The first publication of a series of lectures delivered by the 19th-century American painter to the New York Athenaeum in 1826, soon after he became president of the National Academy of Design. The four lectures marked an important step in the development of the artistic profession in the United States. Because Morse's audience was more familiar with literature and science than with painting, his strategy in these lectures was to explain the principles of painting, rather than the technicalities, by comparing them with the principles of other arts.