John Singleton Copley

1738 - 1815 • American • Painter • Colonial

"... the people generally regard [painting} no more than any other useful trade, as they sometimes term it, like that of a Carpenter tailor or shew [sic] maker, not as one of the most noble Arts in the World." - John Singleton Copley

Copley's Irish parents immigrated to America in the mid-1730s, and he was born in Boston. His father died in the mid-17 40s, and in 1748 his mother remarried. Copley's stepfather, Peter Pelham ( 697-1751 ), was a skilled ENGRAVER who specialized in the difficult medium of the MEZZOTINT. Copley was instructed by Pelham until his stepfather died, in 1751. The rest of Copley's education in art came from studying the paintings of SMIBERT, FEKE, and BLACKBURN and from reading books on English, French, and Italian art. He became a successful portraitist among Boston's merchant and professional elite: A portrait by Copley became an emblem and affirmation of an individual's success. The historian Paul Statie writes, "Copley's unmatched success as a producer in a culture of consumption was built upon his ability to sell dream material that told consumers in visual terms what it was possible for them to believe about themselves. . . . [He] helped the elite define who they were, for both themselves and others." Seemingly unable to paint the human form with any sense of true anatomy, Copley painted the stuff of the colonial American's material life-the silks and satins, brocades and laces, embroidery and gold braid-with a sheen, elegance, and opulence more dazzling than the real thing. He fashioned himself as an aristocrat, and at the same time saw his patrons as Philistines, as suggested by the quotation above from a letter he wrote in 1767. Nevertheless, Copley achieved great intimacy and direct rapport with his sitters. But he wished to acquire an English style, so he corresponded with artists in London and sent them his most highly accomplished work, Boy with a Squirrel (Henry Pelham) (1765). This is a picture of his half brother seated at a table with a tiny squirrel on a gold chain and a glass of water nearby. It is an extravagant show of texture and reflections, from polished wood and water to pink satin collar and light gold vest. The links in the chain, and even the hairs on the boy's head, might be counted one by one. Copley has also painted the fresh sweetness of youth and an appealing little flying squirrel. In return he received the now infamous opinion of REYNOLDS that he could become "one of the first Painters in the World" if he went to study in Europe "before [his] .Manner and Taste were corrupted or fixed by working in [his] little way at Boston." Copley wrote to WEST in I 770, "I am desioreous of avoideing every imputation of party spir[it], Political contests being neighther pleasing to an artist or advantageous to the art itself. "Copley's wife was the daughter of a Tory merchant who was a principal agent for the British East India Company, and in 1774, an angry mob threatened Copley and his family for allegedly harboring a Tory. Copley left for England on the eve of the American Revolution. Two years earlier Copley had painted the revolutionary Samuel Adams (1770-72); the historian Carol Troyen writes, "For Copley ... Adams was a stirring history painting in the guise of a portrait." Earlier still he had painted Paul Revere (1768). The circumstances of the Revere commission are unknown, but some scholars read a political statement in Copley's portrait of the thoughtful silversmith, especially considering Revere's participation in Revolutionary politics and the anti-British symbolism of the teapot that Revere holds in his hand: The despised British Townshend Acts of 1767 had imposed duties on certain English goods entering America, including the East India Company's tea. However veiled his politics, though, Copley's artistic ambition was clear-he sailed for England in June 1774. He continued to receive portrait commissions and painted several HISTORY PAINTINGS. His most notable work from England is Watson and the Shark (1778), an unusual scene documenting an actual accident off the coast of Cuba in which the young Watson's leg was bitten off by a shark. The picture caused a popular sensation when it was exhibited in London. Copley never returned home.