imported>Guerreroast: Changing short description from "American artist" to "American artist (1779–1843)"

2025-08-10T23:07:52Z

Changing short description from "American artist" to "American artist (1779–1843)"

New page

{{Short description|American artist (1779–1843)}}
{{Infobox artist
| bgcolour =
| name = Washington Allston
| image = Washington_Allston.jpeg
| caption = Self-portrait, 1805
[[Museum of Fine Arts, Boston]]
| birth_date = {{birth date|mf=yes|1779|11|5}}
| birth_place = Near [[Georgetown, South Carolina]], U.S.
| death_date = {{death date and age|mf=yes|1843|7|9|1779|11|5}}
| death_place = [[Cambridge, Massachusetts]], U.S.
| field = [[Painting]]<br>[[Poetry]]
| training =
| movement =
| notable_works =
| patrons =
| influenced by =
| influenced =
| awards =
| elected =
| spouse = {{ubl|Ann Channing (1809–15)|Margaret Remington Dana (1830-43)}}
| website =
}}

'''Washington Allston''' {{Post-nominals|country=GBR|ARA}} (November 5, 1779 – July 9, 1843) was an American painter and poet, born in [[Pawleys Island, South Carolina|Waccamaw Parish]], [[South Carolina]]. Allston pioneered America's Romantic movement of landscape painting. He was well known during his lifetime for his experiments with dramatic subject matter and his bold use of light and atmospheric color. While his early artworks concentrate on grandiose and spectacular aspects of nature, his later pieces represent a more subjective and visionary approach.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Norwich|first=John Julius|title=Oxford Illustrated Encyclopedia Of The Arts|url=https://archive.org/details/oxfordillustrate00norw|url-access=limited|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=1990|isbn=978-0198691372|location=USA|pages=[https://archive.org/details/oxfordillustrate00norw/page/13 13]}}</ref>

==Biography==
[[File:Washington Allston by Gilbert Stuart.jpeg|thumb|left|180px|Allston painted by [[Gilbert Stuart]], c. 1818. [[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York]]]]
Allston was born on a rice plantation on the [[Waccamaw River]] near [[Georgetown, South Carolina]]. His mother Rachel Moore had married Captain William Allston in 1775, though her husband died in 1781, shortly after the [[Battle of Cowpens]].<ref>{{cite book |author=Hubbell, Jay B. |title=The South in American Literature: 1607–1900|publisher=Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press| year=1954 |page=[https://archive.org/details/southinamericanl0000unse/page/274 274] |isbn=9780822300915 |url=https://archive.org/details/southinamericanl0000unse/page/274}}</ref> Moore remarried to Dr. Henry C. Flagg, the son of a wealthy shipping merchant from [[Newport, Rhode Island]].<ref name="Hubbell275">{{cite book |author=Hubbell, Jay B. |title=The South in American Literature: 1607–1900|publisher=Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press| year=1954 |page=[https://archive.org/details/southinamericanl0000unse/page/275 275] |isbn=9780822300915 |url=https://archive.org/details/southinamericanl0000unse/page/275}}</ref>

Named in honor of the leading American general of the Revolution,<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=PfkjJ-TYQ-kC&dq=%22washington+allston%22+waccamaw+south+carolina&pg=PA101 Planters, Pirates & Patriots: Historical Tales from the South Carolina Grand Strand, Rod Graff, Pelican Publishing, 2006]</ref> Washington Allston graduated from [[Harvard College]] in 1800 and moved to [[Charleston, South Carolina]], for a short time before sailing to [[England]] in May 1801.<ref name="Hubbell275"/> He was admitted to the [[Royal Academy schools|Royal Academy Schools]] in [[London]] in September, when painter [[Benjamin West]] was then the president.<ref>{{Cite ODNB|id=75361|title=Allston, Washington}}</ref>
[[File:Washington Allston - Landscape with Lake (1804).jpg|thumb|250px|Landscape with Lake (1804)]]
[[File:Washington Allston - Italian Landscape - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|250px|Italian Landscape]]
[[File:Washington Allston - Elijah in the Desert - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|250px|''Elijah in the Desert'', 1818, [[Museum of Fine Arts, Boston]]]]
From 1803 to 1808, he visited the great museums of [[Paris]] and then, for several years, those of [[Italy]], where he met [[Washington Irving]] in Rome<ref>{{cite book |author=Burstein, Andrew |title=The Original Knickerbocker: The Life of Washington Irving|publisher=Basic Books| year=2007 |page=[https://archive.org/details/originalknickerb00burs/page/43 43] |url=https://archive.org/details/originalknickerb00burs/page/43 |isbn=978-0-465-00853-7}}</ref> and [[Samuel Taylor Coleridge|Coleridge]], his lifelong friend. In 1809, Allston married Ann Channing, sister of [[William Ellery Channing]].<ref name="Hubbell275"/> [[Samuel F. B. Morse]] was one of Allston's art pupils and accompanied Allston to Europe in 1811. After traveling throughout western Europe, Allston finally settled in London, where he won fame and prizes for his pictures.

Allston was also a published writer. In London in 1813, he published ''The Sylphs of the Seasons, with Other Poems'', republished in [[Boston, Massachusetts]], later that year.<ref>{{cite book |author=Hubbell, Jay B. |title=The South in American Literature: 1607–1900|publisher=Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press| year=1954 |page=[https://archive.org/details/southinamericanl0000unse/page/277 277] |isbn=9780822300915 |url=https://archive.org/details/southinamericanl0000unse/page/277}}</ref> His wife died in February 1815, leaving him saddened, lonely, and homesick for America.<ref>{{cite book |author=Hubbell, Jay B. |title=The South in American Literature: 1607–1900|publisher=Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press| year=1954 |page=[https://archive.org/details/southinamericanl0000unse/page/278 278] |isbn=9780822300915 |url=https://archive.org/details/southinamericanl0000unse/page/278}}</ref>

In 1818, he returned to the United States and lived in [[Cambridge, Massachusetts]], for twenty-five years. He was elected a Fellow of the [[American Academy of Arts and Sciences]] in 1826.<ref name="AAAS">{{cite web|title=Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter A|url=http://www.amacad.org/publications/BookofMembers/ChapterA.pdf|publisher=American Academy of Arts and Sciences|access-date=15 April 2011}}</ref> He was the uncle of the artists [[George Whiting Flagg]] and [[Jared Bradley Flagg]], both of whom studied painting under him.

The first American exhibition of Allston's work was in 1827 when twelve of his paintings were shown at the [[Boston Athenæum]].<ref>Swan, Mabel Munson. ''The Athenæum Gallery 1827–1873: The Boston Athenæum as an Early Patron of Art'' (Boston: The Boston Athenæum, 1940)</ref> Allston also exhibited five paintings at the [[National Academy of Design]], but this number is low given his place in the artistic community of the time. Four of his paintings were [[engraved]] and published in ''[[The Atlantic Souvenir]]'' and ''[[The Token]]'' annual [[gift book]]s in the 1820s and 30s. Among them were ''Moonlight'' and ''The Mother and Child'', the latter being considered by Allston to be one of his best works.<ref name="Lovejoy">{{cite journal | title = American Painting in Early Nineteenth-Century Gift Books | first = David S. | last = Lovejoy | journal = American Quarterly | volume = 7 | number = 4 | date = Winter 1955 | doi = 10.2307/2710429 | url = https://www.jstor.org/stable/2710429 | pages = 355–356| url-access = subscription }}</ref>

In 1830 Allston married Martha Remington Dana (daughter of Chief Justice [[Francis Dana]]), the sister of the novelist [[Richard Henry Dana Sr.]]; Dana was a cousin of Allston's first wife.<ref>{{cite book |author=Flagg, Jared Bradley |title=The Life and Letters of Washington Allston|publisher=New York: Charles Scribner| year=1892 |url=https://archive.org/details/lifelwas00flag}}</ref>

In 1841, he published ''Monaldi,'' a romance illustrating Italian life, and in 1850, a volume of his ''Lectures on Art, and Poems''.<ref>Ware's ''Lectures on the Works and Genius of Washington Allston'' (Boston, 1852) and ''Artist Biographies, Allston'' (1879).</ref> He worked for years on what he envisioned would be his masterpiece: a painting called ''Belshazzar's Feast''; he died before finishing it.<ref name="Lovejoy" />

Allston died on July 9, 1843, at age 63. Allston is buried in [[Harvard Square]], in the [[Old Burying Ground (Cambridge, Massachusetts)|Old Burying Ground]] between the [[The First Parish in Cambridge|First Parish Church]] and [[Christ Church (Cambridge, Massachusetts)|Christ Church]].

==Recognition==

Allston was sometimes called the "American [[Titian]]" because his style resembled the great [[Venetian Renaissance]] artists in their display of dramatic color contrasts. His work greatly influenced the development of U.S. landscape painting. Also, the themes of many of his paintings were drawn from literature, especially Biblical stories.<ref name="Poets of Cambridge, USA">{{cite web | author=Vetter, H.F | title=Poets of Cambridge, USA | work=Harvard Square Library (2006) | url=http://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/poets/allston.php | access-date=2007-06-12}}</ref>

His artistic genius was much admired by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and [[Ralph Waldo Emerson]] was strongly influenced by his paintings and poems, but so were both [[Margaret Fuller]] and [[Sophia Peabody]], wife of [[Nathaniel Hawthorne]].<ref name="Poets of Cambridge, USA"/> The influential critic and editor [[Rufus Wilmot Griswold]] dedicated his famous anthology ''[[The Poets and Poetry of America]]'' to Allston in 1842.<ref>*{{cite book | title=The First Century of American Literature: 1770–1870 | last=Pattee | first=Fred Lewis | publisher=Cooper Square Publishers | location=New York | year=1966 | pages=279}}</ref> Poet [[Henry Wadsworth Longfellow]], 17 years after Allston's death, wrote that: "One man may sweeten a whole time. I never pass through Cambridge Port without thinking of Allston. His memory is the [[quince]] in the drawer and perfumes the atmosphere."<ref name="Hubbell275"/>

Boston painter [[William Morris Hunt]] was an admirer of Allston's work, and in 1866 founded the Allston Club in Boston, and in his arts classes passed on to his students his knowledge of Allston's techniques.<ref>Wright, Nathalia. [https://books.google.com/books?id=Ym3Gs2jBocgC&dq=%22william+morris+hunt%22+%22boston+athenaeum%22&pg=PA637 ''The Correspondence of Washington Allston''], Published by University Press of Kentucky, 1993, {{ISBN|0-8131-1708-9}}</ref> Contemporary critic James Miller of the same city held him in high regard, saying, "He labors in the highest walks of art." Another contemporary critic, [[John Neal]] of ''[[The Yankee]]'', felt Allston had unrealized talent: "Mr. Allston's faculties are a very uncommon union of the bold and beautiful", and yet he lacks "that sort of inward fervor which flashes into spontaneous combustion, whenever it is excited or exasperated." Historian David S. Lovejoy nevertheless judged Allston "doubtless the finest American romantic painter".<ref name="Lovejoy" />

The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' cites Allston as the first to use the term ''Objective Correlative'' in 1850.<ref>"objective correlative, n." OED Online. Oxford University Press, December 2021.</ref> The term, subsequently made famous by T.S Eliot in essay on ''Hamlet'' (1919), denotes a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events which shall be the formula of a particular emotion; such that when the external facts, which must terminate in sensory experience, are given, the emotion is immediately evoked.

The west [[Boston, Massachusetts]] neighborhood of [[Allston, Massachusetts|Allston]] is named after him, as is Allston Way, in the "Poets Corner" neighborhood of Berkeley, California.
{{Clear}}
[[Image:Washington Allston 002.jpg|thumb|''[[The Flight of Florimell]]'', 1819]]
[[File:Dana-Allston grave.jpg|thumb|Allston was buried in the Dana family plot in the Old Burying Ground.]]

==Gallery==
<gallery widths="140px" heights="140px" perrow="4">
Image:Storm Rising at Sea.jpg|''Storm Rising at Sea'', 1804, [[Museum of Fine Arts, Boston]], Massachusetts
Image:Moonlit Landscape.jpg|''Moonlit Landscape'', 1809, [[Museum of Fine Arts, Boston]], Massachusetts
Image:Allston, Washington - Coast Scene on the Mediterranean, oil on canvas, 1811.jpg|''Coast Scene on the Mediterranean'', 1811, [[Columbia Museum of Art]], [[Columbia, South Carolina]]
Image:1811 PoorAuthor RichBookseller byWashingtonAllston MFABoston.jpeg|''The Poor Author and the Rich Bookseller'', 1811
Image:Samuel Taylor Coleridge by Washington Allston retouched.jpg|''[[Samuel Taylor Coleridge]]'', 1814, [[Dove Cottage]], Wordsworth Museum, [[Grasmere (village)|Grasmere]], England
Image:1815 DonnaMencia byWashingtonAllston MFABoston.jpeg|''Donna Mencia in the Robber's Cavern'', 1815
File:Washington Allston - Hermia and Helena - Google Art Project.jpg|''Hermia and Helena'', (from [[A Midsummer Night's Dream]]) from c. 1818
Image:1819 Beatrice byWashingtonAllston MFABoston.jpeg|''Beatrice'', 1819, [[Museum of Fine Arts, Boston]]
Image:1831 SpanishGirl byWashingtonAllston MMA.jpg|''[[The Spanish Girl in Reverie]]'', 1831
File:Two Artists in the Old Library, Washington Allston's Picture, 'Jacob's Dream', Hanging over the Fireplace ('The Artist and the Amateur').jpeg|''Two Artists in the Old Library, Washington Allston's Picture, 'Jacob's Dream', Hanging over the Fireplace ('The Artist and the Amateur')'', [[J. M. W. Turner]], 1827
File:William Ellery Channing by Allston.jpg|''Portrait of [[William Ellery Channing]]''
File:Washington Allston, American - Scene from Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew" (Katharina and Petruchio) - Google Art Project.jpg|''Scene from Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew"'' (Katharina and Petruchio)
</gallery>

==Additional works==
{{external media | width = 210px | float = right | headerimage=[[File:Washington Allston - Elijah in the Desert - Google Art Project.jpg|210px]]
| video1 = [http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/allston-elijah-in-the-desert.html Allston's Elijah in the Desert], [[Smarthistory]]<ref name="smarth">{{cite web
| title =Allston's Elijah in the Desert | publisher =[[Smarthistory]] at [[Khan Academy]] | url =http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/allston-elijah-in-the-desert.html | access-date =January 4, 2013 }}</ref> }}
* ''A Landscape after Sunset'', c. 1819, [[Corcoran Gallery of Art]], [[Washington, D.C.]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Sources==
* [[Corcoran Gallery of Art]], Washington, DC [http://collection.corcoran.org/collection/work/landscape-after-sunset?apcat=1]

==Further reading==
* Allston, Washington, ''Lectures on Art and Poems'', 1850 (facsimile ed., with ''Monaldi'', 1841, 1967, Scholars' Facsimiles & Reprints, {{ISBN|978-0-8201-1001-1}}).

==External links==
{{Wikiquote}}
{{wikisource|works=or}}
{{commons category|Washington Allston}}
* {{Art UK bio}}
* [[s:Page:LA2-NSRW-1-0074.jpg|Washington Allston]] in the New Students Reference Work.
* [http://www.googleartproject.com/artist/washington-allston/4127268/ Google Art Project], Washington Allston
* [http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:FHCL.Hough:hou01184 Guide to Washington Allston's papers] at [http://hcl.harvard.edu/libraries/houghton/ Houghton Library], Harvard University
* [http://americanartgallery.org/artist/home/id/108 Washington Allston at American Art Gallery]
* {{Gutenberg author | id=3817}}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Washington Allston}}
* {{Librivox author |id=12690}}
* {{Cite EB1911|wstitle=Allston, Washington}}
* {{cite BDA1906 |wstitle= Allston, Washington |volume= 1 |pages= 96 }}
* [http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/washington-allston-letter-fragment-5954 Washington Allston letter fragment, 1818 Mar. 2] from the Smithsonian [[Archives of American Art]]
* [http://www.racollection.org.uk/ixbin/indexplus?_IXACTION_=file&_IXFILE_=templates/full/person.html&_IXTRAIL_=Academicians&person=5492 Profile on Royal Academy of Arts Collections]

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Allston, Washington}}
[[Category:1779 births]]
[[Category:1843 deaths]]
[[Category:Poets from South Carolina]]
[[Category:18th-century American male artists]]
[[Category:American male painters]]
[[Category:19th-century American painters]]
[[Category:Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences]]
[[Category:People from Georgetown County, South Carolina]]
[[Category:Painters from South Carolina]]
[[Category:Harvard College alumni]]
[[Category:Poets from Massachusetts]]
[[Category:Writers from Boston]]
[[Category:American expatriates in England]]
[[Category:American expatriates in France]]
[[Category:Associates of the Royal Academy]]
[[Category:Alumni of the Royal Academy Schools]]
[[Category:19th-century American male artists]]
[[Category:Burials at Old Burying Ground (Cambridge, Massachusetts)]]

Washington Allston - Revision history

imported>Guerreroast: Changing short description from "American artist" to "American artist (1779–1843)"