David Gilmour Blythe - Pittsburgh Post Office [c.1859-63] on Flickr.
In his canvasses, Pittsburgh’s David Gilmour Blythe (1815 - 1865) expressed his feelings about the nature of America and its future. In two paintings of the Pittsburgh Post Office, he portrayed the excessively competitive and faceless society that was developing in the young Republic. On one canvas, his loafing subjects plan what appears to be criminal activity. Their faces are neither well defined or individually distinctive. On the other canvas, they compete to see who can get their mail first. With their backs to us, the painting is dominated by a woman’s ballooning hoop skirt. As with economic opportunity, the door through which all would pass was far too narrow to accommodate all applicants. After the Civil War, Pennsylvania’s art would continue to reflect a nation in which new technologies and rapid industrialisation were creating both vast wealth and great inequalities.
[Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh]