The Émigré and the General: Denis Volozan's Portrait of George Washington in an Atlantic Context

IF 0.2 Q2 HISTORY
Thomas Busciglio-Ritter
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Abstract

abstract:In 1802, the French painter Denis Volozan (1765–1820) completed a posthumous portrait of George Washington commissioned by the legislature of Delaware for its State House in Dover. A recent immigrant to the United States, the artist had relocated to Philadelphia from the island of Saint-Domingue at the height of the Haitian Revolution. Once it was unveiled, however, the painting provoked widespread public dislike. Hidden from view, it was barely saved from destruction in the 1960s. Though the choice to entrust Volozan with such a project may have seemed like poor judgment to contemporary audiences, this article argues that his portrait illustrates the symbolic reinterpretation of Washington by transatlantic French diasporas in North America and the Caribbean, of which the painter was a part. Volozan was familiar with depictions of both European elites and figures of power like Toussaint Louverture, whom he had sketched in 1800. As such, his approach to American political portraiture was a result of greater dynamics of circulation in the Atlantic world. Celebrating a patriotic figure, his Delaware picture was nonetheless shaped by the political and cultural interactions between France, Britain, and the United States at the turn of the nineteenth century.
Émigré和将军:丹尼斯·沃罗赞在大西洋背景下的乔治·华盛顿肖像
1802年,法国画家丹尼斯·沃罗赞(Denis Volozan, 1765-1820)受特拉华州议会委托,为位于多佛的州议会大厦完成了一幅乔治·华盛顿的遗像。这位艺术家是最近移民到美国的,在海地革命最激烈的时候,他从圣多明克岛搬到了费城。然而,这幅画一经公开,就引起了公众的广泛反感。它隐藏在人们的视线之外,在20世纪60年代几乎没有被摧毁。尽管在当代观众看来,把这样一个项目委托给沃罗赞似乎是一种糟糕的判断,但这篇文章认为,他的肖像说明了北美和加勒比地区的跨大西洋法国侨民对华盛顿的象征性重新诠释,画家是其中的一部分。沃洛赞对欧洲精英和权力人物的描绘都很熟悉,比如他在1800年画的杜桑·卢维杜尔(Toussaint Louverture)。因此,他对美国政治肖像的描绘是大西洋世界更大的流通动态的结果。作为一个爱国的人物,他的特拉华图景受到了19世纪初法国、英国和美国之间政治和文化互动的影响。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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来源期刊
CiteScore
0.30
自引率
0.00%
发文量
18
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