Lightning Man_ The Accursed Life of Samuel F. B. Morse - Kenneth Silverman [72]
But in addition to turning his career on and off, Morse was falling out of step with the direction of American art. Among the younger generation, his friend Thomas Cole was maturely developing the historiographic and ideological possibilities of landscape painting in his five-canvas Course of Empire series (1836). Oblivious to high culture, the genre painter William Sidney Mount was depicting scenes of ordinary Americans in everyday situations, designed for the many not the few. The theoretical superiority of history painting in the grand manner continued to be stressed. But under the influence of genre painting, many history painters began representing not major historical events but historical anecdotes such as the marriage of George Washington to Martha Custis. Morse had no wish to paint American scenery, American society, or kitsch Americana. Nor was he sympathetic to the Romantic call for a national art of raging originality, as propounded for instance by Emerson, who considered even Allston’s works genteel and complained that “all the American geniuses … lack nerve and dagger.”
But however behind the times or diverted by politics, Morse had hung on to one hope of succeeding as an artist on his own terms. The commissions for four paintings to adorn the Capitol rotunda remained open. The problem of assigning them had dragged on in Congress the whole time since his return to America, but was finally resolved early in 1837, just before the new city elections. In March 1834, Morse had presented his views on the matter in letters to a half-dozen influential members of Congress, including Daniel Webster, John C. Calhoun, and John Quincy Adams. He said he would be honored to be chosen for one of the commissions, and laid out his imposing credentials: “I have devoted twenty years of my life of which seven were passed in England, France, Italy and Switzerland studying with special reference to the execution of works of the kind proposed.”
But the signs were unfavorable. When the House debated the issue in December 1834, Congressman (and ex-president) John Quincy Adams questioned whether America could supply artistic talent worthy of decorating the seat of its government. He doubted, he said, “if four native artists could be found of eminence in the profession so transcendent as to ensure the performance of four masterpieces.” His colleagues took this to mean that the country might be better served if they hired at least some European painters. Adams later confided in his diary that he had spoken “somewhat inconsiderately,” but his snide remarks provoked an outcry. A representative from Virginia, Henry Alexander Wise, rose to object: “Sir, I am proud to say and believe, that this country—the great masters dead—is richer now in native talents in the fine arts than any country on the globe.” Cooper replied through Bryant’s Evening Post. He argued that the U.S. Capitol was destined to become a historic building and should display paintings by native artists, if only as moments in the record of the country’s cultural development, “links in the History of American Art.”
Further congressional action, in 1836, brought Morse months of painfully seesawing hope and disappointment. A select committee decided to ask seven artists to present sketches of possible subjects for the Capitol paintings. Morse was not included. His hope revived, however, when the committee abandoned this plan, and he heard that two of its members were favorably disposed to him. But nothing happened for another nine months. Then the committee at last