John Singleton Copley
Feb. 7th, 2026 09:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphilo The other notable American painter to pursue a career in 18th century London was John Singleton Copley. He was less successful than West but the more interesting artist. Face painting was his thing and he had entered a crowded market. This was the great age of British portraiture and he was up against the marvelllously inventive Joshua Reynolds, the virtuostic Thomas Gainsborough and- towards the end of his life- the dashing Thomas Lawrence- plus a host of others. Hiis own work is greatly variable; he can be clumsy and he can be brilliant. You put your money down and you might receive a picture that evoked your wonderful intelligence, wit and beauty or one that made you look like taxidermy. The pity is that his real talent was for large scale, crowded figure compositions or "histories" and he got to paint so few. Histories were West's speciality but Copley was so much better at them-
But first a couple of portraits
The sitter here is Copley's step-niece- and maybe her being a family member freed him up to produce something untypically swishy and sexy. Bejasus, what a hat!
And now one of his best male portraits.
This is daring stuff, the artist is gazing up at his sitter and the face is in shadow. I call this taking risks. What results is an image of of a forceful, vibrant personality. And the colours, blue sky, plum-coloured coat, orange drape are just gorgeous.
And now to the "histories".
Watson and the Shark is the painting Copley took to London as his calling card. It illustrates an actual incident. Watson is the guy who's skinny-dipping. He survived with the loss of half a leg. There'd been nothing quite like it in the history of art and Copley never did anything quite like it again. Only a provincial could have pulled off something so outre and original. It's a heroic image, but it convinces in its heroism. You believe it. Every pose and gesture makes sense. It's dramatic not melodramatic- and it looks forward some fifty years to the romanticism of Gericault and Delacroix.
Also that shark is bloody scary.
The second is a battle picture. The Death of Major Peirson. Battle pictures are terribly difficult to pull off. Battles are chaotic- but the artist has somehow to produce a composition with lots of people doing lots of different things which holds together, makes sense, is artistically satisfying but doesn't look like a theatrical tableau. And this is how you do it! Can I think of any battle picture that's better than this? No, frankly, I can't.
As with Watson and the Shark we're looking at something that really happened, though Copley has telescoped the action- which is permissible. The French sent a small force to capture the island of Jersey. They surprised the British governor in his bed and he surrendered. But Major Peirson, the youthful commander of the English garrison, fell upon the French, chased them through the streets of St Helier and overwhelmed them. Peirson was shot dead at the very beginning of the action, but his servant Pompey, the man in the fabulous hat, took immediate revenge by shooting the shooter. In Copley's picture It's all happening at once. The faces of the officers surrounding the gloriously martyred Peirson are proper portraits and I understand that some of the buildings in the background are still standing and recognisable from his portrayal of them.
Anyway, here it is.....
But first a couple of portraits
The sitter here is Copley's step-niece- and maybe her being a family member freed him up to produce something untypically swishy and sexy. Bejasus, what a hat!
And now one of his best male portraits.
This is daring stuff, the artist is gazing up at his sitter and the face is in shadow. I call this taking risks. What results is an image of of a forceful, vibrant personality. And the colours, blue sky, plum-coloured coat, orange drape are just gorgeous.
And now to the "histories".
Watson and the Shark is the painting Copley took to London as his calling card. It illustrates an actual incident. Watson is the guy who's skinny-dipping. He survived with the loss of half a leg. There'd been nothing quite like it in the history of art and Copley never did anything quite like it again. Only a provincial could have pulled off something so outre and original. It's a heroic image, but it convinces in its heroism. You believe it. Every pose and gesture makes sense. It's dramatic not melodramatic- and it looks forward some fifty years to the romanticism of Gericault and Delacroix.
Also that shark is bloody scary.
The second is a battle picture. The Death of Major Peirson. Battle pictures are terribly difficult to pull off. Battles are chaotic- but the artist has somehow to produce a composition with lots of people doing lots of different things which holds together, makes sense, is artistically satisfying but doesn't look like a theatrical tableau. And this is how you do it! Can I think of any battle picture that's better than this? No, frankly, I can't.
As with Watson and the Shark we're looking at something that really happened, though Copley has telescoped the action- which is permissible. The French sent a small force to capture the island of Jersey. They surprised the British governor in his bed and he surrendered. But Major Peirson, the youthful commander of the English garrison, fell upon the French, chased them through the streets of St Helier and overwhelmed them. Peirson was shot dead at the very beginning of the action, but his servant Pompey, the man in the fabulous hat, took immediate revenge by shooting the shooter. In Copley's picture It's all happening at once. The faces of the officers surrounding the gloriously martyred Peirson are proper portraits and I understand that some of the buildings in the background are still standing and recognisable from his portrayal of them.
Anyway, here it is.....
no subject
Date: 2026-02-07 09:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-02-07 09:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-02-07 10:53 am (UTC)I appreciate this, because I grew up on Watson and the Shark—Copley's personal copy of the painting is part of the permanent collection of the MFA and at least used to be on regular display—but I can't remember ever seeing The Death of Major Peirson, which the internet informs me is at the Tate. I have always liked his portrait of Mrs. Richard Skinner (Dorothy Wendell). She has a real face and she's thinking behind it; she looks in fact like a person I know.
no subject
Date: 2026-02-07 11:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-02-07 01:00 pm (UTC)I'd love to see which ones you choose. My other favorite Copley is Nicholas Boylston because it's so vivid and because there's something ambivalent in all its richness: that little, appraising glint as he looks out at us, as if he could pleasantly buy up the viewer, too.
no subject
Date: 2026-02-07 03:02 pm (UTC)