1775 -1783 · Battle, independence and national memory

The painting of the American Revolution transforms battle, surrender and political debate into civic memory: historical actors become figures of a constructed national narrative.

The American War of Independence first produced drawings, engravings and portraits, then large paintings intended to capture its founding episodes. John Trumbull, former aide-de-camp from Washington and student of Benjamin West in London, meets witnesses, studies faces and brings together the protagonists in readable compositions. His battles favor the moment of crisis: Mercer, Montgomery or Warren fall at the center of a group where heroism and defeat mingle. The surrenders of Saratoga and Yorktown replace the melee with a regulated ceremony, made of diplomatic gestures and uniforms. The surrenders of Saratoga and Yorktown replace the melee with a regulated ceremony, made of diplomatic gestures and uniforms. The surrenders of Saratoga and Yorktown replace the melee with a regulated ceremony, made up of diplomatic gestures and uniforms. The surrender of Saratoga and Yorktown replaces the melee with a regulated ceremony, made up of diplomatic gestures and uniforms. The Declaration of Independence represents not the collective signature, but the presentation of the text to Congress; it transforms the debate into a civic scene. Commissioned for the Capitol rotunda, several of these images become lasting references, reproduced in textbooks and public culture. However, they are not photographs of the past: Trumbull selects, brings together and idealizes in order to make the event intelligible. The selection "American Revolution in Painting" notably compares The Death of General Mercer at the Battle of Princeton and The Surrender of General Burgoyne in Saratoga, October 16, 1777. Its reading favors light.

Trumbull does not copy the event: he gives it a scene, faces and a central gesture capable of becoming memory.