‘Liberty Leading’ an allegory for our American landscape

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

When Jaime Cooper was invited to exhibit at Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art at Ligonier Valley, she saw it as “a good opportunity to stretch myself,” she said.

The artist, who has a studio in Ligonier, typically paints portraits on commission, landscapes and figurative works. She moved to allegory, where portraiture morphs to personify an idea or a value rather than a specific individual. Her painting is a commentary on our times.

In “Liberty Leading the People,” a barefooted woman sits in a partially harvested wheat field. In the background is a cluster of fading skyscrapers and the rounded hazy forms of distant mountains. The woman holds strands of red beads that flow like a rosary. Her face is strained and pensive.

Ms. Cooper acknowledges references that range from the rural scape of American Scene Painting to the breaking clouds of the Hudson River School, from the Statue of Liberty to the Virgin Mary.

“I didn't want it to be a religious painting, for example. I wanted it to be a political painting,” she said.

In her artist statement, she writes: “I am referencing a painting by Delacroix from 1830. It commemorates one of the many French Revolutions. But there are some differences. She is in front of a wheat field, ‘amber waves of grain,’ which is in front of what may be the remains of a city's skyline ... and ‘purple mountains majesty.’ So it is an American Liberty.

“Next notice that there are no people. Liberty has lost her followers. Third, notice she is sitting down, not leading, with a quite accusatory expression on her face, staring out at her viewers. Finally, she has blood red beads dripping from her fingers. The red beads are set against a white cloth against a blue dress.

This painting is a warning of one potential future for us, in the hope that humanity chooses differently.”