John Vanderlyn

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(b Kingston, NY, 15 Oct 1775; d Kingston, 24 Sept 1852). American painter. The grandson of Pieter Vanderlyn (1687-1778), a portrait painter active in the Hudson River Valley, he manifested an early talent for penmanship and drawing. During his late youth he moved to New York, where he worked in a frame shop and studied in Archibald Robertson's drawing academy. His copy of a portrait by Gilbert Stuart brought him to the attention of that artist, with whom he then worked in Philadelphia.

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John Vanderlyn (1775-1852) was one of the first American painters to venture beyond portraiture. He executed the first large-scale nude in the United States and various history paintings, some showing neoclassic influence.

John Vanderlyn was born in Kingston, N.Y., on Oct. 15, 1775. After studying painting for a year under Gilbert Stuart in Philadelphia, Vanderlyn became the protégé of Aaron Burr, who sent him to Paris in 1796. The first American painter to study in Paris, Vanderlyn entered the studio of François Antoine Vincent, a neoclassicist who emphasized correct drawing at the expense of expressive color. Vanderlyn remained in Paris until 1801, when he had to return home because of a lack of funds.

In America, Vanderlyn looked upon portraiture as a low form of art and accepted such commissions only to support himself. He executed a number of fine portraits and some views of Niagara Falls. In 1805 he returned to Europe with the financial support of the American Academy; he stayed in Rome until 1808 and then lived in Paris until 1815.

Vanderlyn's Marius Viewing the Ruins of Carthage (1807) won a gold medal in Paris in 1808. The scene shows the melancholy attached to time's passing, a theme that was then quite popular: Marius, the fallen hero, broods among the ruins of a once mighty city. For the head of Marius, Vanderlyn copied a Roman bust; and the figure, in proper neoclassic fashion, was done with a hard, wiry outline and ivory flesh tones. Ariadne (1812), combining neoclassic linearism with the Italianate qualities of recumbent Venuses of Titian and Giorgione, shows a good understanding of anatomy, but the figure stands out too strongly from the landscape.

On his return to New York, Vanderlyn soon found that Europeans appreciated him far more than his own countrymen, for portraiture was still the only kind of painting widely accepted in America. In 1816 he built a personal museum in the form of a rotunda with the help of $6, 000 contributed by 112 of his supporters. There he exhibited not only his paintings and copies from the nude but an enormous canvas executed in 1818-1819: the Palace and Gardens of Versailles. Painted somewhat illusionistically, this is one of the several "panoramas" made in the early 19th century and the only one still existing.

Vanderlyn died in Kingston, N.Y., on Sept. 23, 1852. Because of his neoclassic training, his paintings have a coolness and detachment when compared with the more emotive work of Washington Allston.

Further Reading

The only monograph on Vanderlyn, which contains no illustrations, is Marius Schoonmaker, John Vanderlyn, Artist, 1775-1852 (1950); it consists of brief biographical essays with quotations from Vanderlyn's correspondence, especially with Aaron Burr.

Additional Sources

Mondello, Salvatore, The private papers of John Vanderlyn (1775-1852) American portrait painter, Lewiston, N.Y., USA: Edwin Mellen Press, 1990.

John Vanderlyn
Self portrait, John Vanderlyn, 1800
Born	October 18, 1775(1775-10-18) Kingston, New York
Died	September 23, 1852 (aged 76)
Nationality	American
Field	Painting

John Vanderlyn (October 18, 1775 – September 23, 1852) was an American neoclassicist painter.

Contents 1 Biography 2 Gallery 3 Notes 4 External links

Biography

Landing of Columbus, which resides in the United States Capitol rotunda

Vanderlyn was born at Kingston, New York. He was employed by a print-seller in New York, and was first instructed in art by Archibald Robinson (1765-1835), a Scotsman who was afterwards one of the directors of the American Academy. He went to Philadelphia, where he spent time in the studio of Gilbert Stuart and copied some of Stuart's portraits, including one of Aaron Burr, who placed him under Gilbert Stuart as a pupil.^[1]

He was a protegé of Aaron Burr who in 1796 sent Vanderlyn to Paris, where he studied for five years. He returned to the United States in 1801 and lived in the home of Burr, then the Vice President, where he painted the well-known likeness of Burr and his daughter.^[1] In 1802 he painted two views of Niagara Falls, which were engraved and published in London in 1804.^[2] He returned to Paris in 1803, also visiting England in 1805, where he painted the Death of Miss McCrea for Joel Barlow.^[2] Vanderlyn then went to Rome, where he painted his picture of Marius amid the Ruins of Carthage, which was shown in Paris, and obtained the Napoleon gold medal there. This success caused him to remain in Paris for seven years, during which time he prospered greatly. In 1812 he showed a nude Ariadne (engraved by Durand, and now in the Pennsylvania Academy), which increased his fame. When Aaron Burr fled to Paris, Vanderlyn was for a time his only support.^[1]

Vanderlyn returned to the United States in 1815, and painted portraits of various eminent men, including Washington (for the U.S. House of Representatives), James Monroe, John C. Calhoun, Governor Joseph C. Yates, Governor George Clinton, Andrew Jackson, and Zachary Taylor.^{[1] [2]} He also exhibited panoramas and had a "Rotunda" built in New York City which displayed panoramas of Paris, Athens, Mexico, Versailles (by himself), and some battle-pieces; but neither his portraits nor the panoramas brought him financial success, partly because he worked very slowly.^[2]

In 1842, through friendly influences, he was commissioned by Congress to paint The Landing of Columbus. Going to Paris, he hired a French artist, who, it is said, did most of the work.^[1] It was engraved for the United States five-dollar banknotes.^[2] He died in poverty at Kingston, New York, on 23 September 1852.^[1]

Vanderlyn was the first American to study in France instead of in England, and to acquire accurate draughtsmanship. He was more academic than his fellows; but, though faithfully and capably executed, his work was rather devoid of charm, according to the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica.^[1] His Landing of Columbus has been called (by Appleton's Cyclopedia) "hardly more than respectable."^[2]

His other works include portraits of Monroe, and Robert R Livingston (New York Historical Society).

Gallery

An engraving of Marius amid the Ruins of Carthage	The painting Marius amid the Ruins of Carthage	Sampson Vryling Stoddard Wilder (ca. 1808–12)	Portrait of a mother and son, ca. 1800
Theodosia Burr Alston, 1802	Ariadne in Naxos

Notes

1. ^ ^{a b c d e f g} Text incorporated from either Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1911 edition or The New International Encyclopedia, an edition in the public domain
2. ^ ^{a b c d e f} Vanderlyn, John, in Appleton's Cyclopedia

External links

• [1]City of Kingston, New York, Web pages on John Vanderlyn.
• This article incorporates text from the article "John Vanderlyn" in the Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
• This article incorporates text from an edition of the New International Encyclopedia that is in the public domain.

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