"American Stories" at the Met

This past weekend, I had the opportunity to check out the Met’s “American Stories” exhibit. If you haven’t been yet, I highly recommend visiting before the exhibit closes on January 24. Spanning the years 1765 to 1915, “American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life” is a collection of paintings that detail the social, political, and home lives of Americans during the exciting and often tumultuous time between the American Revolution and the start of World War I. Stepping into the exhibition galleries is like stepping back in time.

“American Stories” features the work of such talented American artists as William Merritt Chase, Charles Wilson Peale, John Singleton Copley, Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent, Mary Cassatt, and Thomas Eakins. All of the works on display illustrate everyday life for Americans during this defining time period, whether on the frontier or in the city, fighting in the Civil War or spending time with family.

The paintings in the collection are organized by theme, with one gallery focusing on portraits, including John Singleton Copley’s portrait of Paul Revere and Charles Wilson Peale’s self-portrait; another gallery deals with the switch from portraiture to pictorial storytelling. There is a gallery that highlights life on the frontier and another that focuses on the Civil War, both at home and on the front; and galleries that feature American home life and the lives of Americans abroad.

And now, the highlights.

I particularly loved the inside look at American home life shown through paintings like William Merritt Chase’s “Ring Toss,” in which the artist’s three daughters play in their parlor, and “The Open Air Breakfast,” which features Chase’s family breakfasting in an idyllic backyard setting. Frances William Edmonds’ “The City and Country Beaux” shows a young woman deciding between two very different suitors; and Henry Mosler’s “Just Moved” highlights a family getting settled in their new home. This segment of the exhibit offers a candid look at the small pleasures and intimacies afforded Americans while their country was going through such transformation.

A recurring theme in the exhibit is American political life, and one of the most memorable works to embody this theme is George Caleb Bingham’s “The County Election,” a skilled portrayal of the energy and mayhem surrounding a small town’s polling place on election day and an insightful look at the nature of American politics in the early 19th-century.

Americans abroad are featured in John Singer Sargent’s “In the Luxembourg Gardens” and “A Street in Venice,” two of my favorite works for their evocative brushstrokes and romantic moods. Meanwhile, I found another favorite in Lilly Martin Spencer’s “Reading the Legend,” a whimsical tribute to American literature that features a young couple falling in love over the novels they share.

The highlight of the exhibit, however, is Samuel F. B. Morse’s “Gallery of the Louvre,” a striking piece that takes up nearly an entire wall in one gallery. Painted between 1831 and 1833, a time during which many fake European works of art were on the market and there was little training for budding artists, the work shows Morse and his friend, the author James Fenimore Cooper, discussing art in a gallery at the Louvre. Yet the gallery does not feature the works that were actually featured there at the time; rather, Morse filled it with the works of the Italian Old Masters in an effort to note what true masterpieces really were. His replication of over 20 such works is masterful.

On a side note, I paid $7 for the audio guide to the exhibit, which offers commentary and interpretations on a selection of paintings from a variety of sources. While this was at times insightful, the most interesting information it provided was also listed on the placard beside each work, and the commentary did not add anything particularly substantial. I would recommend putting your $7 toward a glass of wine in the café afterward.

The exhibit itself was simply delightful, however, and I’m contemplating one more visit before it closes on January 24.