John Singleton Copley in the context of "Entering heaven alive"

The Ascension of Jesus (anglicized from the Vulgate Latin: ascensio Iesu, lit. 'ascent of Jesus') is the Christian and Islamic belief that Jesus ascended to Heaven. Christian doctrine, as reflected in the major Christian creeds and confessional statements, holds that Jesus ascended after his resurrection, where he was exalted as Lord and Christ, sitting at the right hand of God. Islamic doctrine holds that Jesus directly ascended to heaven without dying or resurrecting.

The Gospels and other New Testament writings imply resurrection and exaltation as a single event. The ascension is "more assumed than described", and only Luke and Acts contain direct accounts of it, but with different chronologies.

Visual art of the United States or American art is visual art made in the United States or by U.S. artists. Before colonization, there were many flourishing traditions of Native American art, and where the Spanish colonized Spanish Colonial architecture and the accompanying styles in other media were quickly in place. Early colonial art on the East Coast initially relied on artists from Europe, with John White (1540-c. 1593) the earliest example. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, artists primarily painted portraits, and some landscapes in a style based mainly on English painting. Furniture-makers imitating English styles and similar craftsmen were also established in the major cities, but in the English colonies, locally made pottery remained resolutely utilitarian until the 19th century, with fancy products imported.

But in the later 18th century two U.S. artists, Benjamin West and John Singleton Copley, became the most successful painters in London of history painting, then regarded as the highest form of art, giving the first sign of an emerging force in Western art. American artists who remained at home became increasingly skilled, although there was little awareness of them in Europe. In the early 19th century the infrastructure to train artists began to be established, and from 1820 the Hudson River School began to produce Romantic landscape painting that were original and matched the huge scale of U.S. landscapes. The American Revolution produced a demand for patriotic art, especially history painting, while other artists recorded the frontier country. A parallel development taking shape in rural U.S. was the American craft movement, which began as a reaction to the Industrial Revolution.

Mary Singleton Copley Pelham (c. 1710 – April 29, 1789) was an Irish-American colonial settler. Her son was the artist John Singleton Copley. She operated a tobacco retail and wholesale business and taught education, art, and manners classes. By 1751, she had been widowed twice. Her sons, John Singleton Copley and Henry Pelham were accomplished artists. She was step-mother to her second husband, Peter Pelham's five children.

Henry Pelham (February 14, 1748/49 – 1806) was an American painter, engraver, civil engineer, and cartographer active during the late 18th century. Pelham's many illuminating letters, especially to his half-brother and fellow painter John Singleton Copley, provide an important contemporary perspective of the events of the American Revolution.

Pelham's engraving of the 1770 Boston Massacre, the shooting of several rioters by British soldiers in Boston, was made soon after the event happened. Paul Revere improperly copied Pelham's work and distributed it throughout the thirteen colonies to increase or rouse anger against authorities.

Copley Square /ˈkɒpli/ is a public square in Boston's Back Bay neighborhood, bounded by Boylston Street, Clarendon Street, St. James Avenue, and Dartmouth Street. The square is named for painter John Singleton Copley. Prior to 1883 it was known as Art Square due to its many cultural institutions, some of which remain today.

A banyan is a garment worn by European men and women in the late 17th and 18th century, influenced by the Japanese kimono brought to Europe by the Dutch East India Company in the mid-17th century. "Baniyan" is also commonly used in present-day Indian English and other countries in the Indian subcontinent to mean "vest" or "undershirt".

Also called a morning gown, wrapper, robe de chambre or nightgown, the banyan was a loose, T-shaped gown or kimono-like garment, made of cotton, linen, or silk and worn at home as a sort of dressing gown or informal coat over the shirt and breeches. The typical banyan was cut en chemise, with the sleeves and body cut as one piece. It was usually paired with a soft, turban-like cap worn in place of the formal periwig. An alternative style of banyan was cut like a coat, fitted, with set-in sleeves, and was closed with buttons and buttonholes.