Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2011
Abstract
abstract Scholarship on early American art focuses almost exclusively ontheproductionofartandontheideasthatartistsandtheirelitepatrons intended to inculcate by placing artworks on display. This essay explores art spectatorship in the early republic and examines how middle-class audiences influenced the content of art displays created by members of the elite. Using readings of works by Washington Allston, John Lewis Krimmel, and Charles Bird King and print accounts of art exhibitions,it argues that the audiences at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts stimulated a vigorous public discourse about its exhibitions that steered the Academy’s purchasing toward historical paintings. The Academy’s acquisition of Allston’s Dead Man Restored demonstrates that spectators played a more significant role than scholars have previously recognized in the development of the fine arts in the United States.
Copyright Statement
Originally Published by University of Pennsylvania Press. "All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for purposes of scholarly citation, none of this work may be reproduced in any form by any means without written permission from the publisher. For information address the University of Pennsylvania Press, 3905 Spruce Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112."art museums, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Washington Allston, audiences, reception, antique cast collections, spectatorship
Recommended Citation
Piggush, Yvette. "Visualizing Early American Art Audiences: The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and Allston's Dead Man Restored." Early American Studies 9.3 (2011): 716-47.