Lightning Man_ The Accursed Life of Samuel F. B. Morse - Kenneth Silverman [73]
For Morse, the decision to pass him by contained an added sting. Vanderlyn would paint a subject he had considered his own, the landing of Columbus. Something like hope flickered early in 1837, when Inman unexpectedly declined the commission. Several artists and newspaper editors advised Congress how to fill his place. “The rare qualifications of Mr. Morse for a work of the character contemplated,” the Journal of Commerce wrote, “are well known to all who are acquainted with the progress of the arts in this country.”
But Morse felt humiliated by the situation. Even if chosen to replace Inman, he could take no pleasure in being a leftover, “selected as a sort of fifth wheel.” He was tempted to save face, and spare himself further misery, by anticipating the committee’s decision and declining the commission in advance. He did not need to: Inman reversed himself and agreed to paint the one remaining picture. However indifferent Morse may have grown to the whole business, the turnaround came as a further humiliation: “even this back door way is closed to me.” He decided that Inman had been persuaded to change his mind by John Quincy Adams, whose seeming personal hostility he found unaccountable: “I never gave him the slightest cause of personal offence.” He came to believe that what turned Adams against him was a long-nurtured dislike of Jedediah, who had spent time with Adams in Washington fifteen years earlier.
Rejected beyond hope or appeal, Morse became more seriously depressed than ever. Having trained himself to do a grand historical work since at least his graduation from college, and having made himself one of the most conspicuous artists in America—probably too conspicuous for noisy politicking—he experienced his rejection as total defeat: “the object of my studies for 26 years, and the special mark at which I have aimed for 15 years, are forever removed before me.” He spoke of resigning his presidency of the N.A.D. and abandoning painting altogether. Friends tried to cheer him up. “To you our Academy owes its existence & present prosperity,” Cole wrote; “You are the Key Stone of the Arch.” Allston sent reassurance: “You have it still in your power to let the world know what you can do. Dismiss it from your mind, and determine to paint all the better.”
But Morse felt battered. “I staggered under the blow,” he said. He took to bed, “quite ill,” Cooper reported. The litterateur N. P. Willis, who had known Morse in Paris, later recalled him saying around this time that he was weary of his existence, and had he “divine authorization” would terminate it.
Morse’s near-collapse apparently lasted several weeks in the early spring of 1837. While abed in his sickroom, he was visited by a committee of artists, who brought an encouraging proposal. They represented artists in New York and Philadelphia, and some New York gentlemen, who formed a sort of stock company that would hire him to paint a historical picture of his own choice. Selling subscriptions at $50 each, and receiving $1000 from an anonymous New Yorker, they raised over $3000. The fee hardly compared with the $12,000 offered by Congress for the rotunda paintings, but Morse accepted the commission gratefully: “is not this noble? Is this not honorable to the character of our profession? Will it not tell to the credit of American artists?” In addition, the subscribers planned for him to keep the painting, for his own use and profit.
His depression lifting, Morse chose his subject. In Charlestown, while still in his late teens, he had painted the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth—probably his first ambitious history work. He would return to the subject now, but with a difference. The new painting would depict the Pilgrim fathers in Cape Cod harbor aboard the Mayflower, signing the Mayflower Compact—in his view “the first written constitution.” Entitled The Gem of the Republic, it would be massive—eighteen feet by twelve feet, the size of the rotunda paintings.