Louisiana Art: Nineteenth Century

With the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 and statehood in 1812, Louisiana formally became a part of the emerging American republic. Many Louisiana natives, however, still considered themselves part of the earlier French and Spanish cultures, and the hybrid American-European character of Louisiana culture began to evolve.

Portraiture dominated Louisiana painting in the first half of the 19th Century. Unlike the aristocratic 18th-Century portraits, portraits in the 19th Century reflect the more bourgeois appearance of the burgeoning middle class - proper but not ostentatious. The demand for portraits grew with increasing antebellum prosperity and itinerant artists flocked to the area to seek their fortunes, many from Europe and especially from France due to the long-standing ties between that country and Louisiana. Two of the most successful and talented were Jacques Amans and Jean Joseph Vaudechamp, and the neo-classic, restrained style of French art became popular with Louisiana patrons and artists alike.

Another influence on the character of Louisiana culture was that of the indigenous population. Indian ideas were an indispensable source for early settlers trying to adapt to the region, and this assimilation was mutual, as illustrated by Alfred Boisseau's Indians Walking Along the Bayou: the child carries Indian implements, the man carries an American rifle, and the clothing is Indian in style but cut from European or American fabrics.

Public interest in art waned mid-century as epidemics and the economic depression caused by the Civil War and Reconstruction strangled New Orleans. In the last quarter of the 19th Century, however, New Orleans became the visual arts center of the "New South" as both formal and informal arts organizations flourished and provided a cohesive climate for artistic creation. Portraiture's predominance was gradually supplanted by landscape and genre painting. The technological advances and increasing popularity of photography were also a factor in the declining demand for more expensive painted portraits.

The popularity of landscape painting was encouraged by the young nation's westward expansion and interest in previously unknown vistas and natural wonders. Louisiana artists, beginning with Richard Clague, developed an indigenous school of landscape painting that combined "luminosity" with a simple and direct pictorial naturalism.

The work of Achille Perelli and George Viavant illustrates the unusual contribution Southern artists made to the tradition of still-life painting. Images of dead game and fish, characterized by extremely precise tromp l'oeil (fool-the-eye) detail and vivid coloration, became a staple of late 19th Century academic painting in New Orleans. This tradition had become popular prior to the Civil War and remained so, valued as trophies by sportsmen and as souvenirs by tourists.

The most compelling genre subjects were those events that took place along the banks of the Mississippi River. Because their character is primarily narrative, these scenes are not marked by a strong stylistic identity. However, the general development in painting at this time was towards looser, more fluid brushwork and a brighter palette. In depicting the waterways, the land and its inhabitants, 19th Century Louisiana artists further refined the concept of the South as a clearly identifiable entity in American life. This concept would come to concern artists more and more in the early twentieth century.