Keywords: nineteenth century painting
Item 16858
Persis Sibley theorem painting, 1831
Contributed by: Maine Historical Society Date: 1831 Location: Hallowell Media: Watercolor on paper
Item 102782
Cornelius Tarbox, Jr. House, Westport Island, 2016
Contributed by: Bob and Callie Connor through Westport Island History Committee Date: 2016 Location: Westport Island Media: Photographic print
Exhibit
Mural mystery in Westport Island's Cornelius Tarbox, Jr. House
The Cornelius Tarbox, Jr. House, a well-preserved Greek Revival house on Westport Island, has a mystery contained within--a panoramic narrative mural. The floor-to-ceiling mural contains eight painted panels that create a colorful coastal seascape which extends through the front hallway and up the stairwell. The name of the itinerant painter has been lost over time, can you help us solve the mystery of who he or she was?
Exhibit
A City Awakes: Arts and Artisans of Early 19th Century Portland
Portland's growth from 1786 to 1860 spawned a unique social and cultural environment and fostered artistic opportunity and creative expression in a broad range of the arts, which flowered with the increasing wealth and opportunity in the city.
Site Page
Surry by the Bay - Nineteenth Century
"Nineteenth Century 'Melissa Trask,' 1884Maine Historical Society Shipbuilding Seafaring enterprises played a major role in Surry's economy…"
Site Page
"… and Chapman portraits, the elegant mid-nineteenth century painting of Julia Clapp Carroll of Portland appearing in an ambrotype (at left) was the…"
Story
Monument Square 1967
by C. Michael Lewis
The background story and research behind a commissioned painting of Monument Square.
Lesson Plan
Grade Level: 3-5, 6-8, 9-12
Content Area: Social Studies, Visual & Performing Arts
"In the four quarters of the globe, who reads an American book?" Englishman Sydney Smith's 1820 sneer irked Americans, especially writers such as Irving, Cooper, Hawthorne, and Maine's John Neal, until Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's resounding popularity successfully rebuffed the question. The Bowdoin educated Portland native became the America's first superstar poet, paradoxically loved especially in Britain, even memorialized at Westminster Abbey. He achieved international celebrity with about forty books or translations to his credit between 1830 and 1884, and, like superstars today, his public craved pictures of him. His publishers consequently commissioned Longfellow's portrait more often than his family, and he sat for dozens of original paintings, drawings, and photos during his lifetime, as well as sculptures. Engravers and lithographers printed replicas of the originals as book frontispiece, as illustrations for magazine or newspaper articles, and as post cards or "cabinet" cards handed out to admirers, often autographed. After the poet's death, illustrators continued commercial production of his image for new editions of his writings and coloring books or games such as "Authors," and sculptors commemorated him with busts in Longfellow Schools or full-length figures in town squares. On the simple basis of quantity, the number of reproductions of the Maine native's image arguably marks him as the country's best-known nineteenth century writer. TEACHERS can use this presentation to discuss these themes in art, history, English, or humanities classes, or to lead into the following LESSON PLANS. The plans aim for any 9-12 high school studio art class, but they can also be used in any humanities course, such as literature or history. They can be adapted readily for grades 3-8 as well by modifying instructional language, evaluation rubrics, and targeted Maine Learning Results and by selecting materials for appropriate age level.
