page_title: Samuel Addison Shute and Ruth Whittier Shute
section_title: Style
hierarchical_section_title: Samuel Addison Shute and Ruth Whittier Shute / Style
caption_attribution_description: English: Mixed Media
context_page_description: Samuel Addison Shute and Ruth Whittier Shute were a husband and wife team of itinerant portrait painters active in New England and New York State during the 1830s. Ruth Whittier Shute continued painting through the 1870s.
context_section_description: The Shutes were known for their particular art style, which included emphasis on the decorative elements of the subject's appearance, which included clothing, hair, and jewelry. Along with watercolor and oil, the couple would use pastels, collage, gouache, and even gold foil. They were also able to capture expressive and emotional facial expressions with these media.
  The faces has a great amount of detail when compared against the subject's body and clothing, which was a common theme within the couple's portraits. When the face is rendered this way, it gives the viewer a sense of emotion and feeling from the subject. These details found within the face correlate with the intricacies found within the garments when they contained lace or a decorative print. The shoulders of the female subjects angle downward sharply, elongating the figures. Typical to these portraits, the sleeves of the garments appear oversized and rounded compared to the arms, which could appear thin, especially on a male figure. On many of their male and female figures, the torso is short and the waist can be pinched inward, giving the body an hourglass shape.  The backgrounds of these portraits contain intense strokes of watercolor that contain various mixes of blues, greens, and browns. The women's hair was commonly stylized in brown rolls, simulating pinned curls. On the contrary, the males’ hair was commonly short.
  Some subjects can be found sitting, standing, and holding certain objects, relating to the subject in general. For example, a subject could be holding a book, which could represent their intelligence, and decorative elements found on the subject's chair could represent their knowledge and appreciation of current fashion trends and home décor.
caption: Miss Emeline Parker of Lowell, Massachusetts, mixed media, painted c. 1832.
exif: {}