Art and The American Civil War

Scenes of John Brown, Battlefields, Freedom Rides & Fugitive Slaves

Sep 20, 2009

The epic clash over slavery and secession between the American North and South would inspire artwork at the time and into the 20th century.

One of the catalysts who brought the intense sentiments behind the American Civil War into actual conflict was the abolitionist John Brown. By 1856, Brown was an ersatz businessman and farmer who had taken his hatred of slavery and turned it into a violent crusade. His first attack shortly after in Kansas left five pro-slavery men dead, while his later raid on Harper’s Ferry in Virginia resulted in the death of two of his own sons and numerous other casualties.

Brown’s original hope at Harper’s Ferry had been to rally slaves into armed rebellion, but the plan failed and Brown was hanged in December of 1859.

John Steuart Curry’s The Tragic Prelude

Regarded as both madman and martyr, Brown was an often-painted figure during and after the Civil War. American Regionalist artist John Steuart Curry’s 1941 The Tragic Prelude presented the fiery vengeance of John Brown as he blazed through "Bleeding Kansas" like a wild prophet — and like the tornado swirling behind him, a force which could no longer be ignored.

Curry had been born and raised in Kansas and was commissioned to create a series of murals for the Kansas state capitol building, including The Tragic Prelude. He took on the project eagerly, but the work he produced troubled conservative Kansan minds of the time. They felt that Curry was choosing images which did not reflect the true values of their state, with the Kansas Council of Women specifically noting Curry’s focus on "exaggerated freaks" like John Brown. The project was stopped and a dispirited Curry left Kansas, dying of a heart attack soon after in 1946. In recent years, however, Curry’s reputation has been reaffirmed, a validation which included a formal public apology by the Kansas state legislature.

Captain James Hope

Captain James Hope served in the 2nd Vermont Artillery for the Union during the Civil War. Hope was an artist before his army service and when he became unfit for active duty due to illness, he filled in as a scout and mapmaker instead. He began sketching what he witnessed during the brutal September 1862 Battle of Antietam, then following the war expanded his sketches into paintings.

Hope showed the real war beyond the glory, with soldiers being wrongly directed into a fatal ambush and delays in the arrival of ammunition allowing the Confederates to resurge at Burnside Bridge. The Aftermath at Bloody Lane details the loss or wounding of thousands of Union and Confederate men in one day, leaving both blue and gray-uniformed corpses heaped along a Maryland country road. The clear skies and smoothly rolling fields and hills of Hope’s Wasted Gallantry are also artistically fascinating and even seem to lead the way in style toward 20th century American Regionalists like John Steuart Curry, Thomas Hart Benton and Grant Wood.

Nicola Marschall

In the Confederate quarter, Nicola Marschall was a German-born artist who made his way to Mobile, Alabama in 1849. He set up a studio and began to establish a portrait clientele, and with the coming of the Civil War, Marschall further found himself involved in the design of the Confederate flag. He is believed to have designed the Confederate uniform as well.

Marschall joined the Southern forces and applied his artistic talents to the drafting of military maps and plans, until the Confederacy’s ultimate surrender in 1865. Marschall produced portraits of both Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis during his career, Lincoln and Davis of course holding the offices of President for the Union and the Confederacy respectively.

Eastman Johnson’s A Ride for Liberty and Cronin’s Dismal Swamp

Eastman Johnson’s A Ride for Liberty: The Fugitive Slaves captured a scene of a slave family racing to freedom on horseback . An anti-slavery artist originally from Maine, Eastman reportedly observed such a ride during the 1862 Battle of Manassas and managed to convey the trio’s sense of anxious independence as they headed north.

David Edward Cronin’s 1888 Fugitive Slaves in The Dismal Swamp, Virginia shows another scene of escape, but more in the sense of hiding than a flight to freedom. Cronin belonged to a New York cavalry unit during the war and was also an artist for Harper’s Weekly. The Great Dismal Swamp is a vast section of marshy dense land between Virginia and North Carolina, and it was a known place of refuge for escaped slaves before the Emancipation Proclamation. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel Dred used the area as a backdrop, and it was additionally the setting for Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poignant poem "The Slave in The Dismal Swamp."

Sources

The copyright of the article Art and The American Civil War in Modern Art History is owned by Meg Nola. Permission to republish Art and The American Civil War in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.