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Washington Allston
1779-
1843
| Born: 1779 Georgetown, South Carolina Died: 1843 Cambridgeport, Massachusetts Biography: Achieving an international reputation as a romantic painter, poet and art philosopher, Washington Allston did painting in a dark, wild, mystical, lofty style. His many years spent abroad became a major influence for American artists to study in Europe. He also affected the changing image of United States artists from being slightly disreputable artisans to romantic, poetic idealists. He was born in Georgetown, South Carolina, and graduated from Harvard College in Boston in 1800. From 1800 to 1818, excepting three years that he spent in Boston, he was in Europe where he adopted a romantic classicism that influenced a number of painters who followed him. He studied at the Royal Academy in London with Benjamin West and traveled and painted with John Vanderlyn. In 1805, he settled in Rome until 1808, and became friends with Washington Irving, Samuel Coleridge and other well-known Americans living abroad. In England, he became recognized as one of the important history painters, especially in Biblical themes rather than the classical subjects he had painted in Italy. An impediment to his productivity was years of struggle on a large painting, "Belshazzar's Feast, " begun in 1817 with the ten-thousand dollar subscription of ten wealthy Americans. He never completed it. By 1818, he was settled in Boston, and lauded as the nation's top artist. However, the demand for history painting was minimal, and he turned to smaller works, both figural and landscape, many of them romanticized, pastoral figures in landscapes. His place in American art history is hard to pinpoint. His styles changed from classicism to romanticism, and his subject matter was wide ranging. He had tremendous influence on succeeding generations of artists who admired him for his refined sensibilities and serious, professional approach to fine art.Credit: Michael Zellman, "300 Years of American Art" |
