Artist of the American Revolution: both soldier and artist, John Trumbull saw the war for independence firsthand and was moved to memorialize the historic events on canvas. (History: Struggle for Freedom).

Reflecting on our nation's glorious and providential founding automatically brings to mind the images created by the brush of Connecticut's John Trumbull. Rightly viewed as the "Artist of the American Revolution," Trumbull was also a combat veteran of the conflict. His eight historical paintings of America's founding years are the most powerful depictions of those events by a contemporary eyewitness.

John Trumbull was the youngest child of Connecticut Governor Jonathan Trumbull, the only colonial governor appointed by the Crown who also won election following independence. His father vetoed John's plans to become a painter, sending him away to Harvard at age 15 to find a more respectable profession -- such as law or the ministry. En route to Harvard, John persuaded his older brother, acting as guide, to stop at the studio of John Singleton Copley, the leading painter in America at the time. Copley received the aspiring artist and his brother as formal dinner guests, impressing young John with his work, graciousness, and lavish lifestyle.

Arriving at Harvard, John--who had been reading Greek since age six--easily passed the junior class entrance exam. The Connecticut Puritan teenager was the youngest in his class, and, though he studied French with a tutor in his spare time, John did not concentrate on his studies. He sailed through the Harvard curriculum on natural talent rather than effort, graduating without distinction in 1773.

Picking Up the Sword

Returning to his hometown of Lebanon, Connecticut, John found a "growing enthusiasm" for the patriotic cause. "My father was now governor of the colony, and a patriot--of course surrounded by patriots, to whose ardent conversations I listened daily - it would have been strange if all this had failed to produce its natural effect." The young Trumbull formed a company of militia from among the local young men, and was eventually assigned as adjunct to General Joseph Spencer.

Trumbull marched with the 1st Connecticut regiment up to Boston after Lexington and Concord, and witnessed the Battle of Bunker Hill from a distance at Roxbury Heights. The young lieutenant impressed General Washington the following winter by accurately mapping the British fortifications in Boston. He did so by creeping up in the tall grass close to the British line. After a British defector confirmed the accuracy of Trumbull's map, Washington promoted him to aide de camp. Trumbull was shortly thereafter assigned as brigade major, and his troops were among those who quietly took Dorchester Heights on the evening of March 4, 1776. By St. Patrick's Day, the cannons on the heights had forced the British to evacuate Boston without a shot.

Trumbull was promoted to the rank of colonel. He served as aide de camp to General Horatio Gates and accompanied Gates to upstate New York where he saw the diseased remnants of the American army's retreat down from Canada. "I did not look into a tent or a hut," Trumbull reported of his experience with the defeated army wracked with smallpox, "in which I did not find either a dead or dying man."

Trumbull drew a sketch of the defenses at Fort Ticonderoga, pointing out that nearby Mount Defiance would need to be fortified to secure the fort. Trumbull's findings were investigated, and Gates ordered a fortification of Mount Defiance. The commander at Ticonderoga, General Arthur St. Clair, failed to follow through on Gates' order, and he had to retreat from the fort without a fight the next summer.

In February 1777, Congress sent Trumbull his colonel's commission, dated three months after Gates had promoted him to colonel. This provoked the hotheaded Trumbull to resign from the Continental Army. Though Trumbull volunteered in 1778 as aide de camp to General John Sullivan in the latter's attempt to dislodge the British from Newport, Rhode Island (during which Trumbull saw more battle action at Quaker Hill than at any other point of his service), he never again served in any official capacity in the colonial army.

Go to West, Young Man

Trumbull retired to Boston with renewed determination to pursue a painting career and resolved to obtain further instruction in the art. For an English-speaking American at that time, there was only one place to go for such training -- the London studio of Pennsylvania-born Benjamin West. Easily the most famous painter in the English-speaking world in 1780, West had thoroughly established his reputation with his famous Death of General Wolfe (1769), which undoubtedly led to his appointment as King George's historical painter in 1772. Despite his American birth, West continued to enjoy the confidence of King George until the monarch's progressive insanity fully destroyed his mental faculties. Most of the notable American portrait painters of the day studied under West, including Copley; Gilbert Stuart; Charles Willson Peale and his son, Rembrandt Peale; Thomas Sully; and Samuel F.B. Morse.

Trumbull set sail for England, by way of France and Belgium. While in France, he obtained a letter of introduction to West from Benjamin Franklin. In July 1780, West warmly received Trumbull, who joined company with fellow New England-born artist Gilbert Stuart, also in London studying with West. Trumbull had hardly set foot in England before exiled American Tories informed the local magistrates that he was a former rebel soldier. The Tories were disappointed to find that the king's court did not object to Trumbull remaining in London as long as he confined his activities to the study of painting.

Since Trumbull had not brought any samples of his painting with him, West had Trumbull select a painting from the gallery to copy. After viewing Trumbull's copy of Raphael's Madonna della Sadia, West remarked: "Mr. Trumbull, I have now no hesitation to say that nature intended you for a painter. You possess the essential qualities; nothing more is necessary, but careful and assiduous cultivation." Trumbull devoted the succeeding months to the exclusive study of painting.

The former aide de camp to General Washington was arrested on charges of high treason in November 1780, a charge probably concocted as a reaction to the American execution of British spy Major John Andre. Though Trumbull easily exploded the treason charge, he openly admitted his past military service of having borne arms against the king and subsequently spent the next seven months in prison. After Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown and peace negotiations began, Trumbull's friends Edmund Burke, Benjamin West, and John Copley intervened on his behalf and won his release. West and Copley each posted a [pounds sterling]100 bond for Trumbull, released on condition that he would leave the country within 30 days.

Americanist Art

In January 1784, after the Paris Peace Treaty cemented American independence, Trumbull returned to West's studio. Now Trumbull began to demonstrate his talent in earnest. Borrowing heavily from West's historical paintings and from Copley's detail, Trumbull painted his first successful paintings, The Battle of Bunker's Hill and The Death of General Montgomery in the Attack on Quebec. Since Trumbull had known most of the principal historical actors in these battles through his military experience, he incorporated miniature portraits of leading figures of the battles into the paintings.

Trumbull's historical art can be looked upon as a beautiful creation today, and it can even inspire the knowledgeable student of history. But it had a much more dramatic impact on contemporaries of the day, who knew the subjects of the paintings by sight. Abigail Adams was a good friend of Dr. Joseph Warren, the martyr of Bunker Hill and the tragic figure in the painting. "To speak of its merit I can only say that in looking at it my whole frame contracted, my blood shivered, and I felt a faintness in my heart," wrote Mrs. Adams after viewing Trumbull's The Battle of Bunker's Hill. "He is the first painter who has undertaken to immortalize by his pencil those great actions that gave birth to our nation. By this means he will not only secure his own fame, but transmit to posterity characters and actions which will command the admiration of future ages, and prevent the period which gave birth to them from ever passing away into the dark abyss of time."

Thomas Jefferson was likewise impressed, writing to his friend Ezra Styles on September 1, 1786 after viewing the Bunker Hill and Montgomery paintings in a visit to England that "his natural talents for this art seem almost unparalleled." Jefferson encouraged Trumbull to continue his historical series documenting the American Revolution, urging him to paint at least 10 such pictures. Eight were eventually painted. Trumbull continued the series while visiting Jefferson in Paris in 1786. Jefferson advised him on how to paint the setting of Independence Hall in July 1776 for his portrait of the Declaration of Independence, and Trumbull created Jefferson's portrait in miniature for the work. Trumbull would spend the next 11 years working on the painting, including trips up and down the American eastern seaboard tracking down surviving signers of the Declaration to accurately depict their portraits in the painting. The finished Declaration of Independence included miniature portraits of most of the signers. Trumbu ll returned to America in 1789, arriving in New York to paint pictures of many of the signers at the convening of the first Congress under the Constitution. He soon wrote back to Thomas Jefferson:

The greatest motive I had or have for engaging in, or for continuing my pursuit of painting, has been the wish of commemorating the great events of our country's revolution. I am fully sensible that the profession, as it is generally practiced, is frivolous, little useful to society, and unworthy of a man who has talents for more serious pursuits. But, to preserve and diffuse the memory of the noblest series of actions which have ever presented themselves in the history of man; to give to the present and to the future sons of oppression and misfortune, such glorious lessons of their rights, and of the spirit with which they should assert and support them, and even to transmit to their descendants, the personal resemblance of those who have been the great actors in those illustrious scenes, were objects which gave a dignity to the profession, peculiar to my situation.

Trumbull had created his own crusade, that of documenting through art the greatest deeds of the greatest generation in history. In cases where signers of the Declaration had died, he sought out existing portraits to use as models. In some cases, Trumbull had family members of the subjects of his paintings pose for portraits. For example, Trumbull had the sons of General Hugh Mercer pose for him in his The Death of General Mercer at the Battle of Trenton.

Trumbull viewed The Declaration of Independence as "my great work" throughout his life, and the painting did receive exceptional critical acclaim for the miniature portraits it contained. Though not as talented a portraitist as Copley or Gilbert Stuart, Trumbull excelled at miniature portraits. He was understandably unable to get any engraver to make copies of his patriotic paintings in England, to which he returned for medical care on his eye in 1808 and where he was stranded until the War of 1812 ended in 1815. Trumbull had to go to Germany to find an engraver willing to make copies of these celebrations of the military defeats of Britain.

Trumbull's only commercial success in England consisted of several portraits and his highly acclaimed 1789 The Sortie Made by the Garrison of Gibraltar. The depiction was highly popular in England partly because it celebrated a dramatic English military victory over the Spanish in 1781 and partly because it portrayed vivid colors then in vogue. But Gibraltar is mainly notable because it was one of only two large-scale paintings (the other being a portrait of George Washington) by Trumbull which received any critical acclaim.

Trumbull generally failed to produce aesthetically pleasing paintings larger than 20" by 30" in size. Gilbert Stuart once remarked to a fellow artist, after looking at a large painting Trumbull had produced, that it looked as if it had been produced by a man with one eye. Stuart may not have realized that Trumbull's paintings were in fact produced by a man with one eye. Trumbull was permanently blinded in his left eye shortly after falling down a flight of stairs as a young child. Art historians generally blame Trumbull's monocular vision and diminished sight with age for his lack of success in producing large-scale paintings. His mentor Benjamin West was apparently aware of the disability and, therefore, instructed Trumbull to stick to smaller paintings.

But Trumbull went against West's advice after winning a congressional assignment to create four enormous 12' by 18' enlargements of his famous historical paintings. He met with President Madison and agreed on The Declaration of Independence, The Resignation of General Washington, The Surrender of Burgoyne at Saratoga, and The Surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown. And although those who commissioned the work considered the enlargements disappointing, the paintings were nevertheless placed prominently within the Capitol Building Rotunda, where they are still displayed to this day.

Preserving a Legacy

Despite the poor quality of his enlargements, John Trumbull remains the most important artistic chronicler of the struggle for American independence. He correctly noted in his June 11, 1789 letter to Thomas Jefferson that his combination of talent and personal experience uniquely positioned him to record the most important events of our nation's founding for future generations. Noted Trumbull: "[S]ome superiority also arose from my having borne personally a humble part in the great events I was to describe. No one lives with me possessing this advantage, and no one can come after me to divide the honor of truth and authenticity, however easily I may hereafter be exceeded in elegance." Trumbull donated the eight original paintings to Yale College in 1832, where they are still preserved today. John Trumbull's gravestone appropriately sums up his life by stating: "to his country, he gave his sword and his pencil." No country could expect more from any artist.