this in my thinking is one of the best. the trumbull gallery in yale. it is rather small. greatnk of trumbell's historical paintings in the rotunda, but the early ones are

small. if you ever wonder what his inspiration is, it is west. doing the death of another general outside of the same city, quebec, just five years -- -- 20 years apart. now trumbull, like so many of the other artists, sees -- steers his commercial potential for collecting subscriptions and engravings of the paintings he does. but unlike copley, he is more reluctant to alter the factionalism of his painting. they are all very realistic, but they vary by actual is -- factionalism. as we know with any history painting, you are going to fudge things in order to show off a moral dimension to the scene. ok? we heard this a couple weeks ago with debbie hansen which he spoke on the battle of lake erie painting by powell. he fudged some facts because he -- not because he liked to full

people, but because he saw higher lessons to be learned by imbuing a sense of heroism. in this case, trumbull paints in his painting of the surrender of the haitians in 1776, he paints washington accepting the surrender of the commanding colonel. well washington, i don't think he ever even met the commanding general. he certainly did not accept the surrender. this is something from the -- trumbell fudged because he wanted to show how commander-in-chief should treat fallen enemies and prisoners. when i first started putting this talk together several years ago, gitmo was in the news and i kept thinking about what people have to learn about the proper treatment of prisoners, prisoners of war. trumbull's "death of general mercer at princeton " a study

done around the same time he is still in london in 1786. again, it shows a dynamic battlefield, but again he is tweaking the facts, right? george washington up here -- this is the study, that is why it looks the way it looks. i like the study because it shows the frenzy of the battlefield more than the finished, more polished version. george washington is never actually anywhere near general mercer when he was killed. on the other hand, this is the only image we have of george washington of trumbull's and -- in an actual battle scene. when you are commander-in-chief in a major war, you should be at least one battle scene. we have him to thank for that. most of us know trumbell because four of his paintings and up in -- end up in the rotunda by the 1830's, george washington is in the scope of them. -- two of them. the surrender of cornwallis at

yorktown, and this one is the more important one. i told you we would get back to the resignation of washington. this is the painting of his resignation of george washington to congress in 1783 in cincinnatus. he is giving up power back to the civil authorities. by the time this painting is done, i mentioned to bruce, his eyesight is beginning to falter and combined with the fact that it is painted on a much larger canvas, i think that accounts for the fact that some of the mastery you saw in the earlier paintings is gone. particularly this. it is gone by the time this is finished and installed but it is , still an important document we can read for lessons of george washington's life. it was intended to be read although the language, the lexicon for interpreting the language of this painting might be lost to us today. the 1820's, it would've

been more obvious to people, for example, that everything to the left of washington represents the domestic side of his life. right is public, the right hand is the more public hand, the hand you shake hands with, that is the public life. so those are the legislators on the right. on the left is the public, domestic life where you find ladies and martha is up in the gallery. throws in ambell number -- another major person, james mason is in the group. he wanted to show all of the president's of the virginia dynasty sitting together. monroe was there because he was there, washington of course and jefferson was there because he was a member at the time, but trumbull throws in madison so they can all be together and show that the virginians are kind of running things. point of fact, four the first

six presidents were virginians. we can see, as with the statue of cincinnatus that the cloak means something. he has thrown the cloak. this could mean he is in haste to get out of there because mount vernon is a couple miles down the road and it is near christmas eve, 1783, or it could be he is throwing off the cloak of leadership. literally the mantle of power is the phrase we like to use. one other way you can see the subordination of the military to the civilian power. it is subtle, but this guy is actually higher than washington. washington has center stage, but this guy, charles thompson, the secretary of congress is higher to a crowd of washingtonians, no surprise the bureaucracy really is the power, right? that is where you go for locating the center of civil authority. then as now.

probably in any government. come back to this painting later on, on your own and see if you can tell anymore signs or lessons it has to teach. the grand manner of historical panting starts to subside and is replaced by a romantic period of painting. romance, as the name suggests, it is supposed to evoke feeling, supposed to be looking at emotions, dark or foreboding. in the case of this, this is based on the image of george washington crossing the delaware. it is so dark and foreboding that the legislature of north carolina who had commissioned it decided not to take it after all because it is kind of moody. even moody because it was done in the style by a quicker artist edward hicks. you have seen some of his work

"the peaceable kingdom" and so on. the romantic style starts to supplant the grand style and you three it -- see it throughout the 1800s. the academy -- a pity me, -- the epidemic the epitome is a manual lloyd "washington crossing the delaware." the first part in the 1850's was damage, so the one at the met now is a second copy. the first copy was destroyed by the air force in world war ii which is considered great britain's last revenge. the other neat thing about this painting is that lloyd is playing fast and loose. history painting is not as archival. he has no qualms or scruples

about making things up which makes it interesting to read. everything was meant to be interpreted for one reason or another. one of the things i like best is people who have interpreted it say this person here, for example, partly because of the way she looks people think this , is a woman and they think that because everyone in the boat, she is the only one rowing in the right direction. there might be something to that. i do not know. also, unlike trumbull and copley he was not very careful about who he populated the boat with. he did not go around and try to find out who was actually in the boat or the descendents. sometimes trumbull would paint, if the guy was dead like mercer, he would not paint the painting without mercer, he would paint his son. leutze does not have those kind of scruples. he populates with anyone.

there is an african-american, all kinds of frontiersmen. the boat isn't even like the boat he would've used. but one historian has said, if everyone who said they have an ancestor in washington's boat crossing the delaware were counted up, there would be more people in the boat that actually came over on the mayflower. everyone likes to claim they were descended from the mayflower people. another famous painting is much more dramatic. i don't know if you have seen this, it is a george washington at the battle of mammoth. why is this a romantic painting? it looks pretty clear-cut, it is highly representational, but the faces it shows are really -- all of these guys are angry or in anguish. they are retreating from the british lines because charles lee has told him to retreat in -- and washington comes up from that from behind the lines and says "what are you doing? "

that washington is excited or upset, which he was. some contemporaries went on record to say there is the only time they remember washington swearing. leutze wanted to get across that washington is restraining himself. he is the only one really showing restraint. he is seething underneath, but this is the only face that shows restraint. before the end of the 19th century, another strain of history painting is starting to evolve and it relies very much for subject matter on the american revolution. shiftshe genre style, it focus to everyday activity of people and coincides with the mechanical means of producing books. illustrated books. the more books in the hands of the common people, it makes publishers want consumers to see themselves in the illustrations.

you find a lot of genre paintings around this time done by illustrators like howard pyle who did this painting of the battle of bunker hill. what is genre style as it pertains to history painting? as i like to think of it, and i think i made this up, but it adheres closely to the truth, genre style painting shows everyday people in historical settings or historical figures in everyday settings. in this case, of course, you see every day people in a historical setting, literally watching the battle of uncle hill just like we are watching them watch the battle of bunker hill from the rooftops. grand moment in the battle, it is literally the common soldier, nameless, anonymous, marching up. some of them are looking at their fallen comrades. how does this compare to the grand style history painting? well, a century earlier, john trumbull is doing this and in

this painting in the grand style, everyone here has a biography written about them, trust me. everyone here. none of these guys are anonymous. i picked this as an example although it has nothing to do with washington because it is here in washington, d.c. and i think we have to promote washington, d.c. when we can. it is the boston boys and general gauge painted by henry bacon. it shows a bunch of young soon-to-be americans protesting british shoulders and knocking down there snow hill before the american revolution. look for it next time you are on the george washington campus. thomas prichard rossiter paints the washington family at home circa 1850, a very genre scene. washington with a victoria themed squire, the idea of family life.

he is on your list. brutus stern,ius washington as a farmer, 1850, not just a farmer but a benign slaveholder. i try to learn what i could about stearns to see if he had any reason for depicting slavery as a benign institution, but i was not able to determine that. john lloyd dunsmore, washington's last birthday, 1799. washington saying goodbye to his niece who had been living with granddaughter.p married off to his nephew. this is a couple that moved into woodlawn down route one from mount vernon today. a genre scene by john ward dunsmore. i include this one partly because it shows george washington. it is a genre scene because it shows washington not in a magisterial sense of

establishing washington like with the edward savage, but in the messy task of telling surveyors were to go andy bureaucrats in the background and this is also in washington, d.c. in the collection of the washington university. it was done in 1931 as a masters is bys by -- master's thes a student there. this is my favorite. look at it carefully. stuart's studio painted circa 1920. it is an homage to gilbert stuart. it is a picture of a painter painting a picture. it does not get more behind the scenes than that. i talked about howard pyle, the great illustrator of the genre style. nc wyeth was probably his most

famous student. this is george washington crossing the delaware the -- river at trenton where he is received to be inaugurated in 1789. it was painted in 1930. why is this a genre painting? he's doing something historical, but it is not about washington, is it? if you look closely you would see the most delineated personalized portraits are not of washington at all. it is of a young woman throwing petals at his feet. this is really a portrait of a in history. while he was painting this were tookk in trenton, nc wyeth a spill from the scaffolding and had a near-death experience and during that experience he dreamt he met george washington, he recorded a painting called "in a meet george washington."

the guy he says is george washington is just some generic revolutionary war figure. we know he is george washington because of course he is on a horse. so he has got to be george washington, so that is why he used this painting to help me make the transition to iconography. george washington in iconography. what is so special about the iconographic style? it is just as representational , but its means and effect are more indirect and abstract because washington is used as a means to some other end. unlike portraits which tell people what washington looked like or history paintings which teach history or the romantic mode, try to excite moods or imbue more lessons or genre , which are set pieces to entertain, iconography uses washington as a symbol of something else or uses something else as a symbol of george washington. for example, early on, before anybody knew what washington looked like, if you wanted to convey an image of george

as a lawgiver, you did not know what he looked like, so if you wanted to give a picture of a lawgiver, you would use julius caesar. you know there is some link to the roman republic. i am going to race through the horatio greenough's famous statue of washington and zeus but i would be remiss to not to , show it and show some of the iconographic antecedents, statue of zeus, olympia's, famous painting of napoleon, 1811. combined -- i think his painting has a really interesting career. it was installed in the capital and people always say they did

not like the nude miss -- nudene ss, so they had to remove it. that was interesting, because you would not move it to the lawn right? , [laughter] >> there is a story there and i am not prepared to tell the subtext of the story. i do want to move on really quickly, because i want to make sure we have time. this is maybe the part that will tug at your hearts more. would -- grant wood and his -- called parson weems' fable. that is the title i have for it. it is born of the colonial revival movement and part of the ancestral worship. the flipside of that is the bunking myth. -- building up historical characters through mythmaking

and debunking myths is the other side of the coin. myths rely on notions. parody attacks the mythic images or icons. this is the iconographic history of washington. what can i say about this? the most notice -- noticeable thing about it is it is the headitous gilbert stuart painted when washington was 64 on the bottle of an eight-year-old cutting down his father's tree. weems, and early biographer who propagated the story from his childhood is holding back the curtain, on his own invented myth. compare that to charles wilson peale's portrait. in case you don't get the spoof,

wood literally framed this composition around the famous portrait. peale is drawing the curtain back on a package reality with specimens are neatly packed in cubicles. this is the natural history museum in philadelphia. peale's famous natural history collection like weems' story is a fabrication. his specimens are a reality frozen in time like the stuffed birds on display. washington is static and unchanging. the same at eight as he was at 64. other famous image, daughters of the revolution, not even daughters of the revolution but daughters of revolution wanted to show how blue haired ladies like this can actually serve as the establishment against the kind of movement that gave birth to united states in the first place. it is supposed to be daughters of the american revolution who are the standard bearers the

legacy of the american revolution and he wanted to show by 1932 how much they had the trade those -- betrayed that legacy by becoming an establishment against which people like grant wood would be happy to revolt. he is kind of dissing the dar for their having thrown obstacles in his way. he was commissioned to do artwork for a church and the stained glass company he had commissioned to do the work was based in germany and the years after world war i, to do business with a german company was still considered unpatriotic and so they through bars in his way of executing the commission. this was his payback. you will see the equally ubiquitous washington crossing the delaware in the background, but it is really faded, isn't it? it is a faded legacy of the american revolution. i have not read this, but i see these images and they remind me of byzantine icons, the

elongated next, which i imagine a grant wood may have intended to show their otherworldliness. paintedole scott, 1975 not george washington crossing the delaware, but george washington carver crossing the delaware. he intended it to point out racial stereotypes embedded in the american psyche just as deeply as leutze's images are. this was in his own words, " his private exploration and personal statement of the forthcoming bicentennial." does the same thing. it was installed recently in the national gallery of american art. same thing, but another version of the crossing i wanted to draw attention to is larry rivers,

1953 "the crossing." i will read my notes so i do not stutter and take up time. rivers' 1953 study of the crossing cast a fractured light on historical narrative, ms. -- myth building and human , nature altogether. no one, not even george washington, vaguely emerging as the figure on the horse and off-center. this is the washington, not this guy, this is the washington readily identifiable. each man moves in his own murky reality, unlike the common cause showed by leutze. rivers did this he said, after reading about the chaos of war in the novel "war and peace." whether you agree with these artists notions of history, as -- the point is as an artistic image washington is so famous , that he does not even need to be in the picture of george washington. we know because it is the crossing and the guy on the course that george washington is

there. the flipside is that symbols are identified with washington long enough and they persist long enough, eventually washington comes to stand for that symbol in turn. and so, to demonstrate that, we all know this painting. you want to talk about the economy, just throw up a dollar bill and it is george washington. you do not even need to mention his name. this isomy is doing bad the portrait in reverse. we know this is a dollar bill and we do not need to see the mess -- the rest, but we know the message he is trying to teach. washington is so famous he stands in lieue of the eagle and -- it used to be the eagle was the symbol of america. i am going to close with lincoln

hoped -- "lincoln after stewart" done in the bicentennial. this shows the complexity of iconography and how it plays with the mind. we go to look at this and we fully expect to see george washington's image, but instead we see lincoln and we do a double take. the artist wanted to demonstrate -- this is how famous washington is, but that each president, washington and lincoln, have a lot in common. they both were major presidents who started historical legacies, the nation and the post-civil war nation, and there legacies -- their legacies are unfinished today. i will close with the original, -- original. q&a. here is your chance. while you are thinking about q&a, we have a little bit of time. i have the lovely pins.

they fit on your lapel. i do not wear -- know where i got them, but the first of the two goes to the first one who can tell me where the other lansdowne is in washington, d.c. i saw your hand first. >> -- room. >> is it the original? it was done by gilbert stuart? that is the thing. all of the paintings i know in the office buildings, much less the capitals are copies of copies, so i may have to stop you on that and then i saw this one. lady's. >> the white house. mr. digiacomantonio: good for you. that is the lansdowne. [laughter] >> my point was -- how could i forget the white house, it was the first work abide -- work of

art. it is that george washington university. i am promoting my own school. >> they actually have one called the monroe lennox -- they are named for their owners, and they have one. i think it is a full one. >> when they took down the lansdowne at the portrait gallery they replaced it with the three-quarter portrait. give out the other one, give me time to think of another question. do you have any questions for me? >> do you have any commentary on the national gallery of art? william: of washington? >> year. -- yeah. william: let's stick with washington. i mentioned the portrait with both george and martha. and the lansdowne is there.

i couldn't tell you. you are reminding me that i need to go back. i'm sorry, the portrait gallery. >> you mentioned gilbert stuart used this one painting as a model for others. how long would it have taken him to crank out another one of these. the turnaround time to sell it? william: of course, our friend in the senate curator's office just left. she would've been ideally suited to answer the question. i do not know how long it took to turn around. i know that in the period -- the thing the master had to take care of was the face and hands. everything else was covered by clothing and you would get people in your studio studying under you to do those. you could turn them around fairly quickly. in other words, the master is responsible for everything you see on the canvas.

i am not sure how quickly they spit them out, but there are 75 portraits out there, i imagine them it could be done ready expeditiously. >> what are your thoughts of martha washington's portrait? william: the one that is kind of appended to the lansdowne. i do not have much thought about it. during that really early colonial revival style. i can tell you that -- this without having a clear mental image, she never wore those close. 1870's. late very victorian. bear in mind when you see it. sometimes these people are rooted in things that bear no relation to reality or fact. peale,first picture by

he is wearing a sash and a few he is wearing a different one, painted more neatly. sash -- i have never seen in any of the commentary about these portraits, i have never heard anyone say anything about the satchel itself. they senses the blue sash, -- my sense is the blues sash, the diagonal blue sash is the one he wore as commander-in-chief. a know that washington was stickler for the rule. i don't know if he made up the role that included the sash. i've a feeling there might be a sash further down, maybe a waste

one. i know the blue one anyway, either because washington was told it should be so or he was told to make it so is the one he wore as commander-in-chief area -- commander-in-chief. >> how do you think it was that we see all of these other he painted them, he tended to make these smooth everyone he painted. how did edward savage figure out that he looks like george c. scott? [laughter] >> a different kind of faith. know.on't not everyone knows savage. it sounds like you are unfairnessthere is in that. may simply because he is more off -- a lot of these primitives -- i am a huge fan of american primitive folk art.

i think it shows realities we miss. when we see a nice smooth face or complexion like the peel's, we think that is the better piece. you are reminding all of us of some of the deeper truths can come off with someone who looks to the eye less educated, let's say, less academic artists like savage. say savage i should was john wesley jarvis's teacher, and jarvis thought he was the worst artist that there was. was associated with him as a student. i've not huge fan of jarvis, but that makes perfect sense to me. >> there was the painting. you did not show the painting that the masons commission, where he really does look like

an old man, not like george c. scott. >> am getting all confused. is that good or bad? >> it's a very realistic portrait of an old man. >> when was it done? >> in his last years. >> he was not the teflon president. no one was throwing anything at him in the first several years of his administration. it was only with the friction between and what files and the francophiles in the united states that washington starts to become less than perfect in people's eyes. certainly by the time he takes to the deal to suppress the whiskey rebellion. he is seen as someone it will

take up arms against your own people -- you are fair game. he became just another .olitician he did not play it well. portrait,ok at this is this a tired old man? rebirth when he went back to the plantation. he was a businessman. a very entrepreneurial is man with his build and experimental , but i imagine he got a .oost of energy but look at obama. my god. the man started out, you know, and now he has gray hair.

that they put these artists up for days and then the the print.d to sell >> no. it was largess. >> some people i imagine heather -- had their ego stroking gratifying ways. i did not get that sense from washington. "another artist took three hours of my time today." it was very time-consuming and washington did not appreciate

it. so, to be an artist with a letion, you can definitely him in. it was not just washington sitting there. if you're claustrophobic like me, that is not going to go, but washington did it. atlantic in order to do it, so he submitted graciously, hopefully. yeah. questions?

>> i saw these questions at the george washington masonic memorial. it was said it was the only portrait where pop marks were shown in the painting. thinking? what you're one reason why it was so real? of course, he had the pox early life, which is why he was immune to it during the revolution. so, it saved his life. that's interesting. i never looked for those pox marks. i imagine you did not draw attention to them, just like you did not show frequent, fdr's disabilities. but we all know now that is what makes you human. sometimes make you -- makes you a better human. any other questions? there are some books we have backstopped that we are happy to move. this is based on the last several months.

be looking for future book talks. we have you guys showing up in the dead of summer. thanks for coming. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> december 7 marks the anniversary of the japanese attack on pearl harbor. we are featuring programs remembering that day. sunday afternoon at 4 p.m. america" theeel film directed by frank capra, "know your enemy: japan."

of the worldest would fall like a ripe plum and have commands. >> and then survivors from the ss arizona recall what they witnessed. and at 6:00 eastern on american artifacts -- missouri was commissioned in 1944 and saw action in the pacific. surrenderwn for the at the battle of tokyo bay. >> for our complete american history tv schedule, go to c-span.org. >> follow the transition of

government on c-span as donald trump becomes the 45th president of the united states and republicans maintain control of the u.s. house and senate. we will take you to key event as they happen. on c-span.org or listen for free on our c-span radio app. >> next, on american history tv, colonel edward james, one of the members of the american 101st airborne division talks about his experiences. screamingbout the angels. this 45 minute talk is part of a three-day talk hosted by the american's