Civil War and Reconstruction Art History

Introduction to art of the civil war and reconstruction eras for intermediate art history course

1. “He is a traitor to his race, who does not feel that all within the circle of humanity are his brothers and sisters — that their wrongs are his wrongs, and that his cup is dashed with the bitterness which overflows from theirs. While a single human being, round the wide world, drags the chain or drops the tear of a slave, every other human being, whose heart has not turned to stone, will cry out against the wretch who riveted the one or wrings out the other.” … “This language of Congress is memorable, as it shows that the dignified and enlightened body, under whose auspices the liberties of America were achieved,  still retained an undiminished respect for the great and eternal principles of FREEDOM….’For  extending  the fundamental principles of civil and religious  liberty , which form the  basis  on which these republics, their laws, and the constitutions are erected, to fix and establish those principles as the basis of all laws, constitutions, and governments…'” The American Anti-Slavery Almanac for 1840… New York, NY & Boston, MA, 1839

2. Alexander Gardner, Abraham Lincoln, 1861. Albumen silver print from collodion glass plate negative Matthew Brady, Lincoln “Cooper Union” Portrait , 1860. Albumen silver print

3. Edmonia Lewis, Forever Free , 1867. marble; marble, 41³ x 11 x 17 in. John Quincy Adams Ward, The Freedman , 1863 (cast 1891) . Bronze; 19 1/2 x 14 3/4 x 9 3/4 in. 

4. Augustus Marshall, Edmonia Lewis, c. 1864-1872. Carte de visite .

5. Edmonia Lewis, Forever Free , 1867. marble; marble, 41³ x 11 x 17 in. John Quincy Adams Ward, The Freedman , 1863 (cast 1891) . Bronze; 19 1/2 x 14 3/4 x 9 3/4 in.  “on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and  forever free”

6. Belvedere Torso,

7. Thomas Ball, Emancipation Memorial , 1876. Bronze. Washington, D.C.

8. Edmonia Lewis. James Peck Thomas , 1874. Marble. Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College. Edmonia Lewis, Old Arrow Maker, modeled 1866, carved 1872. Marble. Smithsonian American Art Museum.

9. Currier & Ives Lithography Company, 1872 James E. Taylor, “Glimpses at the Freedmen - The Freedmen's Union Industrial School, Richmond, Va.,” 1866. Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, vol. 23

10. Radical Members of the First Legislature after the War, South Carolina . Photograph. 1878. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress. Reproduction Number: LC-USZ62-28044 (5–11)

11. Thomas Dartmouth Rice, ”Father of Minstrelsy,” origins of Jim Crow laws from 1877 A caricature of President Andrew Johnson’s 1866 veto of a bill to create the Freedmen’s Bureau.

12. Thomas Nast, “A Truce Not a Compromise,” Harper’s Weekly , February 17, 1877

13. Richard Norris Brooke, A Pastoral Visit , 1881. 47 × 65 13/16 in.)

14. Richard Norris Brooke, A Pastoral Visit , 1881. 47 × 65 13/16 in.) Jean François Millet, The Gleaners, 1857. Oil on canvas; 83.5 x 110 cm

15. Winslow Homer, Breezing Up (A Fair Wind) , 1876-9

16. Henry Ossawa Tanner, The Annunciation , 1898. Oil on canvas; 57 × 71 1/4 inches