Read The Painter's Chair Online
Authors: Hugh Howard
The Painter's Chair (8 page)
That Peale failed to capture the colonel’s physicality was a little surprising since the painter had witnessed a demonstration
of Washington’s athletic prowess during his visit to Mount Vernon. His stay had been extended when his brief was broadened
to include the painting of watercolor miniatures on ivory of Patsy, Jacky, and Martha. He also found the Washingtons’ home
a welcoming and social place, since at dinner most days there were a dozen or more at the table, including family, friends,
and other visitors. In general, he observed, “the Character of the Virginians for Hospitality” was higher than that of his
patrons in “Pensilvania.” What he left unsaid was that the former provided him room and board at their cost, a kindness not
extended to him in the northern colonies.
9
One day during his stay Peale and several other guests at the Mansion were outdoors playing a round of “pitching the bar.”
A contest akin to traditional log-and pole-throwing, the game involved heaving a heavy iron bar as far as possible. One man
would throw, and the distance he achieved was marked with a stake. Then another competitor would have a go. On this day, the
man who threw it the farthest wasn’t even in the competition.
Washington unexpectedly appeared amidst the men, who were standing on the lawn stripped to their shirts of white linen, their
sleeves rolled up for ease of movement. He inquired into the progress of their game. When the markers indicating the distances
achieved were pointed out to him, his somber visage broke into a confident smile.
“[W]ithout putting off his coat,” Peale reported, “[he] held out his hand for the missile. No sooner did the heavy iron bar
feel the grasp of his mighty hand than it lost the power of gravitation, and whizzed through the air, striking the ground
far, very far, beyond our utmost limits.”
The onlookers were amazed. Washington soon left them to their exertions but promised to return. “When you beat my pitch, young
gentlemen, I’ll try again.”
10
If Peale’s portrait didn’t capture the latent power of the Virginia colonel, certain physical details were accurate. The hair
that appears from beneath his hat is reddish brown. The nose is long and broad and the face ruggedly handsome. The eyes, though
hooded, are identifiably bluish-gray. In life Washington was forty years of age, but in Peale’s portrayal the age of the soft-featured
man is uncertain. Out of kindness, perhaps, Peale also chose not to mar Washington’s fair complexion with the scars around
his nose, evidence of his bout of smallpox in Barbados. Yet the boredom of the sitter comes through; as he himself reported
to Boucher, while posing he felt himself “under the influence of Morpheus,” feeling at times as if he were falling asleep
on his feet.
11
The setting Peale chose for his canvas was not the Virginia plantation where he painted Washington. The backdrop for the dashing
officer in the regimental blue and red uniform suggests not the cultivated tobacco fields of Tidewater Virginia but the Ohio
country, with a mountain stream and Indian camp on the frontier where much of the war had been fought. Years earlier, Washington’s
exploits there had brought him to the attention of King George II.
Washington’s service to the king during the 1750s had had mixed results. The 1754 ambush by Washington’s men of a detachment
of French soldiers, during which the enemy’s commanding officer, the Sieur de Jumonville, was killed, helped kindle the French
and Indian War. Afterward, the twenty-two-year-old Washington had confided in a younger brother, “I heard the bullet’s whistle
and, believe me, there is something charming in the sound.” When his remark was published and brought to attention of the
king, Washington’s boast led George II to remark that “he would not think so if he had been used to hear many.”
12
Later that summer, Washington suffered the ignominy of having to march out of Fort Necessity with his troops in full surrender
to the French.
The recapture of the smoking remnant of Fort Duquesne in 1758 by Washington and his men was an anticlimax (the French garrison
had abandoned and burned their stronghold), but Washington’s years of service in the frontier war left him with more military
experience than any other colonial officer, as well as a reputation for bravery under fire (he had two horses shot from beneath
him, and four bullets rent his clothing). Both would be invaluable credentials years later when the colonists decided to muster
their own army.
By the end of the month, Peale had completed his work at Mount Vernon. He and Washington had not become close friends; friendship
was a rare gift to which few of Washington’s many acquaintances could lay claim. But they found common ground. Recognizing
his guest’s mechanical cleverness, Washington had given Peale a personal tour of the new Mount Vernon gristmill, which had
gone into operation only the year before.
During the evenings at Mount Vernon, the easy sociability of the household meant that Peale had occasion to enjoy the Potomac
breezes in Washington’s company, and even to dance with the sixteen-year-old Patsy Custis, Martha’s daughter, who he believed
“did not enjoy a good state of health.”
13
His insight was sound: Twelve months later, as Washington reported to a brother-in-law, “she was seized with one of her usual
[epileptic] fits and expired in it in less than two minutes without uttering a word, a groan, or scarce a sigh.” As Washington
said sadly, “the sudden and unexpected blow . . . almost reduced my poor wife to the lowest ebb of misery.”
14
By then, Peale had gone other places and painted other portraits. On his departure from Mount Vernon on May 30, 1772, after
a most enjoyable stay, Peale had received full payment from Washington. The bill amounted to £18.4.0 for the 501.2-inch-by-411.2-inch
Washington portrait, and £13 for the three miniatures (each was just 11.2 inches high, 11.16 inches wide). The two men, their
first transaction complete, could not have guessed that this first image of George Washington, portrayed as a soldier in service
to the Crown, would be the first of many portraits Peale would paint of Washington as his role in the world evolved.
I am well acquainted with Gen.l Washington who is a Man of very few words but when he speaks it is to the purpose, [and] what
I have often admired in him is he [has] allways avoided saying any thing of the actions in which he was Engaged in the last
War . . . [H]e is uncommonly Modest, very Industrous and prudent.
—Charles Willson Peale, August 29, 1775
1
I.
1775–1776 . . . The Pennsylvania State House . . . Philadelphia
C
HARLES WILLSON PEALE wrote the recipe in his diary. “To make a Vernish,” he noted, “Take Mastick & Seed Lac [and] deso[l]ve
them in Terpintine . . . mix this with the Oil.” The mastick and lac were imported resins extracted from mastic trees and
the shell of the lac beetle, respectively; turpentine and linseed oil were made in America. Once he had prepared it, Peale
applied the dense liquid to his finished oil paintings to protect them.
2
Over time, such varnishes tend to
saponify
, to yellow as they oxidize. Linseed oil requires years to dry completely, which means that dust adheres to the varnish. The
result can be the appealing patina of age or, more often, a darkening and ever-more-opaque membrane on a painting’s surface.
This makes Mr. Peale’s varnish a useful metaphor for considering the several portraits he painted of General Washington in
the 1770s. To understand the pictures, we must look through not only the haze of the varnish but through a layering of propaganda
and perception.
IN MAY 1775, delegates to the Second Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia. As they gathered at the Pennsylvania State
House, the men were forced to digest the disturbing news of bloody confrontations at Lexington and Concord the previous month,
as well as word of the confiscation of Virginia’s powder stores at Williamsburg. Angry calls for separation from England were
offered and quickly countered by arguments for reconciliation.
Events demanded that the Continental Congress act. The Provincial Congress of Massachusetts was raising an army and sought
support from the other colonies. Though he had sat largely mute and served on no committees during the First Continental Congress
in 1774, George Washington began to assume new prominence under the altered circumstances. As one of the few experienced military
officers at hand, he worked on three committees in the next three weeks. His labors on defense strategies and munitions impressed
his fellow delegates. He had arrived prepared, bringing along “five books—military.”
3
As he came to accept that the cause of one colony (namely Massachusetts) required a response from all thirteen, Washington
also changed his costume. By the end of May, as John Adams noted for posterity, “Colonel Washington appears at Congress in
his uniform.”
4
As military plans began to take shape, no clear consensus existed as to the nascent army’s command structure—or who should
be its commander in chief. One man in attendance certainly coveted the job as military leader, and perhaps desired it more
than the Virginian in military garb. John Hancock, president of the Continental Congress, could claim no military experience.
The orphaned son of a minister, he had ascended to wealth and influence in Boston after inheriting his uncle’s booming merchant
business. But Hancock, who had helped finance the rebellion and become an outspoken critic of British rule, saw himself as
general material. It fell to another Massachusetts delegate, John Adams, to advance the cause of revolution by one long Virginia
stride.
Adams spoke for many when he confided in his wife, Abigail, that Colonel Washington, “by his great experience and abilities
in military matters, is of much service to us.”
5
Despite his diligent work, however, the master of Mount Vernon himself was very much of two minds about the job. He would
have preferred returning home (as he wrote to Martha a few days later, “I should enjoy more real happiness and felicity in
one month with you, at home, than I have the most distant prospect of reaping abroad, if my stay was to be Seven times Seven
years”).
6
Even as he confided in Martha his feelings about his domestic life, more than mere duty kept him in Philadelphia. The military
life he lived during the French and Indian War twenty years earlier had been exhilarating and ultimately frustrating, since
he had been denied what he regarded as a well-deserved promotion in the king’s army. On the one hand, then, a chance was in
the offing to fulfill his military ambitions. Against this, he weighed the odds of succeeding and the understanding that military
service would mean time—and who knew how much?—away from Mount Vernon.
On June 14, John Adams rose from his seat in Congress and made a recommendation. He opened the session that morning by offering
a motion to the Second Continental Congress to adopt as its own the army assembled in Massachusetts. The suggestion had been
floated some days before, but this time Adams added a staffing recommendation. A general would be required, said Adams, and
his choice would be “a gentleman from Virginia.” For Hancock, watching the proceedings from the president’s chair, this was
indeed a blow (Adams: “When I came to describe Washington for the commander, I never remarked a more sudden and striking change
of countenance. Mortification and resentment were expressed as forcibly as [Hancock’s] face could exhibit them”).
7
In contrast, Washington was suddenly nowhere to be seen. The chair in which he had been sitting near a side door was vacant;
the moment he realized that Adams referred to him, Washington had disappeared into the library. Not so many years earlier,
the younger and more ambitious Washington had resigned his commission during the French and Indian War for lack of a promotion.
Now that a generalship was at hand, it would be ungentlemanly of him to remain in the room when he was clearly to be the topic
of conversation.
In Washington’s absence, reservations about him were expressed by some members of the body, chief among them being the appropriateness
of putting a Virginian in charge of an army of New Englanders. But this and other minor objections were soon overcome, and
the following day a unanimous resolution was passed electing him “to command all the continental forces raised or to be raised
for the defense of American liberty.”
8
Washington took the floor the next day to accept the appointment. With characteristic formality, he began by bowing to the
chair and the assembled body. He thanked his colleagues for “the high Honour done me in this Appointment.” To the surprise
of many, he then expressed his doubts about his ability to handle the job.
“[L]est some unlucky event should happen unfavourable to my reputation,” offered Washington, “I beg it may be remembered by
every Gent[lema]n in the room, that I this day declare with the utmost sincerity, I do not think my self equal to the Command
I am honoured with.” In the next breath he gave a turn to still others by stating his refusal to accept any pay for his generalship.
“[A]s no pecuniary consideration could have tempted me to have accepted this Arduous employment at the expense of my domestik
ease & happiness I do not wish to make any profit from it.”
9
He would submit expenses, he allowed, but accept no salary.
At a time of high anxiety among his peers, Washington met their hopes with no grand promises; if John Hancock was a man who
was impressed with himself, Washington felt obliged to downplay both his experience and what he thought people might reasonably
expect of him. He agreed to accept a generalship he didn’t exactly want (though he had presented himself in uniform, his impulse
seems to have had less to do with military ambition than his desire to jar his fellow delegates into sharing his recognition
that military action was unavoidable). He would take the job, but he wanted it understood he would not profit from it.
He had arrived that May in Philadelphia a well-to-do
farmer
(a description he himself favored), one among dozens of Patriots committed to the cause and seeking a solution, preferably
a peaceful one. Now, in all prudence, he dispatched a draft of a last will and testament to Martha, along with a note of both
reassurance and resigned ac ceptance. “[I]t has been a kind of destiny that has thrown me upon this Service,” Washington wrote.
“I hope that my undertaking of it, is designed to answer some good purpose—You might, and I suppose did perceive, from the
Tenor of my letters, that I was apprehensive I could not avoid this appointment, as I did not even pretend to intimate when
I should return—that was the case—it was utterly out of my power to refuse this appointment without exposing my Character
to such censures as would have reflected dishonour upon myself, and given pain to my friends . . . I shall rely therefore,
confidently, on that Providence which has heretofore preservd, & been bountiful to me, not doubting but that I shall return
safe to you in the fall . . . I therefore beg of you to summon your whole fortitude & Resolution, and pass your time as agreeably
as possible—nothing will give me so much sincere satisfaction as to hear this, and to hear it from your own Pen.”
10
He soon departed for Massachusetts on a strange errand, having been reborn as the most conspicuous man in America. He was
the figurehead chosen to lead an ad hoc army into an undeclared war on behalf of a country that did not yet exist.
ONE YEAR LATER, Charles Willson Peale sought to render Washington on canvas again. This time his task was to record a reluctant
general who, through a concatenation of happenstance, personal style, and physical prowess, had begun his very long run, ongoing
to this day, as America’s first and most essential symbol. Peale began a new portrait of Washington on May 29, 1776, one day
shy of four years after his departure from Mount Vernon.
George Washington’s place in the world had continued its radical transformation. No longer was he a provincial aristocrat
who, according to his own diaries, had grown soft while devoting his time to playing cards, foxhunting, and surveying his
plantations. The man before Charles Willson Peale had emerged as a figure of national and even international note—
and
a victorious military commander.
The first important military victory of the war had occurred less than three months earlier. A brilliant military stratagem
devised by Washington and his youthful artillery commander, Colonel Henry Knox, had stunned the British forces then occupying
Boston. Moving on the night of March 3 under a “moon shining in its full luster,” as Washington described it, his troops positioned
cannons atop Dorchester Heights, turning captured British artillery pieces on their owners (undetected by the British, Knox
and his men in the preceding weeks had dragged fifty-nine cannon and mortars some three hundred snowy miles from Fort Ticonderoga,
New York). The British awoke on March 4 to the daunting realization that the guns pointed at them from the bluff above meant
that defending the town and their ships at anchor was virtually impossible. Ten days later, a great flotilla nine miles long
headed out to sea as the British military forces evacuated Boston, taking with them more than a thousand Tory sympathizers.
Though Washington surely experienced a mixture of exultation, relief, and amazement at this turn of events, he managed, as
usual, to keep his feelings to himself. To those around him, his countenance remained unreadable as he watched the sails disappear
at the horizon like a distant clothesline hung with ladies’ handkerchiefs. The General had promptly marched his army to New
York, wondering whether the British Navy would get there first. Fortunately for the colonials, the British military commander,
Lord Howe, had set sail for Halifax, Nova Scotia, enabling Washington’s troops to ready for another siege. This time their
positions were reversed, as the Americans, not the British, held a city surrounded by water.