NEW HAVEN — Last month, America celebrated its 250th birthday. Or maybe survived it would be more accurate. Either way, cultural attention has moved elsewhere. The Declaration of Independence marked a beginning, though, not an ending, and the 250th continues. So do exhibitions inspired by it.
Two currently at Yale are notable for the distinctive approach each takes to the Revolutionary era. “Keeping Alive the Remembrance: Commemorating America’s Founding, 1776-1876,″ at the Yale University Art Gallery, includes just three dozen objects. “Loyalists and Sons of Liberty: America 250,″ at the Yale Center for British Art, has only 16 (though they include paintings by Joshua Reynolds, John Singleton Copley, and Benjamin West). Limited in size as they may be, the shows are large in implication.
“Keeping Alive the Remembrance” runs through Oct. 18, “Loyalists and Sons of Liberty” through Dec. 31.
“Remembrance” is about the Revolution as it lived on in the hearts and minds of Americans for decades after. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first use of “souvenir” in English as “a reminder of a place, person, event” occurred in 1776. The items in “Remembrance” are, if you will, souvenirs of the Revolution, though not souvenirs as we now use the term, meaning knickknacks and personal keepsakes. These souvenirs were about patriotism and citizenship.
There are works of a more museum-conventional sort on display, souvenirs in association but not in manner or mode. They range from John Trumbull’s painting of Burgoyne’s surrender at Saratoga (painted half a century after the fact) to portraits of such eminences as Alexander Hamilton (the famous Trumbull rendering, one of 18 the artist did of the same pose — none taken from life), George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Hancock, Thomas Jefferson, the Marquis de Lafayette.
Less august, but even more engaging, are commemorations from material culture. There’s a sword presented to Lafayette when he returned to the United States for the 50th anniversary of independence. Its hilt bears a portrait of Washington in profile. First in war, first in peace, and first in the scabbard of his honorary countryman?
There’s a selection of earthenware — plates, a platter, a teapot — honoring Washington, Lafayette, and the “Capitol at Washington.” Charming to look at, they appealingly demonstrate what one might call the domestication of democracy.
The show’s most memorable item, even more than that sword, is a quilt that has as its centerpiece a handkerchief bearing the text of the Declaration of Independence. The quilt dates from around 1870 — shortly before the Declaration’s centennial. For a nation so (in)famously dismissive of history, we certainly are alert to anniversaries.
These commemorations implicitly present the Revolution as something heroic and straightforward, even inevitable. Retrospect tends to do that. Ignoring complexity, it smooths out, simplifies, nice-ifies. If that’s not a word, it should be.
At the time, things seemed — they very much were — anything but smooth or simple. All wars are rough and complicated, but the Revolution was especially so. Affiliation, for example, could be confusing. Opposing independence, Tories were no less American than patriots were. Conversely, the American cause had influential supporters on the other side of the Atlantic. Among them were such members of Parliament as Charles James Fox, Isaac Barré (Barre, Barre, Vt., and Wilkes-Barre, Pa., are among the half-dozen US towns named in his honor), and William Pitt, the Earl of Chatham.
“Loyalists” includes a bust of Fox by Joseph Nollekens, the foremost English sculptor of his day. It pairs nicely — or perhaps one should say subversively — with a John Nost bust of George III. (Keeping the king company is a handsome West portrait of his consort, Queen Charlotte.) There’s a Gilbert Stuart painting of Barré. Stuart is best known, of course, for his portraits of Washington. “The Death of Chatham” gets three renderings: a West painting, a Copley chalk sketch, and a print made from the painting Copley later made.
West and Copley (namesake of the square in Back Bay) were born in America. They moved to England to further their careers. Their trans-Atlantic status is a reminder of how much America remained a cultural outlier of Britain.
“Loyalists” includes a Copley portrait of General Thomas Gage, painted around 1768. Gage was already commander-in-chief of British forces in North America and in 1774 would be named military governor of the most rebellious of the 13 colonies, Massachusetts. This gives a startling prescience to the portrait. Gage, in uniform, is seen pointing toward a phalanx of British soldiers in the background. Knowledgeable viewers would have understood this as an allusion to the crushing of the Jacobite revolt in Scotland two decades earlier. If meant as a warning, it went unheeded.
The Gage portrait is very much in the style of Reynolds, the leading portrait painter of his day. “Loyalists” has two portraits by him: of Charles Stanhope, an English aristocrat, and of a young, rather whey-faced Charles Carroll of Carrollton. If that names sounds at all familiar it’s likely because, 13 years after sitting for Reynolds, Carroll signed the Declaration. The “of Carrollton” insured he would have the most memorable name of any signatory (with Button Gwinnett and Caesar Rodney runners-up).
Carroll had two further distinctions. He was the largest slave owner in the 13 colonies and he was the only Catholic among the signers. The wall text notes the first fact, and rightly so, but ignores the second. This oversight seems odd. Or perhaps not: apparently, not all prejudices are created equal.
LOYALISTS AND SONS OF LIBERTY: America 250
At Yale Center for British Art, 1080 Chapel St., New Haven, through Dec. 31. 877-274-8278, britishart.yale.edu
KEEPING ALIVE THE REMEMBRANCE: Commemorating America’s Founding, 1776-1876
At Yale University Art Gallery, 1111 Chapel St., New Haven, through Oct. 18. 203-432-0601, artgallery.yale.edu
Mark Feeney can be reached at mark.feeney@globe.com.