Journal, Poe would have had plenty of opportunities to meet artists and attend art exhibits. He also lived in a neighborhood with painters and other members of the artistic community; in fact, Asher Durand (91 Amity) and James Hamilton Shegogue (7 Amity), both influential members of the National Academy of Design, were Poe’s neighbors when he lived at 85 Amity. Whether Poe came into personal contact with Durand or Shegogue can only be guessed, but since walking to work was a normal means of transportation for those in lower Manhattan, it is highly likely that, as neighbors with similar interests, they came into contact with one another.
The underlying contention of this book, then, is that not only did Poe attend art exhibits, write about painting and sculpture, and become acquainted with artists in his neighborhood in both Philadelphia and New York, but his immersion in the visual arts also had a significant impact on his writing, especially immediately following his stay in Manhattan. Poe’s exposure to paintings, especially those by the painters of the Hudson River school, similarly influenced his developing visual aesthetics. Of course, as mentioned earlier, Poe had always shown a pointed interest in the visual arts and visual tricks, as his writing prior to 1844 demonstrates; nonetheless, the excitement generated in the arts community at this pivotal time in New York, the nascence of American art criticism, and the impact of Poe’s close working relationship with Charles Briggs made this period particularly important and influential, especially as Poe’s writing turned from the drama of the sublime to the harmony of the beautiful.
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POE’S EXPOSURE TO ART EXHIBITED IN PHILADELPHIA AND MANHATTAN, 1838–1845
This chapter presents a comprehensive listing of the paintings by important American and European artists shown at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts while Poe lived in Philadelphia between 1838 and 1844, as well as lists of paintings by significant American artists hung in the 1844 and 1845 annual exhibitions at the National Academy of Design while Poe lived in Manhattan. A number of these paintings are interpreted in relation to Poe’s visual aesthetics or his tales—specifically paintings by Nicolas Poussin, Salvator Rosa, Francis Edmonds, William Sidney Mount, Asher Durand, and Thomas Cole. Poe mentioned several of these artists, as well as others, in his work even though he did not specify their particular paintings. Although he saw paintings in homes in Richmond and may have been exposed to paintings in London galleries when he was young, this chapter’s discussion of how exposure to art affected his writing and aesthetics begins with his move to Philadelphia in 1838.
Living in Philadelphia for six years (a long time considering Poe’s usually unsettled life) afforded Poe the opportunity to see the shows at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and discuss art at “informal social gatherings of artists, actors and writers held at the Falstaff Hotel,” where he encountered Thomas Sully, John Sartain, and George R. Bonfield, among others (Poe Log, 284). During this time, Poe came to know John Sartain very well, and their friendship lasted from when they met in 1841 until Poe’s death in 1849.1 In fact, just weeks after Poe died, Sartain made a mezzotint portrait of him after Samuel Stillman Osgood’s oil painting; this mezzotint was used in Rufus Griswold’s The Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poe. In the 1840s, Sartain provided engravings for many of the same publications where Poe’s work appeared, including Graham’s Magazine, Godey’s Lady’s Book, and Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine.2 In particular, Sartain’s engraving after a painting by “Martin,” entitled Landscape with Pan and Syrinx (1819), became the basis for Poe’s plate piece “The Island of the Fay,” published in the June 1841 issue of Graham’s Magazine. F. DeWolfe Miller believes “Martin” to be English artist John Martin, “whom Sartain knew in England before he moved to Philadelphia. In his Reminiscences, Sartain notes that he owned several of John Martin’s etchings.”3
While in Philadelphia, Poe also established a friendship with Felix O. C. Darley, often called the father of American illustration. Darley’s illustrations accompanied Poe’s short story “The Gold Bug” in the June 28, 1843, issue of Philadelphia’s Dollar Newspaper. Earlier that year, on January 31, 1843, Darley had signed a contract with Poe, agreeing to “furnish original designs, or drawings (on wood or paper as required) of his own composition, in his best manner, and from subjects supplied him by Mess: Clarke and Poe; the said designs to be employed in illustration of the Magazine entitled ‘The Stylus’” (Poe Log, 396). Poe also renewed his friendship with Thomas Sully’s nephew Robert Sully, Poe’s childhood friend from Richmond and a painter.4 In addition, Poe may have become acquainted with Joshua Shaw, who lived in Philadelphia during this time and whose painting Poe praised in a fine arts column in the Broadway Journal in 1845. Poe’s relationships with artists during his time in Philadelphia clearly afforded him many opportunities to discuss the art he saw on exhibit or in the homes or studios of his artist friends. That Poe mentions Salvator Rosa in his work more than once suggests that the paintings he saw by Rosa and others at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts made an impression on him. There Poe also saw paintings by his friend Thomas Sully and by his often-quoted favorite Claude Lorrain.
A year after Poe left Philadelphia, a devastating fire in June 1845 completely destroyed the antique cast collection at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts as well as a number of its important European paintings, including some by Rosa. An article in the New-York Mirror of June 21, 1845, suggests that the fire was set purposefully:
The labor of forty years was thus swept away in as many minutes. It seems to have been the work of an incendiary, and what could have induced the fiendish design is most extraordinary. The fire originated among some lumber in the antique gallery, and no doubt it was placed there intentionally, as two persons were seen to leave the building just before the fire broke out. Many valuable paintings were saved, but the loss is irreparable, as it includes some of the best paintings in the Union—the works of Salvator Rosa, Rubens, Raphael, Kauffman, Titian, David, many of our best native artists. . . . Salvator Rosa’s landscape, Mercury endeavoring to deceive Argus, while watching Io is missing.5
As a consequence of the Philadelphia fire and because many influential New York merchants donated significantly to the arts in New York, it fast replaced Philadelphia as the center of the arts. During Poe’s time in Manhattan before his move to Fordham in 1846, he was a part of this newfound enthusiasm for the visual arts. Poe had plenty of opportunities to discuss the arts with Charles Briggs while they were both at the Broadway Journal. In addition, Samuel Stillman Osgood attended numerous soirees with Poe, giving the two men opportunities to discuss paintings on display at the various venues on Broadway as well as Osgood’s own paintings. Osgood’s 1839 portrait of British poet and feminist Caroline Sheridan Norton and his portrait of Poe, painted sometime in 1845 or early 1846, must have been objects of discussion.
Exhibits at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 1838–1844
The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts was founded in 1809 by artists Charles Wilson Peale, Rembrandt Peale, and William Rush as well as by members of the business community. The Academy was established to “provide America’s artists with ‘correct and elegant Copies, from the works of the first Masters’ and to ‘facilitate’ the artists’ ‘access to such Standards.’” In other words, “the Academy founders agreed that their primary mission was to bring classical art education to America, saving artists a difficult and expensive trip to study in London or on the Continent.” However, these idealistic ambitions were overridden by the desire of wealthy donors to make the Academy “a place for gentlemen alone to enjoy the connoisseurship of the fine arts.”6 The preservation of the goals set by the founding charter came into conflict with the practical, financial realities of the donors’ desires. This tension continued until the beginning of the 1840s, when the Academy finally recognized that American artists needed an academic curriculum and that the Academy could provide that service.
Despite these negotiations, the Academy’s exhibits were driven