As you step into the Rotunda of the Capitol, you are encircled by grand paintings. Each illustrates a unique piece of American history. Four of the eight large works on display were designed and executed by John Trumbull and reflect two distinct aspects of Jacksonian America: a renewed interest in the nation’s heritage and an expressed hope for her future. In his autobiography, Trumbull recalls his service in the Revolutionary War as an aide de camp under George Washington and his opportunities to observe firsthand the events he would later memorialize.[1] Although his father “recommended the study of law,” Trumbull recalls his “tenacity for the arts” that eventually led him to pursue a career in painting.[2] After one year of service under General Washington, Trumbull embarked for Europe at the age of twenty-seven. Interestingly, he received his formal training from Benjamin West, an American living abroad in London. West simultaneously served as a court painter for King George III and trained the men who would provide the artistic record of America’s founding period. Trumbull would traverse the Atlantic numerous times throughout his adult life, becoming acquainted with and employed by many notable men, crafting friendships that would markedly influence his later works. Trumbull fell into the company of Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, John Jay, Thomas Pinckney, James Monroe, and many others.[3] Perhaps unbeknownst to Trumbull at the time, the men with whom he personally interacted were some of the very faces he would later paint. Because of these unique experiences and relationships, Trumbull was able to capture on canvas extremely accurate depictions of his future subjects.
At age sixty, Trumbull returned to America where he would remain until the end of his life. In 1816, a resolution “finally passed both houses…to employ (Trumbull) to compose and execute four paintings, commemorative of the most important events of the American Revolution.”[4] As President James Madison noted, these works were to be “a glorious action.”[5] Working alongside Charles Bulfinch, the presiding architect of the public buildings in Washington, Trumbull began his work on the four pieces: The Declaration of Independence, Surrender of General Burgoyne at Saratoga, Surrender of the British at Yorktown, and Resignation of General George Washington at Annapolis. Although many objections were raised regarding the exact content and placement of the paintings, eventually Trumbull’s “work went on without any further interruption, and was finished in 1824.”[6]
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| Resignation of General George Washington at Annapolis |
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| Surrender of General Burgoyne at Saratoga |
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| The Declaration of Independence |
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| Surrender of the British at Yorktown |
All of these pieces inspired their onlookers to reflect back to the nation’s beginning, a period characterized by a dedication to the preservation of liberty, unrelenting individual determination, and a collective spirit of civic duty. America was prospering, diversifying, and democratizing during this period. It was vital that the works chosen to be prominently displayed fostered a sense of national pride and unity. By painting images of America’s birth, Trumbull’s pieces helped reinforce a common history and national identity. The notion of preserving and presenting “American memory” was a strong driving force at this time, a cultural phenomenon that Trumbull’s Rotunda works exemplify.[7] Additionally significant, because each of his paintings were created during a “pre-photographic” age, his works within the Rotunda were more “documentary” in nature than aesthetic. [8] In all of Trumbull’s works, in fact, “portraits predominate” and they continue to provide an important record of the most notable men of the founding period. [9] Trumbull went to great lengths to meet and paint portraits of his subjects from life or to collect portraits of them from which he could make a reliable copy. The events recorded, especially those of the Revolutionary War, provided “recreated scenes,” a collection of windows into forgotten images of the American past.[10] Indeed, Trumbull personally wrote that although his works “possessed little art value,” they were made in “in a worthy age, (and) might be found worthy as historic records.”[11]
[1], John Trumbull, Autobiography, Reminiscences, and Letters (New
Haven: B. L. Hamlen, 1841), 17.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid., 174 and 243.
[4] Ibid., 262.
[5] Ibid., 263.
[6] Ibid., 275.
[7] Roger Schultz, Jacksonian
America HIUS 316 Course Notes, Liberty University, November 11, 2013.
[8]Florence
Berryman, “Artists of Washington,” Records
of the Columbia Historical Society 50 (1948) http://www.jstor.org/stable/40067327 (accessed September 11, 2013), 219.
[9]Theodore Sizer, The Works of Colonel John Trumbull (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1967), 117.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Berryman, "Artists of Washington," 219.
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