| The portraits of James Monroe (1758-1831), fifth president of the United States, offer an iconographic survey of the man and his role in late eighteenth and early nineteenth century American life, and documents his continuing presence in the visual landscape of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. In our present age of instant photography, it is difficult to imagine how rare it was to have one's visage preserved for posterity. Before the invention of photography, portraits were painted to mark a milestone, such as a marriage, or the establishment of a home. They were commissioned to celebrate a major event, like the birth of a child, or the loss of a wife who did not survive childbirth. They were also rendered to enhance a public place, usually as commemorations of historic occasions or of persons of prominence. Such paintings ranged in size from miniatures---intimate forms of portrayal intended for family members, to bust-length, half-length, and full-length portraits, executed in a variety of media, including pencil, charcoal, and oil. Original portraits were sometimes replicated, or they were copied by other artists, as oils, lithographs, engravings, medals, sculpture, frescos, or decorative art objects.;This study records nearly every known portrait of James Monroe (both life and posthumous), and demonstrates how the milestones and events of his life are well woven into these likenesses. These images span the spectrum of artistic interpretation, and of Monroe's life, from his teens, through his death, and then posthumously. This approach, weaving the life with artistic recordings of Monroe's appearance and the emblems of his position and accomplishments, offers insights into the types of portraiture in vogue during the Monroe era; explains the iconography of grand manner and intimate portrayal; and illustrates how likenesses, in the early nineteenth century, were disseminated through such popular sources as prints, newspapers, biographical dictionaries, and decorative objects.;This straightforward and detailed taxonomic account of the portraits of the fifth president of the United States fills a gap in the iconographic landscape of images of American presidents. Monroe sat to the artistic luminaries of his day---John Vanderlyn, Gilbert Stuart, Charles Willson Peale, and Samuel F. B. Morse. He also gave sittings to a number of lesser known artists---Felix Sharples, James Westhall Ford, Bass Otis, and Chester Harding. He was depicted in history paintings and narrative studies by such artists as John Trumbull, George Catlin, and Pietro Bonnani. Miniatures of Monroe and his wife were painted in Paris, by Louis Sene, when he was the Minister to France in the 1790s. In the 1810s and 1820s, engravings and lithographs by Thomas Gimbrede, Goodman and Piggott, Nicholas-Eustache Maurin, and Asher B. Durand helped familiarize the American public with the features of their fifth president. At his death, John Henri Issac Browere, took a death mask. Monroe's role in the Louisiana Purchase, and the birth of the Monroe Doctrine, were recorded at their centennials, in a fresco, in magazine illustrations, and in sculptures, by Constantino Brumidi, Andre Castaigne, Clyde Osmer DeLand, and Karl Bitter. Finally, to commemorate the centennial of Monroe's death, bronze and marble busts were created by sculptors, Attilio Piccirilli, and Hermon Atkins MacNeil. |
