Charles Willson Peale - IELTS Listening Answers & Explanations

In this lecture today I'm going to introduce you to an American painter: Charles Willson Peale—you may be familiar with his portraits; but did you know that he never even saw a painting till he was a grown man?

He was born in Maryland in 1741. His father died when he was nine and the family struggled financially for the next few years and Charles became a saddle maker's apprentice. One day he went to Norfolk for supplies and there he saw paintings for the first time. He thought they were so bad that he felt sure he could do better so he decided to make painting his career. In 1766 he went to London to study painting with Benjamin West. Whilst there he painted this portrait in 1768, see slide 1, Pitt as a Roman Senator. Notice how elaborately symbolical this portrait is. The symbolism arises of course from Pitt's famous speech to the British Parliament where he draws an analogy between the ancient Roman Senate's view of a barbaric Britain and the prevailing European view of the time of a barbaric African continent fuelling the slavery trade. Perhaps you didn't know that the Romans used Britons as slaves? But I digress...back to Peale.

He returned to America and in 1772 painted the first ever portrait of George Washington (see slide 2). In 1773 he painted a group portrait of himself, his wife, mother, brothers, sister, his old nurse and an unidentified baby. Just look at the slide—this painting is simply called The Peale Family and you can almost feel the exuberance of the family and their warmth towards one another. He enjoyed great success as a portraitist prior to the Revolution and served with distinction in the Revolution. During this time he became friends with George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson.

After the war he continued to paint and, when his wife died in the 1790s as a result of her eleventh pregnancy, he remarried. He had 17 children in all, naming the sons after famous painters or scientists. Although perhaps best known for his portraits of famous people, Peale liked novelty. Look at this slide of his two sons, Raphaelle and Titian, Life Size, climbing a narrow stairway. This painting, the Staircase Group (1795), was exhibited in a doorway as a trompe l'oeil—and it is said that it did in fact 'fool the eye' of George Washington. Even as far back as 1772, we can see his desire for difference in Rachel Weeping. It's a rather macabre portrait of his first wife crying over the death of one of their children, their daughter, Margaret. I'd like to show you one more slide to demonstrate his innovative approach—this is a portrait of his brother, James, sitting at his desk at night with only his face illuminated by a lamp. This was painted much later than the others—in 1822.

You know, Peale believed anyone could learn to paint and he taught painting to his brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, nephews, nieces, and other relatives. Four of his sons, Titian, Rubens, Rembrandt and Raphaelle, became painters as did his brother James.

Before I finish I'd like to tell you a bit more about Peale. He was active in politics for several years and throughout his life he maintained a lively interest in many branches of science. He was also an inventor who gained patents for a fireplace, porcelain false teeth, and a new kind of wooden bridge. He collaborated with Thomas Jefferson on what was known as the polygraph—a kind of portable writing desk—but it wasn't any ordinary desk: this one could make several copies of a manuscript at once. He also wrote papers on a wide variety of subjects from hygiene to engineering. Oh, and he also tried his hand at inventing a fairly primitive but innovative motion picture technique; new types of eyeglasses; and a velocipede (which is a precursor to the bicycle). Now some of the original velocipedes had pedals and some didn't—you sort of scooted along on them using your feet—unfortunately, I can't remember which type it was that Peale worked on.

He's also remembered for his work as a naturalist. He established the first scientific museum in America and he even invented his own system of taxidermy—for those of you who aren't sure what taxidermy is, it's the art of preparing, stuffing and presenting dead animals so that they appear lifelike. He was also well ahead of his time in that he placed his animals in a simulated natural environment. His most magnificent exhibit, however, was the complete skeleton of an extinct mammal known as a mastodon which he helped excavate; the event was memorialized in his extraordinary painting, The Exhuming of the Mastodon.

That is the end of section 4. You now have half a minute to check your answers.