01 Work, The Art of War, John Trumbull's The Death of General Montgomery in the Attack on Quebec, with footnotes

John Trumbull (American, 1756–1843)

The Death of General Montgomery in the Attack on Quebec, December 31, 1775, c. 1786

Oil on canvas

24 5/8 × 37 in. (62.5 × 94 cm)

Yale University

Here Trumbull memorializes the death of a hero of the American campaign against the British in Canada. The diagonal composition, contrasts of light and dark, use of blazing colors, and depiction of action close to the picture surface all heighten the drama. Major General Richard Montgomery had tried to enter Quebec during a blizzard, but after part of his army deserted, British and Canadian troops ambushed the Americans. Wounded by a cannon blast, Montgomery dies in the arms of Matthias Ogden. The snow-covered earth, trees stripped bare of their foliage, and gloom of night underscore the American soldiers’ grief and shock. More on this painting

John Trumbull, (born June 6, 1756, Lebanon, Connecticut, U.S.—died November 10, 1843, New York, New York), American painter, architect, and author, whose paintings of major episodes in the American Revolution form a unique record of that conflict’s events and participants.

After graduating from Harvard College in 1773, he worked as a teacher. During the American Revolution he served as an aide to General George Washington and achieved the rank of colonel.

In 1780 Trumbull went to London via France, but, in reprisal for the hanging of the British agent Major John André by the Americans, he was imprisoned there. Once released, he returned home but subsequently went back to London by 1784 to study with the painter Benjamin West.

At the suggestion of West and with the encouragement of Thomas Jefferson, Trumbull about 1784 began the celebrated series of historical paintings and engravings that he was to work on sporadically for the remainder of his life. From 1789 he was in the United States, but he returned to London in 1794 as secretary to John Jay. He remained there for 10 years. Moving back and forth between England and the United States, in 1808 he attempted portrait painting in London but met with little success. From 1815 to 1837 he maintained a rather unsuccessful studio in New York City.

In 1817 Trumbull was commissioned by the U.S. Congress to paint four large pictures in the Rotunda of the Capitol at Washington, D.C.: General George Washington Resigning His Commission, Surrender of Lord Cornwallis, Surrender of General Burgoyne, and, best known of all, Declaration of Independence. This series, which he completed in 1824, was based on the small and superior originals of these scenes that he had painted in the 1780s and ’90s. In 1831 Benjamin Silliman, a professor at Yale, established the Trumbull Gallery at Yale, the first art gallery at an educational institution in America. Trumbull gave his best works to this gallery in exchange for an annuity. More on John Trumbull

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