Glorious Lessons - John Trumbull, Painter of the American Revolution

The complicated life and legacy of John Trumbull, whose paintings portrayed both the struggle and the principles that distinguished America's founding moment
John Trumbull (1756–1843) experienced the American Revolution firsthand—he served as aid to George Washington and Horatio Gates, was shot at, and was jailed as a spy. He made it his mission to record the war, giving visual form to what most citizens of the new United States thought: that they had brought into the world a great and unprecedented political experiment. His purpose, he wrote, was "to preserve and diffuse the memory of the noblest series of actions which have ever presented themselves in the history of man." Although Trumbull's contemporaries viewed him as a painter, Trumbull thought of himself as a historian.
Richard Brookhiser tells Trumbull's story of acclaim and recognition, a story complicated by provincialism, war, a messy personal life, and, ultimately, changing...