Samuel F.B.

Morse: Artist to Innovator, A Turning Point in Communication

Taylor Walsh Senior Individual Website

Samuel F.B. Morse's painting The Gallery of the Louvre" captured my attention while touring the National Gallery of Art last June during the 2012 National History Day competition in Washington, D.C. I was so enthralled with the painting and the story behind it that upon returning home I decided to make it my topic for this year's NHD theme Turning Points in History. As I began my research, I discovered through Morse's letters his devastation over the Gallery of the Louvre's failure to entice the public and how Morse abandoned painting altogether to focus instead on the telegraph. Very few people I encountered knew of Morse's earlier life as an artist, which made this topic all the more appealing, as did the fragility of Morse's ego when it came to his work. In the early stages of my research, I came across many books that guided me toward my interviews and further research. I came across a DVD on the conservation process of the Gallery of the Louvre, and emailed conservators Lance Mayer and Gay Myers to see if they would be willing to participate in an interview for my project. I met them in New London, Connecticut while back east visiting my brother and discovered an invaluable resource on the painting itself. I also interviewed PJ Brownlee of the Terra Foundation which currently owns the painting, along with author and Samuel Morse expert Paul Staiti. While photographs of Morse's paintings were integral to my project, I have incorporated much of my own work as well to emphasize the visual and artistic aspect this site encompasses. Websites, if created well, can portray information in such a way that is organized and easily digestible. Having designed websites in the past, I felt that this would be the perfect way to display Samuel Morses painting. Websites are interactive and can be seen almost anywhere, making them the category that I saw as a best fit for this highly visual topic. I started with a template on Weebly and adjusted the code so as to change the pen to a paintbrush and created the solid wood background instead of relying on the existing paper overlay for a more cohesive and dramatic effect. After coming up with tabs, I began to put pictures, videos, and text into the body of the pages. Quotes from Morses letters were numerous, and so I chose to use his signature in my banner. In addition, I created animation and an interactive page to help the viewer navigate Morse's famous painting. Samuel Morses Gallery of the Louvre relates to this years theme of Turning Points in History: People, Ideas, Events in that this particular painting and the public's rejection of it constituted a distinct turning point for this one man that ended up altering his focus toward the telegraph; a machine which ultimately laid the groundwork for long distance communication worldwide that still exits today.