DOLLY MADISON, by Gilbert Stuart—Pennsylvania Academy
MAKERS OF AMERICAN ART
Gilbert Stuart
FOUR
To many Gilbert Stuart is known as the “painter of Washington.” We know Washington today as Trumbull and Stuart have painted him, and Stuart has been aptly called the “prime painter to the president.” According to an anecdote, Stuart was said to regard Washington as his own particular subject, and valued him as any workman might a “pay envelope.” Whenever he lacked in income he could always paint a “Washington head” and get his price for it. Gilbert Stuart was born at North Kingston, Rhode Island, in December, 1755. He studied at Newport for awhile, then in 1775 he went to England and studied under Benjamin West. Four years were all that Stuart needed for study, even under this master. He set up his own studio in London, and from the beginning found success. Indeed, it came to him so quickly that Stuart was tempted into outrunning it, and was soon beyond his means and in financial difficulties.
In 1788 Stuart found it expedient to slip away to Dublin. When there he found success anew, and remained in Ireland for five years. Then he returned to America, enticed by the commission to paint General Washington. Experienced as he was at that time, Stuart confessed to genuine embarrassment in facing Washington for the first time. He said that though he had painted King George III and the future George IV, had painted Louis XVI and many others among the great, he had never been disconcerted until he found himself in the presence of the American general. As a result his first portrait was a failure. But Washington sat again for him, and the result was the famous head on the unfinished canvas, now known as the “Athenæum” portrait. The Stuart portraits of Washington are famous the world over; so much so that some overlook the splendid work that Stuart has done in portraiture for other celebrated men of America—John Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and the rest, the list including nearly all the notables of his time. Stuart was more than a good technical painter. He was a portrait maker in the finest sense. He studied character, and his portraits are living people.
In his art work and his associations Gilbert Stuart was a man of great simplicity. His habits were sometimes a shock to his more fastidious art friends. When Trumbull in 1780 came to Benjamin West, the latter referred him to Gilbert Stuart for painting materials and casts to work with. He found Stuart, as he states, “dressed in an old black coat with one half torn off the hip and pinned up, looking more like a beggar than a painter.” Trumbull, whose idea of what was fit for an artist had been gained from establishments like those of Copley and West was much upset. But he soon learned to appreciate the great painter under the shabby habit.
Stuart is recognized not only as a leader in American art, but as one of the greatest portrait painters. His last years were spent in Boston, where he died in July, 1828.