John Vanderlyn
John Vanderlyn
1775 - 1852
American painter. The grandson of Pieter Vanderlyn (1687–1778), a portrait painter active in the Hudson River Valley, he manifested an early talent for penmanship and drawing. During his late youth he moved to New York, where he worked in a frame shop and studied in Archibald Robertson’s drawing academy. His copy of a portrait by Gilbert Stuart brought him to the attention of that artist, with whom he then worked in Philadelphia.
Under the patronage of the politician Aaron Burr (1756–1836), Vanderlyn went to France in 1796, becoming the first American painter to study in Paris. He gained a reliable Neo-classical technique and aspirations after ‘the Grand Manner’ from his teacher François-André Vincent. Exhibits at the Paris Salons over several years—beginning with the notable Self-portrait of 1800 (New York, Met.)—reflected his growing ambitions. In 1804 he produced a history painting with an American subject, the Murder of Jane McCrea (Hartford, CT, Wadsworth Atheneum), taken from a poem describing an incident in the Revolutionary War. Caius Marius on the Ruins of Carthage (1808; San Francisco, CA, de Young Mem. Mus.) won him a médaille d’encouragement from Napoleon. Ariadne Asleep and Abandoned by Theseus on the Island of Naxos (1812; Philadelphia, PA Acad. F.A.) was the first monumental female recumbent nude painted by an American-born artist. Painted within the traditions of 19th-century Salon art, the solidly modelled figure of Ariadne, reclining in a lush American landscape, did not arouse the immediate acclaim or controversy for which Vanderlyn had hoped. Asher B. Durand made an engraving of the painting in 1835.
Vanderlyn had ambitions as an entrepreneur but was not always successful. On a return visit to America in 1801, he painted several views of the Niagara Falls, intending to capitalize on the Falls’ vast appeal by having his oils engraved in order to reach the general public. In 1815, returning from Europe more permanently, he displayed a panorama made of enlarged sketches of the palace and gardens of Versailles (New York, Met.; see fig.). Later he sent exhibitions to such places as Charleston, New Orleans, and Havana.
The popularity of these ventures waned, so Vanderlyn had to earn a living by painting portraits. The quality of these works reflected the status of the subject: he treated ordinary citizens casually, especially during the 1830s, while state portraits of presidents and the powerful stimulated a certain inventiveness. When the Congress commissioned a portrait of George Washington, to be based on Gilbert Stuart’s Atheneum Washington (1796; jointly owned by Washington, DC, N.G.A. and Boston, MA, Mus. F.A.), for the House of Representatives, Vanderlyn was awarded the task because of his ability as a copyist and because Congressmen from his home state lobbied effectively for him.
The Landing of Columbus for the Rotunda of the US Capitol in Washington was his last and largest (3.60×5.49 m) public commission. It was painted in Paris between 1839 and 1846. He built up the painting step by step in the Neo-classical manner, using vegetation studies he had made in San Salvador, and exercising care in the accuracy of the costumes. This characteristically bold achievement did not match contemporary taste; Vanderlyn ended his career embittered and neglected. [Kenneth C. Lindsay. "Vanderlyn, John." Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press, accessed September 15, 2014, http://www.oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/article/grove/art/T087827.]
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