Notes
The recently rediscovered The Village Politicians is a masterwork by the first genre painter in America, John Lewis Krimmel. "Krimmel's Philadelphia scenes of the second decade of the nineteenth century set a precedent for genre painting during a period when the young nation was still formulating a distinctly American culture and art." (A. Harding, "British and Scottish Models for the American Genre Paintings of John Lewis Krimmel," Winterthur Portfolio, vol. 38, no. 4, Winter 2003, p. 241)
Born Johann Ludwig Krimmel in Ebingen, Germany, and trained as a merchant, Krimmel immigrated to Philadelphia in 1809. The following year, at the age of 24, he decided to pursue art as a full time professision. "His decision to become an artist displays an independent spirit and self-confidence that may well have been rooted in his middle-class upbringing...What fostered Krimmel's more specific movement toward genre art--as opposed to more traditional art such as history painting and portraiture--may have been a combination of his adopted city's visual stimulation and his own private inclinations. The diverse ethnic population, their dress, and their habits struck the newcomer's heightened senses as picturesque." (A. Harding, John Lewis Krimmel: Genre Artist of the Early Republic, Winterthur, Delaware, 1994, p. 5)
Throughout his career, Krimmel used prints of paintings by other artists as sources of inspiration, composition and subject matter. "In creating authentic scenes of American contemporary life, Krimmel was primarily guided by English and Scottish pictures. His reliance on these sources can be traced step-by-step in his oil paintings and demonstrates that their influence helped an essentially self-taught amateur artist become a highly accomplished professional genre painter...Krimmel copied from established masters' pictures because it helped him learn structure and composition and because these works sold more easily." ("British and Scottish Models for the American Genre Paintings of John Lewis Krimmel," Winterthur Portfolio, pp. 221, 227) Some works, such as Pepper-Pot: A Scene in the Philadelphia Market (1811, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), take a theme, rather than a design from an existing image, while others, like The Blind Fiddler (1812, private collection), are almost direct copies.
The works of David Wilkie (Scottish 1765-1841) had a particularly strong influence on the young artist in the first two decades of the nineteenth century and were the source for many works including The Village Politicians. Informed by seventeenth-century Netherlandish genre painters, Wilkie was the most famous genre painter in the British Isles, a reputation that was established with the 1806 exhibition of The Village Politicians at the Royal Academy in London. According to Dr. Anneliese Harding, "In it Wilkie is ostensibly illustrating a scene from Hector Macneill's 1795 temperance ballad, 'Scotland's Skaith; or, The History o' Will and Jean,' which, according to the poet's preface, concerns 'the baneful consequences inseparable from an inordinate use of ardent spirits among the lower orders of society.'" ("British and Scottish Models for the American Genre Paintings of John Lewis Krimmel," Winterthur Portfolio, p. 235)
Krimmel would not have seen Wilkie's work until Abraham Raimbach's engraving of The Village Politicians, which accompanies this lot, was published and distributed in 1814. The first work by Krimmel that demonstrates the influence of this print is Interior of an American Inn (1814, Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio). While Krimmel's composition takes from Wilkie's picture, "the barroom structure with its clear emphasis on strong geometric lines," ("British and Scottish Models for the American Genre Paintings of John Lewis Krimmel," Winterthur Portfolio, p. 231) he makes multiple changes in design and figure groupings.
In 1816, Krimmel had to return to Germany to appear in court in order to rescue the family business from bankruptcy. He took this opportunity to spend almost two years traveling in Europe including visits to Paris and Vienna. He sketched constantly and "became more familiar with both French neoclassical and German romantic painting, and he returned to the States noticeably more skilled in the use of space, light, and perspective and the application of color. ("British and Scottish Models for the American Genre Paintings of John Lewis Krimmel," Winterthur Portfolio, p. 234) It was with this new artistic acuity that Krimmel began The Village Politicians, painted circa 1819.
While the influence of Wilkie's The Village Politicians is obvious in Krimmel's painting, in the latter artist's interpretation, "he boldly Americanizes many details of this Scottish tavern scene...And although he copies the figural composition faithfully, Krimmel made conscious changes in the use of space and light" ("British and Scottish Models for the American Genre Paintings of John Lewis Krimmel," Winterthur Portfolio, p. 238) He has omitted the rafters and roof of the tavern in his scene and cropped the left and right edges. This constriction of space reduces the depth of Krimmel's work and makes the scene more immediate to the viewer. He has also eliminated some of the still-life items and details of Wilkie's work, producing a less cluttered composition. Finally, Krimmel adeptly utilizes light to highlight the action of the scene, identify the important figures, and increase the sculptural quality of the work.
Krimmel also alters certain details that serve to localize his version. He changes the newspaper from The Gazetteer to The National Intelligencer, which was published in Washington, D.C. from 1800 to 1830. He replaces the silver tankard sitting by the table with a Pennsylvania redware pitcher, further Americanizing the scene. According to Dr. Harding, the symmetry of the two pendants and larger, rectangular poster on the chimney is unique to Krimmel's work and also appears in Quilting Frolic (1813, Winterthur Museum, Winterthur, Delaware) and Country Wedding: Bishop White Officiating (1814, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania). The pose of the man adjusting his hat near the fireplace is reminiscent of the grandfather putting his glasses on in Return from Market (1819, unlocated). The hole in this man's sleeve also matches that of the African American boy's sleeve in the same painting. She also notes the similarities between the man seated at the table wearing glasses and Krimmel's portrait of Jacob Ritter, Sr. Finally, the earthenware pitcher appears in Country Wedding: Bishop White Officiating (1814, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), Blind Man's Bluff (1814, Terra Foundation for the Arts, Daniel J. Terra collection, Chicago, Illinois) and Quilting Frolic (1813, Winterthur Museum, Wilmington, Delaware). ("British and Scottish Models for the American Genre Paintings of John Lewis Krimmel," Winterthur Portfolio, p. 238)
It is Krimmel's ability to distinctly Americanize Wilkie's scene that lead the December 1820 issue of Analectic Magazine to proclaim it one "of the most remarkable among Mr. Krimmel's pictures." ("Art VI-Krimmel's Picture--Return From Boarding School," Analectic Magazine, December 1820, p. 508) Although his career was short, spanning only eleven years, Krimmel was a pioneer of genre painting in America, taking a traditionally European art form and modifying it for American taste and lifestyle. "His works, coming before the invention of photography, left an important record of the young nation." ("British and Scottish Models for the American Genre Paintings of John Lewis Krimmel," Winterthur Portfolio, p. 243)