Math Enhances the Appeal of Classic American Art

December 8, 2009 

Charles Willson Peale was an American painter popularly known for his iconic portraits of George Washington(1772) and Thomas Jefferson(1791). A recent article in The Wall Street Journal examines Peale's "The Staircase Group (1795)," an intimate portrait of his family life, and the mathematics behind its appeal.  

"The Staircase Group" is a life-size portrait of his two sons, Raphaelle and Titian, climbing a spiral staircase. Painted in the trompe-l'oeil style, Peale installed the painting within a doorframe in his studio, with a real step in front to enhance the deception. According to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Peale's friend George Washington was so misled by Peale's artifice that he tipped his hat and greeted the two young men as he walked by.  

In the Journal article, Princeton's John Wilmerding outlines the mathematics used in the painting.

"Its visual charms lie partly in the combination of beguiling informality and rhythmic clarity," he said. "Peale employs here a zigzag or spiral design, which perfectly suits the casual moment and delicate interruption of the boys' movements."

He also noted the repeated rectangular planes in the stair risers and the crossing diagonals of the treads, legs, and maulstick that he said help unify the animate and inanimate.

"More softening rhythms occur in the oval repetitions of the heads, eyes, the palette, its paint daubs, the buttons, and wallpaper designs," he said.

After garnering considerable success with his portraits, Peale devoted the rest of his life to studying natural science and fostering art appreciation in Philadelphia. He painted "The Staircase Group" for the first and only exhibition of the Columbianum, an artists' association that he founded. Wilmerding describes the painting as "arguably the first major original painting in American art."

"The Staircase Group" is on permanent exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.  

Source: The Wall Street Journal (November 21, 2009)