English: Nathaniel Hawthorne

Artist

   Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze, 24 May 1816 - 18 Jul 1868

Sitter

   Nathaniel Hawthorne, 4 Jul 1804 - 19 May 1864

Date

   1862

Type

   Painting

Medium

   Oil on canvas

Dimensions

   Stretcher: 75.9 x 64.1 x 2.5cm (29 7/8 x 25 1/4 x 1")
   Frame: 101.6 x 91.8 x 10.2cm (40 x 36 1/8 x 4")

Credit Line

   National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; transfer from the National Gallery of Art; gift of the A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, 1942

Object number

   NPG.65.55

Exhibition Label

   One of the enduring myths of America is that it has no history but exists in the liberating freedom of the present moment. Nathaniel Hawthorne's novels, fables, and "tales" were a cautionary lesson to Americans who ignored the past. (Hawthorne knew the more optimistic writers represented in this room but was friends with none of them.) His writings secularized the harsh Puritan worldview of his Salem birthplace to remind Americans that actions had consequences, both for individuals and communities. His novels turn on the clash of the individual will-from the lovers in The Scarlet Letter (1850) to the naive philanthropist of The Blithedale Romance (1852)-against the implacability of society and nature. Hawthorne's sympathies are often with his rebels, but his philosophy requires their defeat. It was perhaps the irreconcilability of these viewpoints that led to his artistic decline in the 1850s.

Data Source

   National Portrait Gallery

See more items in

   National Portrait Gallery Collection 

Exhibition

   American Origins 

On View

NPG, East Gallery 132