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Female: So, here we are in this foyer leading
the American Gallery at the Portland Art Museum.
We see a line up of portraits, some of them, the
ones that are closest to us, we can see their
very elegant. Their very European. They date from
the late 1700s to early 1800s. As we are walking
down this foyer, or coming to the end of these
formal portraits, and suddenly, there is a woman
the portrait, her portrait is distinctly different.
Now we are smack in front of her. What do you think?
Male: (laughing) Wow! That's completely different than anything
that we've seen. She's much more flat. She's
full frontal. It almost looks like her head and
her body were painted at different times.
Female: To me she looks kind of like a flat paper doll
body with a real face. In other words, sort of a
stock body. Reminds me of those things that the
carnival where you get behind the (laughing) thing
you put your head in. Click.
Male: That does look like that. Doesn't it?
Female: Yeah.
Male: This is Erastus Salisbury Field. He was called
limner. He was an itinerant painter from the Colonial days.
They would travel through out the country side
painting portraits of middle class people. Field
was known for his likeness. His work was well-regarded,
because he was able to capture apparently the likeness
of the sitters. Take a look at her face.
It is very realistic.
Female: Yes. He captures the likeness without
capturing the personality, somehow.
Male: Kind of get a bit of her personality there.
I think she wants us to know that she is very pretty.
He's got the characteristics or the attributes
there of ... I wouldn't say wealth, but certainly
middle class. She is literate. She's reading.
It looks like there's a quill pen. So, she's writing.
She holding a letter.
Female: This painting was done in 1830 which is
in the very early stages.
Male: Yes.
Female: I think this is the starving artist at
earning his mail.
Male: I think so too. He's the entrepreneur.
He's the American entrepreneur. Who has decided
to go out and figure out a way to make a living.
Female: Absolutely.
Male: The way that he's going to make a living is
by giving people what they want. This was the
style of middle class portraiture at the time.
Female: This is rural. Remember, this painter was
traveling around on horseback. He had his canvases
with him. He would stop at a home either in a
prearranged agreement or just simply passing by.
The people who lived there, if they were able,
would hire him to paint a likeness of them.
In order to do it quickly, he probably had
almost paint-by-number kind of body for the person.
Male: Field had gotten it down to almost a science.
He was able to come in and one day paint your
portrait and be done. Then off to the next town
or to the next person.
Female: There are things that tell us about this woman.
We know that her family relatively well-to-do.
She has lovely jewelry on, looks like gold jewelry.
Then you look up at her eyes, and her eyes are ...
Male: They sparkle.
Female: Yes. She's a real person.
Male: We have this cartoon figure, and yet this
real face and real hands.
Female: I have a new admiration for the young woman
and her time. I see a sort of [redasence] in her.
That I think probably is typical of rural
young women of the time. She wants her picture.
She wants people to know that she can have a
picture, and that she has nice jewelry.
She knows how to read and write, and has a book.
That's all we get to know.
That's all we're going to get to know about her.