A carved and painted 1806 sign advertising the Charles Banner establishment incorporates the image of a ship under sail and flying the American flag.
:Alterations wrought on the early American landscape by the transportation revolution, which some historians date as having begun in New England around 1790, were profound and far-reaching. Roads and railways were built; canals were dug, and larger and faster steamers plied the waters of the young republic. The widespread ramifications were political, social, economic and artistic.
As the pace picked up, Americans and their goods went on the move. The average citizens who traveled previously on foot, by water and by horse — were they lucky enough to possess one — clambered aboard ships, steamboats, canal barges and railroad cars to reach their destinations. Goods could now to be transported easily and with far more dispatch than previously.
A national system of roads and turnpikes was developed as early as 1808, in effect, unifying the country, and the first transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869. The westward expansion that resulted was twofold: it demonstrated the unification of the nation and the concomitant triumph of man over nature. National pride drew more Americans to venture deeper into the heartland of their country, and the new means of travel allowed them to expand their horizons.
Americans fell in love with the new modes of transportation and the freedom they engendered. While classically trained artists celebrated the grandeur of the American landscape, folk artists were inspired to create and embellish objects celebrating the burgeoning means of transportation. Captivated by their forms and functions, these generally anonymous but creative souls expressed themselves exuberantly, combining whimsy and meticulous calculation.
The 1847 Bard portrait of the C. Vanderbilt side-wheeler is signed by John and James Bard. The brothers cast the vessel in the winning position in a river race with the Oregon, which was not the actual outcome — a paean to the vanity of the ship's owner.
A selection of such objects is on view in "By Land or By Sea: American Folk Art and the Golden Age of Transportation" at the Shelburne Museum through October 25. The exhibit is drawn from the museum collections and is a compelling blend of the decorated utilitarian and the purely decorative in the forms of weathervanes, trade signs and textiles, to decorative paintings and carvings. It is arranged according to travel venue.
Many Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Americans arrived on the nation's shores by ship; many derived their living from the sea and other waterways, while many others depended on them to convey their goods to market. Water transport was many things to many people: exotic, liberating and romantic, fraught with danger and heroism and, above all, profitable. Artists and craftsmen responded accordingly. The nautical theme is pervasive in American folk art.
A copper weathervane, circa 1869, by Cushing and White of Waltham, Mass., sails along in the form of a gaff-rigged sloop with a pronounced bowsprit. A ship's portrait by John and James Bard of the Hudson River side-wheeler
C. Vanderbilt
, was probably commissioned by her owner, Cornelius Vanderbilt. The portrait alludes to the Hudson River race between the
C. Vanderbilt
and the
Oregon
and is a masterwork of revisionist history. Only the bow of the
Oregon
is visible off the stern of the
C. Vanderbilt
, although the former in fact won the race.
