#americanart

'The Poet's Dream' by Robert Walter Weir, 1830.

Oil on Masonite, 7.81 x 9.81 in.

Stuart wanted to paint Washington, for he expected that he could make a "fortune" on images of the Revolutionary War hero and American leader. At the time the president sat for Stuart, the artist apparently tried to relax his sitter, offering, "Now, sir, you must let me forget that you are General Washington and that I am Stuart, the painter," to which the president responded, “Mr. Stuart need never feel the need for forgetting who he is and who General Washington is.” After Stuart's initial portrait of Washington, he made more than one hundred copies for American and European patrons eager to own an image of the illustrious sitter. They were of three types: a waist-length Vaughan version showing the right side of Washington's face; an Athenaeum variant displaying the left side; and a full-length Landsdowne example. The artist promised to give Martha Washington the original canvas of the Athenaeum portrait used to make the copies but unfortunately never kept his word.

Edward Hopper (1882-1967) - Small Town Station

Alice Neel. Hartley (1966) @ngadc

https://clevelandart.org/art/1991.134.2

What fascinates me most is how visible every brushstroke remains. Up close, the marks feel abstract. Step back, and they become skin, fabric, metal, and form. Few artists have ever balanced abstraction and realism so beautifully.