Artist: George Caleb Bingham Place/date of birth: Augusta County, Virginia 1811 Place/date of death: Kansas City, Missouri 1879 Title: Country Politician Date of completion: 1849 Materials: Oil on canvas Dimensions: 20 3/8 x 24 inches Signed and dated lower left: G.C. Bingham/1849 Collection: Gift of Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd Accession number: 1979.7.16 Introduction Just as Boatmen on the Missouri led the viewer into the world of everyday life on the river, Country Politician is a genre painting by Bingham that presents a moment of life in a rural community. This image shows the interior of a tavern where four men are gathered around a stove, three of them involved in conversation. Discussion Country Politician was painted twelve years before the start of the Civil War. Shortly after this painting was completed, a newspaper reporter in Bingham's town wrote that the scene depicted a group of men discussing the Wilmot Proviso -- a federal bill that (had it passed) would have required all new American territories to prohibit slavery. Whether or not that is actually what is shown here is not known, but the fact that a viewer could derive such a political interpretation from this nondescript scene, suggests how prevalent the issue of slavery was in the new territories at this time. Looking Closely The man on the right leans forward in his eagerness to get his point across to the elderly farmer who listens intently. The tavern keeper sits back, enjoying his pipe and the discussion, while another man is concentrating on the playbill on the wall which advertises a circus. As can be said of genre paintings in general, the people that inhabit Bingham's canvases are types rather than specific individuals. In this work, Bingham has provided a microcosm of frontier life with only four figures: a laborer, a farmer, a merchant, and a statesman. From the coats hanging on the back wall and from the standing man lifting his coat to warm himself, we can assume the scene takes place in the fall or winter. Style Bingham has employed a predominately golden brown color scheme and a triangular composition, much like the composition he used for Boatmen on the Missouri. The stovepipe breaks the triangle and draws the viewer's attention to the fourth man at the wall. Although the light seems to come from the front right hand corner, the broom on the far right casts a shadow in the other direction. Artist See entry for Boatmen on the Missouri. Links to American History Curriculum
SLIDE 11
COUNTRY POLITICIAN
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