Fleeting Youth

Hurry to see Young America: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, before it leaves the Columbus Museum of Art in Ohio this Sunday.

The exhibition features more than fifty works that trace the transformation of the American colonies into nationhood. Italy by Daniel Huntington presents more than just a pretty face.

This darkly alluring woman—set against a Tuscan landscape—is a muse of painting, an allegorical figure who evokes the artistic achievements of Raphael, Michelangelo, and Leonardo. American artists who studied in Italy, as Huntington did, emulated the past glory of ancient and Renaissance Italy, yet also believed that the New World would inherit a leading role.

Source: Gwen Everett. Young America: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum (exhibition text, Smithsonian American Art Museum, 1999).

Pictured: Daniel Huntington, 1816–1906, Italy, 1843, oil, 35 3/8 x 29 1/8 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase.