John Trumbull

John Trumbull (1756-1843), American painter, best known for his large historical scenes of the American War of Independence. His calm, forceful early portraits show the influence of the Boston artist John Singleton Copley. He spent five years (1784-1789) in London in the studio of the American history painter Benjamin West, where he produced his first scenes of the American War of Independence. His assimilation of the Baroque grandiloquence of Peter Paul Rubens and the calm nobility of Jacques-Louis David is evident in The Declaration of Independence (1794, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut), for which he had returned to the United States to sketch the signatories from life. It is probably his most important work. Trumbull settled permanently in New York in 1816 and in the following year was commissioned to execute monumental replicas of four of his revolutionary war scenes for the Rotunda of the Capitol in Washington, D.C. These works, however, are stiff and lifeless compared with the smaller originals. The liveliness, sparkle, and good composition of Trumbull's best paintings, however, considerably influenced early 19th-century American artists.