What better way for your children to learn about America’s past than through the work of 19th-century artists and early photographers, who interpreted and captured historic events for future generations?
This summer, you and your family should experience the special exhibition “The Civil War and American Art” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, until Sept. 2, 2013.
A rare collection of some 60 paintings and 18 photographs, created between 1852 and 1877, tell fascinating and profound stories that no textbook or classroom lesson can ever match.
According to museum sources, “Some of the most important and powerful examples of 19th-century American art were made in the years surrounding and during the Civil War. And yet, very few of these works actually depict battle scenes.”
Through creating works that embraced everyday life — such as families on the home front and brave soldiers going off to war — famous artists illuminated a pivotal time in the nation’s history and brought it to life on canvas.
“Teaching art in an historic context enhances our understanding of art, and teaching history through art enhances our understanding of the past. However, we know that artists — even the most devout documentarians — are selective when they choose their subjects and the means by which to portray them,” said H. Barbara Weinberg, Alice Pratt Brown Curator of American Paintings and Sculpture at the Met.
“In turn, viewers bring their personal experiences and feelings to bear when they interpret works of art. Great works of art invite us to return to them again and again to try and discover how they reflect the times in which they were created, and to appreciate — and enjoy — the many ways in which they still speak to us.”
Art is powerful!
This summer, turn one day into a really cool adventure for your kids and teens. Here’s a great plan of action:
Step 1: Coax them away from computers and video games with hints about a mystery trip: tell them they’re going somewhere different and special, but you can’t reveal where.
Step 2: Promise them lunch or dinner out afterward.
Step 3: It can’t hurt to do a little research about the Civil War, beforehand.
Step 4: Then take the subway or bus and spend a day at the museum.
So, how can viewing this exhibition help youngsters learn about the Civil War (1861–1865)?
“By looking very closely at the paintings and gathering information of what they observe, young people can learn what the American landscape looked like, what Americans were concerned about, how people responded to wartime, and what a soldier on the battlefield had to endure,” said museum educator Alice W. Schwarz. “Remember that all works of art are primary resources. Looking at the date of when the work of art was made gives you a lens into an historic time period — what subjects and styles were popular, what tools and techniques the artists were using, and sometimes why the works of art were created and for whom.”
Detailing daily life of American children
Those children were different from your kids, but in many ways the same. They went to school, helped with chores during the war, and wrote in journals and sent letters to friends. They all had stories to tell.
What was it like to be a kid or teen during the Civil War? To watch your dad or brother go off to war and join the Union (the North’s army) or Confederate (the South’s army)?
Recommended reading:
“The Boys’ War: Confederate and Union soldiers talk about the Civil War” by Jim Murphy (includes diary entries, personal letters, archival photographs describing experiences of boys, 16 or younger, who fought in the Civil War).
Did you know that African Americans fought in the Union army?
The author writes: “Generally, boys from the North did not join the army because they had a burning desire to stamp out slavery.
“One boy wrote in a letter, ‘I do not know anything about it, whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing.’
“Many joined because they wanted to take the defiant South and ‘set them straight.’ But most signed up for a simpler reason — to escape the boring routine of farm life and take part in an exciting adventure. Many boys from the South just wanted to defend their homes from a large invading army.”
How did the Civil War impact the lives of families and the American psyche?
It’s hard to believe that at times, neighbors fought against neighbors, and even brothers against brothers. In the exhibition, artists’ masterful brush strokes captured family life. Families who were, in many ways, like yours:
The Blodgett Family — “Christmas-Time, the Blodgett Family,” 1864 (oil on canvas) — was plagued by uncertainty, separation, and loss.
The wall text reads, “William Tilden Blodgett (1823–1875), an art collector and a member of the Union League Club, appears with his family in the serene Renaissance Revival parlor of their house at 27 W. 25th St. in Manhattan.”
The children’s activities allude to the ongoing war and the conflicting attitudes toward African Americans that prevailed, even among supporters of the Union cause. Blodgett’s son plays with a wooden jig doll, painted as a black man wearing a Union Army uniform. The older daughter seems merely curious, but the younger daughter — dressed like Little Eva in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” (1852) — observes the toy with anxiety and grave concern.
The North vs.
the South
Spring, 1861: the tension in the country was like a cinder box ready to ignite, resulting in the Civil War!
Things came to a head after decades of bad blood between the North and South over issues like states’ rights versus federal authority (sound familiar?), westward expansion and, especially, slavery.
And when the anti-slavery Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, was elected in 1860, it caused quite a stir — seven southern states seceded from the Union to form the Confederate States of America; and as the country went to battle, four more joined them.
As war raged, families were torn apart, homes were destroyed, and towns became bloody battlefields.
Lincoln’s eldest son, Robert Todd Lincoln, 22, was finally given permission by his dad and mom to join General Grant’s army toward the end of the war. He always wanted to join, but they feared for his safety.
Do your kids know that slaves were an integral part of Virginia economy? That some toiled on tobacco farms, or were employed in light industry, and others were actually rented out to companies building railroads and mines? Virginians made much of their money buying and selling slaves, exporting them from the state to the cotton fields of the Deep South.
One work on display — “The Cotton Pickers” by Winslow Homer, 1876 (oil on canvas) — depicts young slave girls picking cotton.
Did your kids know that slaves were thought of as property and often took on their masters’ last names? That in the years following the war, some former slaves became authors and businessmen?
The work, “A Ride for Liberty — The Fugitive Slaves,” March 2, 1862 (oil on board) depicts their journey.
The accompanying wall text reads, “Before the Civil War, depictions of black Americans were most often caricatures or stereotypes. Growing racial awareness is reflected in works such as this one, which shows a black family hoping to gain freedom by fleeing to the Union lines.”
Against a chilly predawn glow, the father leans forward, urging on his horse, fearing a bullet, and yet focused on liberating himself and his family. His young son, sitting in front of him, echoes the father’s resolve. The man’s wife sits behind him, clasping an infant to her chest. She looks back, half in fear and watchfulness, half in sorrow for what she might have left behind, however dismal it might have been.
This family symbolizes all who are displaced in an effort to make a better life. Yet, by showing black Americans squarely in the foreground, Johnson elevated them in the national debate.
“The works of art in this exhibition were not intended to document the war,” said Thomas P. Campbell, museum director. “Rather, they chronicle how genre painters, landscape painters, and photographers responded to the coming of the war, the fact of the war, and its aftermath, and how the war changed American art.”
Those who stayed behind
War took a toll on women.
Just like today, for those who remained at home, the end of the war represented a different kind of battleground. Women assumed new roles as they became the heads of households, some temporarily, others permanently. Many soldiers came home injured and emotionally broken; no one knew about post-traumatic stress disorder.
Did you know that wives, daughters, sisters, and other female kin assumed much of the work normally pursued by men — managing plantations, harvesting crops, running businesses — while confronting inflation and slave resistance?
“We felt like clinging to Walter and holding him back,” wrote one Virginia woman, in reaction to a family member’s enlistment. “I was sick of war, sick of the butchery, the anguish.”
The message of unavoidable change and pervasive uncertainty as the war ended infuses the haunting oil-on-canvas work, “The Girl I Left Behind Me,” 1870–75 (ca.1872, Smithsonian American Art Museum).
A partial wall text reads, “A girl stands on a promontory, the horizon obscured by fog. Her fingers hold her place in a small stack of books. The wedding ring on her hand suggests her commitment to her union — but is that a reference to her personal life or to the Union as the nation? She appears to be waiting for a break in the clouds, for some sign of what to expect next in Reconstruction-era America.”
Although buffeted by the wind, she appears determined to stand firm, but she has no clear path forward.
(Watch “Cold Mountain,” a story of women taking over manly roles during the Civil War).
Suggested reading:
• Mary Chesnut’s “Civil War”
Mary Boykin Miller Chesnut; C Vann Woodward (New Haven: Yale University Press, ©1981).
A first-person account of the war from the diaries of a Southern aristocrat (1823–1886), who experienced the disintegration and final destruction of the Confederacy. Writing probably helped her deal with fairly severe poverty.
• “The Diary of Susie King Taylor, Civil War nurse”
Susie King Taylor; Margaret Gay Malone (elementary-junior high school).
Excerpts from diary of a nurse with a regiment of black soldiers fighting for the Union, including her observations on the treatment of “coloreds” after the war.
• Optional: Did your kids know that the Civil War is described as the costliest war ever fought on American soil? Some 620,000 of 2.4 million soldiers were killed, millions more injured and the population and territory of the South was devastated, by the time it ended in Confederate surrender in 1865.
You’ll find symbolic elements imbedded here and there, if you look closely at the paintings — Sanford Gifford’s “A Coming Storm,” 1863, retouched and re-dated in 1880 (oil on canvas), and Frederic E. Church’s “Our Banner in the Sky,” 1861 (oil on paper).
According to Museum sources: “Because the conflict so deeply affected America’s character and visual culture, artists encoded its significance and implications in their works.”
On May 19, 1861, the New York Daily Tribune noted, “Mr. Church has been painting a symbolical landscape embodying the Stars and Stripes. It is an evening scene, with long lines of red and gold typifying the stripes, and a patch of blue sky with the dimly twinkling stars in a corner for the Union.
“The landscape appears to symbolically mourn the dissolution of the Union and the nation — like the edges of the flag — in tatters. It did not appear to address the war directly.”
The painting may give your kids the creeps because it’s linked to Lincoln’s assassination: it was owned by the actor Edwin Booth, the assassin John Wilkes Booth’s brother.
Do you know that during the war, some artists like Homer followed Union and Confederate armies, sketching scenes depicting the physical and psychological plight of ordinary soldiers, and daring commanders and generals, which they turned into oil paintings afterwards?
Winslow Homer’s “Home, Sweet Home,” 1863 (oil on canvas) captures the moment.
It was always a time of uncertainty. Men died for their beliefs, even if they were wrong in the eyes of others. Emancipation came at a great cost, but one man, Abe Lincoln, was destined to set things right.
African Americans who were slaves eventually reunited with their families.
“A direct experience of art can bring history alive, sharpen one’s sense of beauty, and awaken one’s own artistic talent,” said museum educator Mike Norris. “When the whole family experiences art together, even though members may be at developmentally different stages, everyone can discuss the same focus from differing points of view. In that way, family members learn more about each other, while gaining more knowledge about art.”
Teens may want to check out the museum’s Teen Blog and Facebook page and comment on the posts. The show was previously displayed at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
• Optional: “Photography and the American Civil War”
Keep in mind that there are some gory images here — of violence and death — that aren’t suitable for children.
“The Civil War and American Art” exhibition complements this show: an amazing collection of vintage prints, stereographs, ambrotypes, and tintypes.
“Many of the images will be familiar: from Ken Burns’s TV miniseries ‘The Civil War.’ The most unforgettable shots survey corpse-strewn battlefields,” said a museum source.
There are many things kids and teens can get involved with at the museum to keep them occupied, entertained, and informed.
“The Met Museum offers young visitors something onsite every day, whether it is a picture-book reading for toddlers (Toddler Storytime), creating art for two minutes or two hours, inspired by the surrounding works of art (Sunday Studio), or a How Did They Do That? program in the galleries, on how to make arms and armor, taught by Museum specialists,” said Norris.
The 11-to-18-year-old set can enjoy free weekend classes and events that are all about understanding art and exploring the museum through sketching classes, gallery conversations, and art-making studio classes.
Tammy Scileppi is a Queens-based freelance writer and parent who loves New York City. She has been a contributing writer for several community newspapers and writes book-cover copy for a well-know publishing company. Her consumer-focused articles appear on the AngiesList website, and other stories of hers have been published in the New York Daily News and the New York Post.
