American History Art Essay Example

and it depicts the historical context for the first declaration of independence which was presented for the second continental congress with an aim of passing the principle to fight the revolutionary war for the betterment of the nation. During the creation of the paintings, the Declaration document author Thomas Jefferson was placing the documents before the congress president, John Hancock while other members of the committee were standing with him. The event was occurring at the independence hall.

The images of the independence movers are clearly shown in the paintings with the key principal author of the declaration handing over the declaration document to the president of the congress. The writings have also explained the happenings which took place at the scene of the declaration writing and its approval thus creating a clear connection between the content and the context which is been presented by the paintings. The artist can be rendered successful for communicating the contextual influences since he attained his goal of preserving the images of the Nation’s founders. Although the artist, John Trumbull tried to communicate his message to the modern viewers, I believe his message is not clear thus it is difficult for them to understand. It is clear in the content that the artist was not able to include the images for which he had no authority or the images he could not get. Instead, he included other delegates whose images were available but were not members of the committee at the time of the event.

This gives misleading information about who are exact Nation-builders as depicted in the images. The image was commissioned between 1919 and 1920 by John Trumbull based

on the small painting which had been envisioned for the first time in 1785. The painting had the historical context which portrayed how the British army surrendered at Yorktown in 1781, the action which was marked the most important for ending the campaign that spearheaded the revolutionary war. During the creation of the paintings, men amounting to 7000 had been entrenched with force while Cornwallis was expecting to get rescue from the sea.

This never succeeded since the French fleet repelled against the British vessels. A larger number of army had been deployed by General Washington and most British positions had been bombarded by his artillery. At the center appears the American general arriving in a white horse and stretching his right hand to get a sword carried by a surrendering British officer. The story is clear on the happenings in the scene as they are directly portrayed by the paintings.

French officers are clearly shown on left side while American officers on the right side beneath the stars and stripes. This creates direct connection between the content and the context presented. The artist was successful to communicate the context since he created the direct connection between the content and context presented for clarity. The message in the paintings is cleared understood by modern readers.

The image was commissioned on 1785 depicting the historical context of how General Burgoyne prepared to surrender his sword to General Gates. At a time the British men and defenses were losing and Burgoyne army was treated as weak for surrendering to General Gates. During the times of paintings, General Burgoyne surrender the sword to General Gates but Gates shows a lot of

respect by refusing to take the sword but instead offered him hospitality by offering refreshments. On top of the tent where refreshments were been taken is the American flag which flies in the wind and many officers are gathering around to witness the event. The content and the context seem to be well connected by the successful message passed by the artist.

The message is also very easy to be understood by modern viewers. The National Statuary Hall was started in the 19th century after the completion of the Present House wing in 1857 and had more spacious champers which to were be used as galleries for historical paintings. The columns were suited for the display of statues and busts. All the state statutes were later kept in the National Statuary Hall and thus the aesthetic appearance of the hall suffered from overcrowding until 1933. This led to the decision that each statute to be placed in Statuary Hall and the other be given another place.

The first statute was placed in the hall in 1870 and Later all 50 statutes had devoted support to that one statute. Twenty years later only five statutes had not made a contribution to the statute in the hall. In 1976 the second rearrangement of the statutes occurred with an aim of improving the collection appearance which was crowded. To ease the crowd, 38 statutes were rearranged in Statuary Hall depending on the height and material. Each statute was made the gift of the nation rather than individuals or groups of citizens.