Art and Authority in Antebellum New York City: The Rise and Fall of the American Art-Union

Abstract

When an enthusiast declared, in 1845, that pictures are more powerful than speeches, he captured a widespread conviction that paintings held the power to moralize or demoralize viewers.1 That belief gave urgency to antebellum struggles over patronage, exhibition, and aesthetic authority. How were artists to be supported in a society that lacked traditions of aristocratic or state patronage, and how might support be structured to foster artistic excellence? What was the most appropriate site for the exhibition of works, and how broad a popular appeal was it possible or desirable for such exhibitions to command? Finally, which social group was most capable of judging artistic quality, and should such aesthetic authority be confined to men? These questions lay at the heart of a heated debate in the antebellum North. At stake for the disputants was the location of cultural authority in the nation and the relation of to an expanding world of commercial entertainment. New York's American Art-Union offers an opportunity to examine, in one significant context, the struggle that defined the social role of and artists in the antebellum North. Founded in 1839, the organization was, by the late forties, the primary market for American paintings other than portraits. Organizers hoped at once to encourage American artists and to promote a taste for art within the city