Bust of Washington 1818

Curator: Here we have Enoch Wood’s "Bust of Washington," crafted in 1818. It’s currently held in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, an example of decorative arts rendered in ceramic and porcelain. Editor: It strikes me as very...formal, almost austere, despite being porcelain. There's a cool distance in the figure’s expression, a stateliness. The coloration emphasizes that severity as well. Curator: It’s certainly playing into that Neoclassical ideal. Wood was operating at a time when there was a fascination, particularly in America, with Roman virtue and stoicism, projecting a specific image onto Washington. A nation finding its identity. Editor: And simultaneously reinforcing a very particular narrative about who could embody that identity, of course. White, male landowners are centered, which neatly elides questions of race, class and gender entirely from the construction of American civic virtue. Curator: Precisely. Wood was a prominent figure in Staffordshire potteries; mass-producing these busts helped solidify that image. The decorative aspect is almost propagandistic when considering the wider societal framework. Editor: Thinking about that production –the accessibility of porcelain figures like this versus, say, marble sculpture—it allowed this image of Washington to proliferate more widely, shaping popular consciousness. How complicit was the artwork with that consolidation of elite power and values, versus offering potentially transformative values? Curator: The piece actively participates. By circulating this very specific version of idealized masculine authority through domestic display. It certainly becomes part of the visual infrastructure reinforcing dominant cultural narratives. Even if inadvertently for some viewers and collectors, its effect reproduces this reality and makes it ‘normal’ again, Editor: Thank you for clarifying all of this. Curator: My pleasure. It's in assessing these nuanced factors that artworks continue to challenge us and make us reconsider society from varied perspectives.