The Painter's Triumph

"The Painter's Triumph", William Sydney Mount, 1838

"The Painter's Triumph" shows the glorification of American artists, apart from the European academic influence. Mount, the artist, refused to travel and study in Europe in order to preserve his distinct style. In this piece an American artist is showing a passing farmer his painting. On the wall a classic Grecian-style drawing metaphorically looks away from the Americans and back to the art traditions of the past. The situation does not seem like much of an argument for American art, until one notices the gold earring in the farmer's ear. This shows that the farmer at one time sailed on a sea, and he had the gold earring in case he died in a foreign port and needed a christian burial. Traditionally sailors would  receive their earring after crossing the equator for the first time. Additionally, they believed that the earring sharpened the eyesight in the eye opposite the ear with the earring. This means that instead of showing an uneducated, uncultured farmer looking at a painting, "The painter's Triumph" shows a well-traveled man with knowledge of European culture and a sharp eye approving the American artist's painting. Mount says through this painting that American's possessed all that they needed to make American art.

Many people know Mount as a painter of everyday life, but his real love was not his subject matter but painting itself. His journals contain scores and scores of comments on techniques. In a way he reproduced the Academy of Europe with simple observation and passion. A longer article that one can find here explores this subject and examines some excerpts  from Mount's journal. His journal also reveals his dedication to personal improvement physically and morally. This is a characteristic of that era in which the middle class began to emerge with scorn for both the opulence of  wealth and the depravity of poverty. People in America began to value morality, temperance, and self-improvement, among other attributes. This painting does not portray wealthy patron viewing the artist's work, but a working man. It references the past viewing situations of European art, such as this piece, but it says that the opinion of a plain, working American matters just as much as a wealthy European. 

For more about the emergence of middle class values in America and how they show up in Mount's art, go to http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/1181131