FIELD: THE EMBARKATION OF ULYSSES

FIELD: THE EMBARKATION OF ULYSSES

by Joan K. Yanni

The painting recently installed in the Folk Art Gallery is an eye-catcher.  In brilliant colors it presents a scene that looks like a stage setting: architectural towers are outlined against a vivid blue sky.  Men in colorful costumes stand on the decks of sailing ships.  Banners are unfurled, trumpeters play, and women in classical garb watch at the top of the steps leading to the sea.  The painting is The Embarkation of Ulysses by Erastus Salisbury Field.

Ulysses was the hero of Homer's Odyssey, one of the Greeks who sailed to Troy to rescue Helen, carried off by Paris. Ulysses and the Greeks then defeated the Trojans through the trick of the wooden horse.  After the fall of Troy, the Greeks sailed home—but it took Ulysses ten years to get there.  When he finally got back to Greece, he found his faithful wife Penelope surrounded by suitors, whom she had kept at bay by promising to choose a new husband when she finished her tapestry, then weaving by day and unraveling by night.

(This painting, on anonymous loan, is of the glorious departure of the Greeks for Troy.  It is a fascinating painting by an intriguing painter). 

Erastus Salisbury Field (1805-1900) was born in Leverett, Massachusetts.  His parents encouraged his sketching of family activities as he grew up, and he went on to study briefly in New York City with inventor-painter Samuel F.B. Morse.  Once home again, he painted portraits; and in his early works Morse's influence can be seen.  Field soon developed his own style, however.  He had a special insight into his sitters’ personalities, and he was able to show their inner spirit as well as intricate details of their clothing, hair styles and homes.

During the 1830s Field was able to support his wife Phoebe and their daughter Henrietta by working as an itinerant painter in Massachusetts and Connecticut.  Some of the best work of his career was painted at this time.

Between 1841 and 1848 Field moved to New York City.  Here, in addition to portraits, he began

to paint history pictures which he copied from engravings. Our Embarkation of Ulysses dates from this time.  It was taken from an engraving, City of Ancient Greece with the Return of the Victorious Armament by the English artist J. W. Appleton, published in London in 1840.  (The engraving, in turn, had been copied from a painting by W. Linton.)          

While in New York, Field also learned the new art of photography (the daguerreotype had been introduced into this country in 1839 by Samuel Morse).

In 1849 the painter was called back to Massachusetts to take care of his ailing father's farm.  Though he still painted, photography had lessened the demand for painted portraits.  Field began to take photographs of his subjects to reduce sitting time, and painted from these images.  Consequently, his later portraits, though realistic, lack the spark of his earlier works.

In 1872 Field conceived the idea for the masterpiece of his old age.  His painting The Historical Monument of the American Republic, which measured 115" x 158", was completed in 1876 on the 100th anniversary of American independence.  It represents history in the grand manner:  towers of varying architectural styles (some similar to those in our painting) rise in the air, and each is keyed to a major event in American history; each national hero is represented.  Field had hoped that his Historical Monument painting would be turned into sculpture, but that was not to happen.

A mildly eccentric painter watched over by his equally eccentric daughter, Field spent his last days in Plumtrees, Massachusetts,.  His legacy is a body of work that reveals the character, taste and look of his New England world, ending with a huge painting of an idealized American dream.

Source:  Black, Mary, Erastus Salisbury Field, Springfield, MA 1894.  Beryl Smith, assistant librarian from Rutgers University, located the image of the source of our painting.