american art history

Running Head : Colonial

Colonial Art and Architecture

Colonial Art and Architecture

The seventeenth century in America was known as the Colonial Period America still belonged to Great Britain and the colonist still held onto many of the European styles . America was different than Great Britain especially in the south , and not everything was adaptable for the climate . Therefore , America was a mixture of two cultures when it came to art and architecture

Architecture developed more quickly than art . This was a necessity in a land where there was little shelter

. Building for survival was crucial so the colonist through themselves into the art . At the beginning of the seventeenth century , much of the architecture was copied from what was popular in Great Britain because there was no time for creating their own identity . Buildings were needed and had to be done quickly . It just made sense to build what they knew . However , in the later seventeenth century , as the colonies started to prosper , the architecture became more independent of Europe . Churches were rectangular with steeples , while meeting houses , the center of village life , were more elaborate while still rectangular in shape . Popular styles fro homes were the Cape Cod brick and clapboard , Georgian The New England Colonial and the distinctly American Saltbox

The Saltbox was the most fascinating piece of information that I learned in the class because of its adaptation to the American Colonies . The house was shaped like the jug used to store salt in the seventeenth century . It was straight in the front and sloped in the back of the swelling . The reason that the house was sloped was because that was the easiest way to add on to the house in a growing settlement . A one story lean-to at the back could be joined to the original home with a sloping roof . What made this adaptable to the new climate is that the sloping roof was sturdy and could handle the wind that was prevalent in the colonies

As with architecture , the colonist looked to Europe as their model for art . The most popular art during the early seventeenth century was portrait painting , but the art produced was generally simple . Many times artist had to create their own paint and the results were crude As the colonies progressed , so did their paintings . The subjects of the portraits were shown to be prosperous people with well rounded bodies and children who were merely dressed and in full imitation of the adults

John Singleton Copley , the foremost artist of his day , gave the subjects of his portraits a more three dimensional appearance . His work during the Colonial Period was simply the best . I felt his best work was Watson and the Shark . It was a particular favorite because the subject is not a stuffy figure posing for a portrait . Instead , it depicts action and depicts an actual event . Brook Watson told Copley of his ghastly attack by a shark in Havana , Cuba when he was fourteen years old...