“A culture raised on immigration cannot escape feelings of alienness, and must transcend them in two possible ways: by concentration on “identity,” origins, and the past, or by faith in newness as a value in itself. No Europeans felt about the Old in quite the same way Americans came to, and none believed as intensely in the New. Both are massively present in the story of American art, a story that begins weakly and derivatively in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and acquires such seemingly irrefutable power by the end of the twentieth. In this way, the visual culture of America, oscillating between dependence and invention, tells a part of the American story” 

—Robert L. Hughes, American Visions: The Epic History of Art in America  (1997) p. 4.

Anything or anyone, let it be a new nation or an individual, inherently uses what they already know: “by concentration on “identity,” origins, and the past, or by faith in newness as a value in itself,” at least in the beginning of their journey to a new identity, to become the new concept that they are trying to become and obtain. Of course, along with that comes subconscious and/or conscious innovation and reinvention. With that being said, art historian Robert L. Hughes makes an extremely valid and resourceful point by his statement that both culture and tradition, and newness and reinvention are immensely and extremely vital in the presentation and conceptualization of American art from early colonial days until the more modern era of the twentieth century. While the county builds, so does the identity, as we see throughout the art. A new nation needs trial and error to become a separate entity. 

I do highly agree with the specific statement that lots of early American art reflects on what was already known to the people; concepts originating from their European cultures and stories.

To start off, the most obvious way of bringing European culture into American culture is simply how the White House was built. The style of the actual building of it, such as the giant pillars, arches and columns on the exterior. Jefferson wanted to resemble it to an ancient classic Roman temple, which is where all the architectural influence came about. The concepts come from Vitruvius and the Venetian architect Andrea Palladio. 

Another artist we learned about who broke away from their culture to create a new one was discussed in the presentation of “W.E.B. Du Bois’ Double-Consciousness: Henry O. Tanner and Richard Bruce Nugent”. In this specific category, Tanner broke away from the culture that was known to him and painted Americans of Color in an entirely different method and technique than had ever been used before, hinting out to a desired new freedom in this new nation. He portrayed these characters in real time; real life scenarios and situations in a completely humanizing way, which was taboo and new for the era and culture. Paintings like these included scenes with intimate moments such as a particular moment depicted in a painting between a grandfather and a grandson, teaching his grandson music and faith. In this regard, Tanner was breaking away from his once known culture and creating a new sense of race and black culture in American culture and art. 

This was simply unheard of in European culture.

Adding onto this is the discussion in the presentation of “Edmonia Lewis and Biracial Identity.” In this presentation, the presenter discusses artist Edmonia Lewis, who used historically known figures for her sculptures, staying within what was known in European culture. One of the historically known figures depicted in one of her sculptures was Cleopatra, called “Death of Cleopatra,” which was a sculpture of the moment Cleopatra had poisoned herself. In a way, depicting old known characters and figures was a way to keep what they had already known about alive even in a new era and nation. It is easier to recount history than create more as a new nation.

Many artists of these eras also painted landscapes, which many times depicted nature in an untouched form. It was shown and painted that way to show a sense of a wild unknown in the new world that is ready to be so-called “discovered.”

 There was an artist Thomas Cole, known for depicting beautiful, massive landscapes and scenes of nature in his paintings. The sense of rebirth and a new nation is very strong in the way he depicts these scenes. The vast landscapes and nature were shown in this sort of “untouched” and “brand new” sense that the artists, Cole, wanted to portray to show how new and undiscovered America was and how much potential lay within it. The landscapes are portrayed in an “ideal” and nearly romanticized way, almost as an invitation to the viewer into the new world. Of course, this land of America had already been touched and lived in by other people, yet Cole’s portrayal of it was fresh and untouched, as if a metaphor for what he thought it was meant for.

Thomas Eakins is another example of creating new identity in a new nation through his art, as discussed in the presentation, “The Importance of Thomas Eakins: The Gross Clinic.” Eakin’s paintings often show bloody scenes and nude figures. Although nude figures were a big trope in older Roman art – and later brought back in the high Renaissance – Eakin’s portrayal had a different message to it, which was seen by viewers as almost “homoerotic.” This message within the means of art was a new concept in, specifically, American art, even though nude figures had been done before in past traditions; it was in this depiction that was new and polarizing to the American culture at its “birth.”