PART 4:

CHARLES WILSON PEAL

In this lecture today, I’m going to introduce you to an American painter -

Charles Wilson Peale. You maybe familiar with his portraits, but did you know
that he never even saw a painting till he was a grown man. He was born in
Maryland in 1741. His father died when he was 9 and his family struggled
financially for the next few years and Charles became a saddle maker od
apprentice.

One day, he went to North Folk for supplies, and there he saw paintings for the
first time. He thought they were so bad that he felt sure he could do better. So he
decided to make painting his career.

In 1766, he went to London to study painting with Benjamin West.

Whilst there, he painted this portrait in 1768, see slide one “Pitt as a Roman
senator”, notice how elaborately (=elaborate) symbolical of this portrait is. The
symbolism arises, of course, from Pitt’s famous speech to the British parliament,
where he draw an anology between the ancient Roman senate’s view of a
barbaric Britain and prevailing European view of the time of a barbaric African
continent, fueling this slavery trade.

Perhaps you didn’t know that the Romans used Britain as slaves, but I digress
back to peale.

He returned to America and in 1772, painted the first ever portrait of Geogre
Washington. see slide 2. In 1773, he painted a group portrait of himself, his
wife, mother, brothers, sister, his old nurse and an unidentified baby (=family
portrait). Just look at the slide, this painting is simply called “The Peale
Family”. And you can almost feel the exuberance of the family and their
warmth towards one another.

He enjoyed great success as a portraitist, prior to the revolution and served with
distinction in the revolution. During this time, he became friends with Geogre
Washington, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson.

After the war, he continued to paint and once his wife died in the 1790s, as a
result of her 11th pregnancy he remarried. He had 17 children in all, naming the
sons after famous painters or scientists. Although perhaps best known for his
portrait of famous people, Peale liked novelty, look at this slide of his two sons,
(= doubled portrait of sons) Raphael and Tyson life-sized climbing a narrow
stairway. This painting, “the Staircase Group” 1795 was exhibited(=displayed)
in a doorway as a … …..

And it is said that it did, in fact, fool the eye of Geogre Washington. Even far as
back as 1772, we can see his desires for difference in Rache Weeping. It’s a
rather macabre portrait of his first wife crying over the death (=dead) of one of
their children, their daughter, Magaret.

I’d like to show you one more slide to demonstrate his innovative approach.
This is a portrait of his brother, James (=”James Portrait”) sitting at his desk
at night (=in darkness), with only his face iluminated by a lamp. This was
painted much later than the others, in 1822.

You know, Peale believed anyone could learn to paint, and he taught painting to
his brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, nephews, nieces and other relatives. Four
of his sons, Tyson, Rubin , Rum… and Raphael became painters as did his
brother James.

Before I finish, I’d like to tell you a bit more about Peale. He was active in
politics (=politician) for several years, and throughout his life, he maintained a
lively interest in many branches of science (=scientist). He was also an
inventor, who gained patents for a fireplace,… and a new kind of wooden
bridge.

He collaborated with Thomas Jefferson on what was known as the polygraph, a

kind of portable writing desk. But it wasn’t any ordinary desk, this one could
make several copies (=copy) of a manuscript at once. He also wrote papers on a
wide variety of subjects, from hygiene to engineering.

Oh, and he also tried his hand at inventing a fairly primitive but innovative
motion picture technique, new types of eyeglasses and a velocipede , which is a
… to the bicycle. Now, some of the original velocipedes had pedals and some
didn’t. You sort of scooted along on them, using your feet. Unfortunately, I
can’t remember which type it was that Peale worked on.

He’s also remembered for his work as a naturalist. He had established the first
scientific museum in America and he even invented his own system of …

For those of you who aren’t sure what … is, it’s the art of preparing, stuffing
and presenting dead animals so that they appear life like. He was also well ahead
of his time in that he placed his animals in a simulated natural environment. His
most magnificant(=best) exhibit; however, was the complete skeleton of an
extinct mammal known as a mastodon, which he helped excavate. The advent
was memorialized in his extraordinary painting, the exhuming of a mastodon