Lightning Man_ The Accursed Life of Samuel F. B. Morse - Kenneth Silverman [46]
Although tempted to defy Catherine’s father, Finley did nothing. His own principles condemned any interference with a child’s duty to obey parental commands. And he believed that Catherine’s father would repay disobedience by disinheriting her—“on my own account it would not weigh a straw, yet I feel it to be too great a sacrifice on her part to risk.” But replacing Catherine would not be easy. The ending of the affair left him devastated: “since the death of my dear Lucretia I have had nothing occur so overwhelming.”
The end of the affair had another powerful effect. It quickened Finley’s long-unfulfilled desire to visit Paris and Rome. He had planned to take Catherine, but decided to go himself—not for sightseeing but to complete his artistic education. American painters had looked longingly toward Italy since Benjamin West’s pioneering trip there in 1760. Cut off from the Continent during the Napoleonic Wars, they were once again making their way to Italy, where they could live cheaply while painting, and see the masterworks they knew only from casts and engravings. To Finley, his present miserable moment seemed the right time. Now in his late thirties, he would soon be too old to profit much from further study. And Europe promised renewal, another beginning in a lifetime of fresh starts.
Finley tried to raise enough money to cover the cost of his visit. The Journal of Commerce invited him to serve as a correspondent, travel articles being popular in the American press. But he thought the effort would too much reduce his painting time. He solicited subscriptions for a large picture that he proposed to paint while abroad. It would remain the subscribers’ property until its exhibition in America paid back the money they advanced, with interest. Considering the public’s indifference to exhibitions of his House of Representatives, the idea seems starry-eyed, and in any case failed to inspire patronage. He tried the government. Congress was thinking of hiring American artists to complete the group of paintings it had authorized years earlier, pictures of American history to be hung under the huge dome of the United States Capitol. Four 12-by-18-foot canvases had been commissioned in 1817 from John Trumbull, who spent eight years producing them.
Securing a commission for one of the Capitol pictures represented to Finley far more than a means of getting to Europe. In the work’s subject, scale, and placement he saw the realization of his highest ambitions as a history painter. He wrote to Senator Robert Young Hayne, whom he had painted in Charleston, frankly recommending that Congress hire him. “I have been preparing myself in all my studies for many years for such a work,” he said, “and am burning for an opportunity to execute one work at least which shall reflect credit on myself, and I hope on my country.” Announcing that he was about to leave for Europe, he asked to be given the commission now, so that through his advanced study abroad he might perfect his ability to fulfill it.
No government commission arrived. But Finley did manage to finance his trip, by lining up orders to paint landscapes, portraits, or copies of works by Poussin, Tintoretto, and other European masters. In all, he acquired pledges for some thirty pictures amounting to about $3000, enough to support him modestly in France and Italy for three years.
Before departing in November, Finley got a letter of introduction from Secretary of State Martin Van Buren, and another to the American minister to France. Settling his affairs, he resigned as president of the National Academy. But the Council persuaded him to retain the office and allow the vice president, Henry Inman, to perform its