National Gallery Displays European Works Of Copley

He was a smash hit in the Colonies, but painter John Singleton Copley just had to know whether he could make it in the Mother Country. So in the spring of 1774 America’s famous portraitist took ship for England via Italy, determined to test himself against the big boys.

What became of Copley (1738-1815) is told in a gorgeous but somewhat-melancholy exhibition at the National Gallery of Art.

What happened, briefly, is that the self-taught Copley became a big hit Over There, too. After a sojourn in Rome, Copley landed in London, where he soon was elected to the Royal Academy and became a court favorite. As he moved from portraiture to history painting, the virtuoso Yankee’s fresh eye and firm hand brought frontier vigor and realism to Europe’s art world.

Yet as Copley’s native country was winning its independence, the expatriate Bostonian was losing his own. Following the fashion of the day, Copley kept striving for the Big Painting, the giant, classic canvas that would win him a place among the immortals.

His “Watson and the Shark” (1778) showed enormous promise, but in his search for success Copley forgot what he had taught himself: A truly great artist must go his own way. The big breakthrough never came; Copley was forced to support his family through portraiture, and his career gradually dwindled.

That’s the Copley story according to conventional wisdom, but the thesis of this exhibit is that chauvinism on both sides of the Atlantic has led art historians to cheat Copley of the acclaim his English phase deserves.

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