Civilization

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TitleCivilization

Artist George Willoughby Maynard (1843 - 1923)

Daten.d.

MediumOil on canvas

DimensionsUnframed: 54 3/8 × 36 3/4 in. Framed: 60 1/2 × 43 × 2 in.

SignedSigned lower left: "George Willoughby Maynard"

SubmissionNA diploma presentation, March 22, 1886

Credit LineNational Academy of Design, New York, NY

Object number845-P

Label TextWhen Civilization was first exhibited at the 1888 Annual of the Society of American Artists, it occupied a place of honor in the center of one of the gallery walls. Although it served as a prototype for the slightly altered figure of Civilization which Maynard later painted (along with personifications of Adventure, Discovery, and Conquest) to decorate the Library of Congress, the Academy's painting is far more than a mere study. Cooly and deftly executed, Maynard's "superb white queen" (The Critic, 181) was welcomed in 1888 as a clarion statement of the new decorative and allegorical aspirations of young American artists trained abroad and as an embodiment of the successes and potentialities of the population of the United States. As such, it was a logical feature of the Fine Arts exhibit of the World's Columbian Exposition five years later, where it helped celebrate four centuries of the white man's development in North America.
As is often the case with Maynard's allegorical works, the figure of Civilization and her throne occupy an ambiguous space which hovers between two and three dimesions. The artist was known for adhering to the "conservative" school of decorative painting which avoided pronounced effects of volume or spatial recession. Although critics were generally impressed by Civilization, some questioned the clarity of the allegory and the appropriateness of a young, innocent-appearing girl to serve as a model for the complex notion of civilization. Also, despite the orange-red marble dado, the full red lips and hair, and the pastel pinks worked into the folds of drapery, Civilization was criticized for its austere lack of color and its drapery textures, alternatively called porcelaneous or chalky.

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