Allston Redux

Abstract Washington Allston had returned to Boston to marry his fiancée, Ann Channing, sister of his school friend, the Unitarian minister, poet and abolitionist William Ellery Channing. During his ensuing three years in Boston, Allston painted mostly portraits, including a striking one of Channing himself (Boston Museum of Fine Arts). It presents the subject gazing at the viewer, his face and white cravat bathed in light in contrast to his black coat and the subdued warm colors of the background. The effect is one of concentrated inner power. E. Richardson points out how the artist had learned from Venetian portraiture the ‘monumental pose and deep chiascuro’ of the Channing portrait.