Poking fun : the genre paintings of William Sidney Mount
Political puns, social satire, and people of color
Date
Location
Admission
Open to the public
RSVP required
$5 | General admission
FREE | Salmagundi members
About the Event
Elizabeth Kahn Kaplan deftly combines art and history in this enlightening talk, taking a close look at the use of humor and political satire in many of the genre scenes of the internationally acclaimed nineteenth century American artist William Sidney Mount. They bring a smile to viewers’ lips even today.
Nineteenth century relations between the sexes, political chicanery, city slickers and country bumpkins, all were grist for visual puns incorporated into Mount’s seemingly simple scenes of country life on Long Island. We smile as we witness would-be suitors respond to the fickleness of young marriageable women, depicted subtly by Mount, a life-long bachelor.
Presidential campaigns in the late 1830s and early 1840s had deteriorated into manipulation of carefully chosen symbols, and Mount exploited these in his art with “insider” jokes, double entendres, and puns to highlight the political and social themes of Mount’s day. Mount’s neighbors and affluent city patrons readily “got” his subtle – and not so subtle – jokes, sometimes with a subtext about the role assigned to freed slaves. What is represented by the boy tickling a sleeping black man with a straw in Farmers Nooning, 1836? What does the trap represent in Catching Rabbits, 1839? Discovery of Mount’s sharp wit adds another dimension to appreciation of his art.
Hungry?
Ticketed attendees who would like to stay for drinks and dinner should make dining reservations in advance via our Reservations page with the message “Mount dinner”.
