Gratuitous Artistic Criticism Criticism

The Royal Gallery's exhibition Citizens and Kings: Portraits in the Age of Revolution, 1760-1830, looks quite interesting. However, I was bugged a bit by something Richard Dorment says in an otherwise informative critique of Gibert Stuart's portrait of George Washington above. Dorment nicely contrasts this portrait with Sir Joshua Reynolds' portrait of King George III to demonstrate the gradual shift from the concept of Divine Rule to that of Rule of Law. However, he then says:

Stuart's iconic portrait looks forward to Jacques Louis David's famous 1812 image of another commoner-turned-ruler, Napoleon.

This statement bugs me because say what you like about Old George, he was no commoner and he would have been mortified to be taken as one. Washington considered himself a Virginia Gentleman, thank you very much, complete with large estate and bona fide coat of arms (on which the design of the Dee Cee flag is based, in case you didn't know).

The American Revolution had little or nothing to do with the kind of social upheaval that eventually produced the likes of Napoleon in France. (Interestingly, the split between Loyalist and Rebel sympathies cut right down the middle of the social pyramid.) Instead, it had everything to do with Northern entrepreneurs and Southern landed gentry banning together to throw off the Imperial yoke so that they could go about their business profitably.

The injection of populist commentary like Dorment's, however much just in passing, clouds that distinction. However, it's a distinction that needs to be preserved, as I feel it to be critical to understanding why the American Revolution ended with the birth of a new, vibrant nation while the French Revolution passed through a hidious period of carnage and bloodshed, leading on to tyranny.