Spiritual Currents and Manifest Destiny in the Art of Hiram Powers - Critical Essay

California and America articulate Powers's response to developments in Europe and the United States toward the middle of the century. As the Old World sank into anarchy and tyranny during the revolutions of 1848, the New, in his eyes, became more harmonious and prosperous. [100] The two works, then, proclaim the republic's mission; in the Capitol, the upward gesture of America would remind legislators that the blessings of union and liberty were heaven-sent; on the other side of the continent, the downward plunge of California's divining rod at Sutter's run would declare to pioneers that material prosperity was also integral to the designs of Providence. Though neither figure was composed on order, habits of thought acquired from Swedenborgianism, Mesmerism, and spiritualism encouraged Powers to designate specific sites for both. The cumulative effect of these doctrines was to reduce or dissolve the traditional dichotomy between matter and spirit, an attitude best described by the term "physical metaphysics. " The two realms were joined in a religion based on experience, one that offered the possibility of seeing, speaking to, and even touching those who had passed on to the next life. Imponderable fluids served as the intermediary, and this principle enabled Powers to update the "supernatural economy" he had known since childhood by moderating its more extreme features. In so doing, he relied on the theory of correspondences to explain how gains in the material sphere might parallel those in the celestial. History bore him out; the great infusion of wealth that accompanied the gold rush was set against a backdrop of spiritual progress inaugurated by Swedenborgianism and accelerated by the advent of spiritualism in 1848. [101] These themes converge in the figure of California; induced to divulge the site of untold wealth by emanations arising from the minerals at her feet, she incorporates phrenological principles of race and Puritan teachings on exceptionalism into a metaphysics based on the doctrines of vitalis m and Manifest Destiny.

Charles Colbert has published numerous articles on American art; his book A Measure of Perfection: Phrenology and the Fine Arts in America (University of North Carolina Press) appeared in 1997. He presently teaches at Portland State University and is preparing a book on the influence of spiritualism on American art [Department of Art, Neuberger Hall, Portland State University, Portland, Ore. 97207-0751].

Frequently Cited Sources

AAA: Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

Bellows, Henry W., "Seven Sittings with Powers, the Sculptor," Appletons' Journal of Literature, Science end Art 1 (June 26, 1869), (Aug. 7, 1869), and 2 (Sept. 11, 1869).

Colbert, Charles, A Measure of Perfection: Phrenology and the Fine Arts in America (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1997).

Wunder, Richard P., Hiram Powers: Vermont Sculptor. 1805-1873, 2 vols. (Newark, Del.: University of Delaware Press, 1991).