{"id":14299,"date":"2011-06-19T21:14:05","date_gmt":"2011-06-19T21:14:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=14299"},"modified":"2011-11-14T00:58:57","modified_gmt":"2011-11-14T00:58:57","slug":"the-hudson-river-school-via-cincinnati","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=14299","title":{"rendered":"The Hudson River School via Cincinnati"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Hudson River School via Cincinnati<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Chronogram: Arts, Culture, Spirit<\/a>
\nKingston, New York
\n2011-05-28<\/p>\n

Sparrow<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cHistory can be blind,\u201d observes Joseph D. Ketner II<\/a>, curator of \u201cRobert S. Duncanson<\/a>: \u2018the spiritual striving of the freedmen\u2019s sons,\u2019\u201d an exhibition at the Thomas Cole National Historical Site<\/a> in Catskill<\/a>. Duncanson (1821-1872) was an African-American landscape painter, once highly regarded, now almost entirely forgotten.
\n\u00a0
\nBorn a freedman in Seneca County, New York<\/a>, Robert Duncanson moved as a youth to Michigan<\/a>. At the age of 16 he apprenticed to a house painter, then briefly began his own painting and glazing business. In 1840, Duncanson resolved to become an artist, relocating to Cincinnati<\/a>, the largest city in \u201cthe West.\u201d The youth taught himself to paint by copying Thomas Cole<\/a> paintings and sketching from life. He became an itinerant portraitist, then moved on to nature scenes.
\n\u00a0
\nBy the 1850s in Cincinnati, the two most popular art forms, landscape painting and <\/strong>daguerreotype photography<\/strong><\/a>, were dominated by African-American artists.<\/strong> James P. Ball<\/a> was the preeminent daguerreotypist, Duncanson the top painter. Both men were light-skinned \u201cmulattos<\/a>,\u201d of mixed race, benefiting from the racial caste system of the time. Cincinnati was a northern city, in a \u201cfree state<\/a>\u201d (one without slavery) whose economy and social outlook were Southern. \u201cCincinnati was one of the most vociferous abolitionist cities, behind Boston<\/a>, and it was also one of the most adamant pro-slavery cities, simultaneously\u2014a very, very complex dynamic,\u201d explains Ketner.<\/p>\n

In 1855, Duncanson and Ball painted a 600-yard antislavery panorama entitled \u201cMammoth Pictorial Tour of the United States Comprising Views of the African Slave Trade.\u201d This work consisted of a canvas wrapped around two large dowels, which would be unspooled in an auditorium to the accompaniment of an orchestra, with lighting effects and a narrator describing the changing scenes. The \u201cMammoth Pictorial Tour\u201d traveled the country, advertised as \u201cPainted by Negroes.\u201d Sadly, it is no longer extant…<\/p>\n

…It is tempting to interpret Duncanson\u2019s landscapes politically. Those dreamy temples on the shores of rivers\u2014are they images of a utopian world without slavery and racism? Or does that oversimplify them? Duncanson himself once told his son, on the issue of race, \u201cI have no color on the brain; all I have on the brain is paint.\u201d…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Hudson River School via Cincinnati Chronogram: Arts, Culture, Spirit Kingston, New York 2011-05-28 Sparrow \u201cHistory can be blind,\u201d observes Joseph D. Ketner II, curator of \u201cRobert S. Duncanson: \u2018the spiritual striving of the freedmen\u2019s sons,\u2019\u201d an exhibition at the Thomas Cole National Historical Site in Catskill. Duncanson (1821-1872) was an African-American landscape painter, once […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,24,459,8,6940,20],"tags":[6592,6595,6593,6594,6597,6596,6598,6590,6588,6589,6591],"class_list":["post-14299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-arts","category-history","category-media-archive","category-slavery","category-usa","tag-chronogram","tag-james-ball","tag-james-p-ball","tag-james-presley-ball","tag-joseph-d-ketner","tag-joseph-d-ketner-ii","tag-joseph-ketner","tag-robert-duncanson","tag-robert-s-duncanson","tag-robert-scott-duncanson","tag-thomas-cole"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14299\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}