Module 4 Flashcards
The Storming of Teocalli by Cortez and His Troops, 1848
Emmanuel Leutze
The same artist who did the wayward west.
Subject: Learning from the past, invasion of the Aztec empire by the Spanish, but also the Mexican-American war. Naturalistic style. Meant for accuracy, the composition of order, savage vs. civilized, and morally superior.
Old ’76 and Young ’48, 1849
Richard Caton Woodville -
Life on the homefront
Subject: Ambiivlence / Mixed feelings regarding the Mexican-American war
Accurate depiction of both older, revolutionary dress and new dress of soldiers from the Mexican War.
How did this European painter know about the uniforms and ambivalence to the war? Represented here.
Young, service in the Mexican war.
Seeking approval from an older relative. His portrait on the wall is in uniform from the revolution.
AA house servants
Interesting detail
Crack, is a symbol of decisiveness in the political moment.
War News from Mexico, 1848
Richard Caton Woodville
Genre scene, citizens engaging in political life.
Subject: How people learned of what was going on in the Mexican War, through newspapers. White man’s world. Ambiguous responses.
Changes and technological advances
- like the development of the steam engine
- a constitutional legacy like freedom of the press
- spread of literacy
- expansion of transport networks
- mass production ability - newspapers
Quilting Frolic, 1813
John Lewis Krimmel
Genre painting
Representation of African Americans. Slaves conveyed social status. Their depiction is distorted and stereotyped.
Belongings of a middle-income household
Patriotism
Cinque, 1839
Nathaniel Jocelyn
Inspired by the abolitionist movement, challenging stereotypes, opposition to slavery.
AA Evolutionist, Robert Purves, from PN commissioned.
Subject: Cinque, lead rebellion on the boat amisted. Won, return to Africa.
Jocelyn’s support of the abolitionist movement: Romanticised. Noble subject, individualized features, greek/roman clothing.
Palm, exotic origins. Suger cane reference to where he would have been enslaved in the Caribbean.
Copies are sold for $1
Uncle Tom and Little Eva, 1853
Robert Scott Duncanson
We know Duncanson! AA landscape artist. Financial backing trips to Europe. 1 of 2 portraits depicting AA. Subjects from Harriot Beacher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
Arbor, symbol. of education for African Americans and dedication to Christian faith.
Inspired by Illustration by Billings within the book, poet John Greenleaf Whittier.
Slave Auction, 1859
Sculpture
John Rogers
“Rogers groups”, sculptures of groups of people doing ordinary everyday things. Mass-produced. Cast plaster. Affordable.
Man, angry, slavery is an affront to humankind, children cower behind mom, afraid of separation. This didn’t sell well but gave him notoriety.
Negro Life in the South (Kentucky Home) 1859
Eastman Johnson
Genre painting. What constitutes the definition of race?
Slave quarters next to the master house in orthodox architecture, setting the tone for a series of connections between these two living situations. Passing as white, between two worlds. She belongs in both places right now. Connection of blood between the houses, blue scarf allows entry to the window of the masters room. Slinking white cat. Light skinned baby. Unspoken aspect of slavery. Mixed traveler, sniffed out by the dog. The girl’s mom, a house servant, follows behind her.
A Ride for Liberty: The Fugitive Slaves, c. 1862-63
Eastman Johnson
Dread Scott decision.
Few paintings address the experience of the African Americans impacted. This is an exception.
Mid-century figure painter.
Real event depiction.
Family charges for Union lines.
No white saviors. Independent agents of their action.
On to Liberty, 1867
Theodor Kaufmann
He was a union solider.
Represents the lack of a clear path to liberty, or guarantee of what this looks like. Red beads, meaning victory in AA folklore. Blue, amulets of protection. Forked sticks, ward off witches. Anxiety, danger, rocky path.
The Bright Side, 1865
Winslow Homer
Homer, known for camp life.
Published in Harper’s Weekly.
This, an example of his style - no stereotypes of AA. This shows the political side of the war, as told from the AA POV. The title is ironic. They are no longer in servitude, but they are still controlled by the Union soldiers.
Prisoners from the Front, 1866
Winslow Homer
Captures the political side of the war from the POV of the Union and Confederate soldiers. Oil painting. Actual scene from the war, union soldiers - Barlow - capture confederate officers. Battle, Petersburg. This is not a history painting, this does not idealize heroes or narratives from the war.
Ruins of Charleston, SC, 1866, from Photographic Images of Sherman’s Campaign, 1866
George P. Barnard
An iconic image of the Civil War.
Important and respected photographer of this time, little remains. Starts documenting the war in Virginia and Washington. Highlights an artistic sensibility. Concerned with Aesthetics, he composed his photography like a landscape painting. Picturesque Interest.
Ruins of Gallego Flour Mills, Richmond, VA, 1865
Alexander Gardner
He’s Mathew Brady’s former gallery manager, then rival.
Richmond, new capital of the South. Where ironworks and flour mills are located and closer to the front. Burned by confederates when Union troops overtook.
Devastation. Iconic image of Civil War. Dramatic, two glass negatives,
Beatrice Cenci, 1857
Sculpture
Harriet Hosmer
Hosmer trains in Rome.
16c Roman noblewoman, killed abusive father, incest. Depicted here, night before she is beheaded.
Zenobia in Chains, 1859
Harriet Hosmer
Hosmer trains in Rome.
Leader, Palmyrene Empire in Syria Courageous and sturdy. Captured queen. Marched through Rome in chains. Resigned not remorseful.
A subject that defied traditional roles of femininity, Hosmer’s style. Embodies women’s ability to rise above the burdens placed on them.
She produced busts and smaller replicas based on this, a success.
Forever Free, 1867
Sculpture
Edmonia Lewis
Lewis focuses on struggles of AA and slavery. Also part of Roman ladies. She was black, daughter AA father, Native mother, from Boston an abolitionist center.
Subject: Commemoration of the ratification of the 13th, freedom for slaves.
Ideal figures. Triumph. Hope. Emotional impact on AA slaves. First American sculpture to sculpt a black person in American sculpture.
Freedman’s Memorial to Abraham Lincoln (Emancipation Monument), 1876
Thomas Ball
Bronze and stone.
Progressive and conservative.
Standing Abraham L. Kneeling X-slave. Money for this sculpture was fundraised from AA women - Charlotte Scott, VA - 100% paid for by free’d slaves, many x union soldiers. On site of old Lincoln hospital. This is why it’s called Lincoln Square. Western Sanitary Commision tool the money to build.
Lee Memorial, 1890, Richmond, VA
Antonin Mercié and Paul Pujol
Emancipation was not celebrated through monuments in the south, rather Lee and the celebration over the fight for states’ rights.
Absence of AA in monumental structure in South.
Panel of the Memorial to Robert Gould Shaw and the 54th Massachusetts Regiment, 1897, Boston, MA
Augustus Saint-Gaudens
High relief Sculpture. Greatest American Sculpture of the 19c. Depicts Shaw with the first AA union regimen. Real and allegorical, restraint, vitality. Across from MA statehouse. The heavy cost of the civil war and families. Gratitude and memorial to first AA soldiers who early on in war could not fight (racist north) Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation made it possible for AA men to fight. only 598 were alive to attend the final ceremony.
This took 14 years to make. models hired.
Old Indian Arrowmaker and His Daughter, 1872
Edmonia Lewis
Native American representation.
Minnehaha. Represents an excerpt from Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Both subjects are greeting Hiawatha.
Hope for reconciliation between north and south in the war. Old feuds may be forgotten, old wounds be healed … Anglosized AA and Native peoples in her sculptures.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1879
Edmonia Lewis
Best known cultural figures
Poetry shaped Euro views of Native America. He inspired Lewis. From a AA and Native parentage. Made in Rome when she lived there.
Class in American History, Hampton Institute, 1899-1900
Benjamin Johnston
She is one of America’s first Photojournalists. WA DC. Photo Essays on Hampton Institue. Educational Inst. established for AA. her subjects. Paris expo, explains what life is like in the school.
Portrays students learning about Native Americans.
She helped justified their work to help them raise money.
A Dash for the Timber, 1889
Frederic Remington
Oh … westerns. you know this guy. Cowboys and Indians. His depictions were just as must fact as fiction.
Cinque, captured by Spanish slavers, rebelled on this ship, eventually being granted freedom and return to Africa.
Amistead
What was the first foreign war to be covered extensively by American newspapers? Information about this war was readily available. Eye witness accounts are politically biased. Faught after the annexation of Texas. America was victorious. Land received was California and almost all of the Southwest.
Mexican-American War, 1846-48
Who wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin and what is the significance of this work?
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Abolitionist book.
The story was the inspiration for Duncanson’s painting.
Who wrote The Song of Hiawatha and what is the significance of this work?
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
This was a Supreme Court ruling that struck down the Missouri Compromise as unconstitutional, maintaining that Congress had no power to forbid or abolish slavery in the territories.
Dred Scott decision, U.S. Supreme Court, 1857
President Abraham Lincoln issued what as the nation approached its third year of bloody civil war. The proclamation declared “that all persons held as slaves” within the rebellious states “are, and henceforward shall be free.” What year?
Emancipation Proclamation, 1863
What were the years of the Civil War?
1861-1865
Civil War
Captured through photography
Matthew Brady - advanced art to a great and truthful medium. Timothy O’Sullivan, Gardner, Barnard, other great photographers.
What is the year of the Photographic Images of Sherman’s Campaign
1866
Reconstruction Period
1866–77
A term that refers to a group of expatriate women sculptors who worked in a classical style. Coined by Henry James.
White Marmorean Flock
What wars inspired artists?
Mexican War (1846-1848) and Civil War (1861-1865)
What subjects became important?
Those relating to slavery
What emerges as an important medium?
Sculpture in marble and bronze
What is a major area of artistic practice
The public square
An important moment for women’s rights
Seneca falls convention
1848
What new medium is introduced in the 19c that influenced the way that artists captured and documented the wars.
Photography.
He is the one who coined “white marmorean flock” referencing the group of women sculptors in 19c. Rome.
Henry James
Harriet Hosmer was one of them.
What brought American sculptors to Rome and Florence in the 19c?
Proximity to marble Skilled sculptors Cheaper living conditions Art collections A long history of sculpture
