George Caleb Bingham
George Caleb Bingham was a famous painter and politician. His paintings are considered as some of America’s best art. George Caleb Bingham is considered to be the first outstanding American artist from the west. His political life and art define him as a leader. This paper will go over the life of George Caleb Bingham and how he was able to be a leader in the community and also how he was able to inspire other great artists and politicians
George Caleb Bingham was born in Virginia on March 20th, 1811. George was the son of Henry Vest Bingham and Mary Amend. George was named after his Grandfather who was named George Washington Bingham, or so it is said that it is his name. Some people believe that this is not really his
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actual name but, that he took that name from our first president George Washington as a sign of respect and loyalty. His grandfather also served in the revolutionary war. George Caleb Bingham’s father was a renaissance man and had his own business’ as a farmer, tavern keeper, and an inn keeper. Many people visited his father's inn including many painters. While their time staying there they would paint many paintings and George would always get the chance to watch them paint. He enjoyed watching them paint so much that he would try to imitate them and would try painting them himself on paper. In 1819 George and his family moved to Missouri, following through the Lewis and Clark trail. His father bought another tavern and a new farm and became a County Judge. Unfortunately George Caleb Bingham’s father died in the year of 1823 which meant that George would have to step and be the head of the household. At the time of his father's passing George's mother started an all girls school in Franklin Missouri. In 1838 George traveled to New York City, where he got the chance to display his early genre painting Western Boatmen Ashore at the Apollo Gallery. This was a huge feat for the young painter and really got his career off of the ground. George Caleb Bingham was the first of many artists to start a revolution of art.
He used a luminist style of painting which means that he portrayed a landscape type of painting. He painted many sceneries that include houses, trees, grasslands, sunsets, ranches, and mountains. George Caleb Bingham is best known for his scenes that depict daily life out on the Western Frontier which means in Missouri.
In 1820, when George Caleb Bingham was nine, Missouri became the 24th state. He then moved to Franklin, Missouri from Virginia. When George was young he was known to draw on barns and side posts on fences. While Bingham was still a young boy he had the chance to meet one of the most famous painters at the time that went by the name of Chester Harding. George watched Chester paint a portrait of Daniel Boone and it is believed that, that was the reason George Caleb Bingham got so into portrait painting. It inspired him in a way that he could use to influence others.
In 1833 George was solely making his money by painting portraits of his friends and strangers alike. His friends liked the portraits so much that he began to travel to other towns and try to ask people if he could paint a portrait of them for a price. Bingham’s paintings from 1845-55 are considered his best
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works. “These paintings related not only to his life but, to life of fur traders, riverboat men, commerce along the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, and to the American scene involving the people of Missouri in and around St. Louis, Columbia, Jefferson City, Boonville, and Kansas City” (4). George Caleb Bingham was inspired to lead a great new evolution of painting so in order to be that he had to learn how to paint more pictures. He decided to travel east to Booneville and watch other painters work and try to imitate them. In Booneville he went and did an apprenticeship with a Minister and Carpenter who also painted. After a few years of being an apprentice and traveling around learning new ideas, he came back to Franklin Missouri with new ideas of his own on what he should paint. George Caleb Bingham’s landscapes were at first created as background scenes for his portraits and then painted as settings for his genre paintings. During a career of 45 years, from 1834 onward, Bingham was widely known as “The Missouri Artist” and he was also considered the state’s first artist. Although he started to paint in Virginia his art in Missouri was highly regarded as the beginning of his career. Alongside his passion to paint Bingham had a second passion for Politics and in 1834 Bingham started going more into the politician portion of his life.
He helped lead in the coalition against President Andrew Jackson due to the illness of one of the coalition's original leaders William Crawford at the time. He did this because he strongly opposed some of the views that President Andrew Jackson had. Bingham believed that there should not be any strong centralized government. After his works with the coalitions he moved to Washington to pursue leadership through politics. In 1844 he returned to Missouri and was elected to the Missouri State Legislature. His political gains did not stop there as he kept studying to get in new positions in politics. In 1862 he was elected as the Treasurer of the State of Missouri and in 1865 was elected adjutant general of Missouri. Although he was pursuing his passion as a Famous Politician he still continued to paint pictures of other politicians and political
conventions. “Although George Caleb Bingham is known today for his well made landscape paintings In his 40 years of work he created less than 50 narrative paintings” (1). This is such a little amount when compared to the amount of portraits he was known to have painted. It is said that he probably painted more than one thousand portait paintings. Most of his studies in art and literature were within a ten year period where he went to multiple art schools. Unfortunately George Caleb Bingham died on July, 1879 in Kansas City. Even after his passing his paintings still prospered. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York bought one of his famous paintings called Fur Traders Descending the Missouri. Since they bought his painting many others started to want his paintings as well, thus creating a spark in his works of art.spent most of his life in politics and doing a little bit of portrait painting on the side as a side job. George Caleb Bingham's role in politics also sparked more paintings because he would paint the involvement in Missouri politics which led to many portrait paintings. Because of this, during his lifetime, he was best known as a politician and portrait painter. George Caleb Bingham was such an inspirational leader that people wanted to carry on his legacy in Independence, Missouri and decided to dedicate and name a school after the famous painter and politician, George Caleb Bingham Middle School hosts many students of all races and stands as a symbol that education will get you places just like Bingham's many years of school for art and politics got for him.
I chose the two paintings, The Rocky Mountains, Lander’s Peak by Albert Bierstadt and Trail Riders by Thomas Hart Benton. The first painting was released in 1863, after the artist took a journey through the American west in the 1850’s. It’s easy to assume his inspiration was based off of what he saw on his trip (The Rocky Mountains, Lander’s Peak). I believe he just wanted to share the beauty of what he saw and this was a way he was good at and knew how to do. Trail Riders was a painting released in 1964/65. Thomas Hart Benton was a Midwesterner (Thomas Hart Benton Trail Riders). So even though there is no actual proof, I assume his painting is based off of his home and what he’s seen.
Ernie Barnes was and still is one of the most popular and well-respected black artists today. Born and raised in Durham, North Carolina, in 1938, during the time the south as segregated, Ernie Barnes was not expected to become a famous artist. However, as a young boy, Barnes would, “often [accompany] his mother to the home of the prominent attorney, Frank Fuller, Jr., where she worked as a [housekeeper]” (Artist Vitae, The Company of Art, 1999). Fuller was able to spark Barnes’ interest in art when he was only seven years old. Fuller told him about the various schools of art, his favorite painters, and the museums he visited (Barnes, 1995, p. 7). Fuller further introduced Barnes to the works of such artists as, Raphael, Michelangelo, and Correggio, which later influenced Barnes’ mannerist style of painting.
His first trip to England to paint Queen Victoria was in 1842. He returned several times to paint the growing royal family, doing at least 120 works for them (abcgallery, par.1). One of these, a private painting commissioned by Queen Victoria, was to be given to Prince Albert as a
Vincent Van Gogh is one of the world’s greatest and most well-known artists, but when he was alive he considered himself to be a complete failure. It was not until after he died that Van Gogh’s paintings received the recognition they deserved. Today he is thought to be the second best Dutch artist, after Rembrandt. Born in 1853, he was one of the biggest artistic influences of the 19th century. Vincent Van Gogh created a new era of art, he learned to use art to escape his mental illness, and he still continues to inspire artists over 100 years later.
Gardner, Helen, and Fred S. Kleiner. Gardner's Art Through the Ages: The Western Perspective. N.p., 2014. Print.
George Washington was born on February 22, 1732 at the Bridges Creek Plantation in Wakefield Virginia. George was the eldest child out of
The painting tells us how unjust Bingham felt the election was, it shows us that the other candidate used cheap tricks like buying voters and trying to influence voters before they voted instead of having a fair election. Bingham masterfully used this painting to express his feelings toward the unruly election he also used this to teach us many problems that needed to be resolved if we were to have reasonable
George Washington Carver was born in 1864 and it was a time that was very different from today. Carver was born a slave in the state of Missouri. George Washington Carver was a great chemist among many other talents, but his early life was very difficult.His parents were Mary and Giles who were
"John William Waterhouse Biography." Artble: The Home of Passionate Art Lovers. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Feb. 2014.
The naissance of the Hudson River School style launched a new era of artwork. Thomas Cole started this school and it was because of him American landscape painting came of age with the success. This was the first school of painting in the United States. Located in Northern New York by the Hudson River, the paintings focused on the nature and wilderness of the surrounding area. The Hudson River Painters believed that nature was a direct manifestation of God. As such, nature was to be depicted as accurately and as detailed as possible. If a man was included in a painting at all, he was painted small in stature to emphasize his relationship to nature (God). Because nature was considered perfect, the Hudson River Painters attempted to draw and paint landscapes directly, not from memory or imagination, and without embellishments or contrivances. The American landscape, wild and unspoiled, became a great source of national pride. The museums and galleries now focused on American art rather than European art for the first time. Importantly, the school helped make Manifest Destiny a popular idea, and thus contributed to western expansion.
In 1857, Bierstadt joined an expedition to the West, where he made a name for himself after painting an image of The Rocky Mountains (Pohl 162). His painting included the images of the mountains, trees, clouds, and tents where Native Americans had once stayed (Pohl 163). His large panoramic views of his landscape painting, “The Rockies” led to public interest and a strong desire to travel far to see national territory and for Westward expansion (Pohl 163). His works of the Rocky Mountains toured the US and Europe and eventually was purchased by James McHenry who was invested in the railroads which furthered Westward expansion settlement, and the development of commercial interest (Pohl 163).
Norman Rockwell is best known for his depictions of dail life of a rural America. Rockwell’s goals in art revolved around his desire to create an ideal America. He said “ I paint life as I would like it to be.”
One day Cole set out to observe nature and it’s wilderness. He began painting pictures by first making oil sketches of American rocks, trees, sunsets, plants, animals, as well as distant Indians. From these sketches he formed several paintings. Most famous for his allegorical collection called the “The Course of Empire” and is well-known for his Landscape paintings, “The Oxbow,” “The Woodchopper,” and “The Clove, Catskills.”
George Gershwin, born in Brooklyn, New York on 26 September 1898, was born the second of four children of Morris and Rose Gershovitz, Russians who immigrated to New York in 1891. George and his family lived on Manhattan's lower east side in a poor Jewish community. After settling down in New York, his father changed the family name to Gershvin. It was George who later altered his last name to Gershwin when he entered the professional world of music. Most of his family was not musically talented, but his brother Ira became a wonderful well-known musician.
Two years later in 1892 the family moved to Abilene, Kansas which Dwight considered his home town. He had a keen interest in exploring the outdoors, cooking, hunting and fishing. Even though his mother was against war, it was her large collection of history books that first started his interest in military history. He persisted in reading them and became avid reader in the subject.