CIVIL WAR ART
A live, online teacher professional
development workshop
Image Syllabus
Part One
Old Ideals, New Technologies
Winslow Homer, “War for the Union—Bayonet Charge,”
Harper’s Weekly, July 12, 1862
Discussion Questions
How likely was it that Homer witnessed such a battle?
How did he design the scene to bolster home front morale?
How did his image reflect old tactics and old ideals of battle?
Winslow Homer, “War for the Union—Bayonet Charge,”
Harper’s Weekly, July 12, 1862
Winslow Homer,
Defiance: Inviting a Shot Before Petersburg
Oil on panel, 1864
Discussion Questions
How does this portrayal of battle differ from that in Homer’s “Bayonet
Charge”?
How is the battlefield and Homer’s image of it organized around the new
technology of long-range weaponry?
Winslow Homer, Defiance: Inviting a Shot before Petersburg
Oil on panel, 1864
Winslow Homer, “A Sharp-shooter on Picket Duty”
Harper’s Weekly, November 15, 1862
Discussion Question
How does this image make sense of long-distance sharpshooting, a practice
Homer would later call “as near as murder as anything I ever could think of in
connection with the army”?
Winslow Homer, “A Sharp-shooter on Picket Duty
Harper’s Weekly, November 15, 1862
John Rogers, Sharpshooters
Plaster, 1862
Discussion Questions
Is Rogers’ plaster group a celebration or a critique of the
sharpshooter’s craft?
Given that he made it for display in middle-class homes, was it
wise for him to undertake this subject?
John Rogers, Sharpshooters, (front) plaster, 1862
John Rogers, Sharpshooters, (back) plaster,1862
Part Two
Battlefield Photography:
“Bodies in Our Dooryards”
Alexander Gardner
View in the Field, on the west side of Hagerstown road,
after the Battle of Antietam
September, 1862
Discussion Questions
The Antietam photographs were the first images of corpses taken in the
immediate aftermath of battle.
Why were these photographs so shocking?
How did they upset the conventions of heroic death and proper care for
he dead?
Alexander Gardner, View in the Field, on the west side of Hagerstown road, after the Battle of
Antietam, September, 1862
Alexander Gardner
A Contrast: Federal buried, Confederate unburied,
where they fell, on Battlefield of Antietam
September, 1862.
Discussion Question
Why is this contrast significant?
Alexander Gardner, A Contrast: Federal buried, Confederate unburied, where they fell, on Battlefield of
Antietam, September, 1862
James F. Gibson
Home of a Rebel Sharpshooter
July 1863
Discussion Questions
The photographer moved the body and arranged the props before taking the
photo. Why?
What does this tell us about “documentary” photography?
James F. Gibson, Home of a Rebel Sharpshooter, July 1863
John Reekie
A Burial Party, Cold Springs Harbor, Virginia
April, 1865
Discussion Questions
Who is being buried?
Who is doing the burying?
What are the ironies of this image?
John Reekie, A Burial Party, Cold Springs Harbor, Virginia
April, 1865
Part Three
Liberation:
Slaves, Contraband, and Freedman
John Rogers
Camp Life, or Making Friends with the Cook
1862
Discussion Questions
How are the two men joined in this narrative?
How are they separated from one another?
Is this comic, or serious, or both?
John Rogers
Camp Life, or
Making Friends with the
Cook
1862
John Quinicy Adams Ward
The Freedman
1863
Discussion Questions
How does Ward’s protagonist differ from Rogers’ protagonist in Camp
Life?
How doesit feel to take the pose of the Freedman?
What future prospects does his situation suggest?
John Quinicy Adams Ward
The Freedman
Bronze, 1863
“A Typical Negro,” Harper’s Weekly, July 4, 1863
Discussion Questions
How is the before and after contrast constructed, and what is it
supposed to tell us?
Why is the scarred back so prominent?
How does it serve as an icon of the Union cause?
GORDON AS HE
ENTERED OUR
LINES.
GORDON UNDER
MEDICAL INSPECTION.
GORDON IN HIS
UNIFORM AS A
U. S. SOLDIER.
“A Typical Negro,” Harper’s Weekly, July 4, 1863
Winslow Homer
Near Andersonville (At the Cabin Door)
Oil on canvas, 1865-66
Discussion Questions
How does Homer construct the image to call into question
the issues of loyalty and citizenship?
Who are the rightful inhabitants, and who are the occupiers?
Who belongs and who does not?
How does Homer make the point of view problematic?
Winslow Homer
Near Andersonville (At the Cabin
Door), 1865-66
Oil on canvas
Part Four
Aftermath
Winslow Homer
Prisoners from the Front
Oil on canvas
1866
Discussion Questions
How does this painting stereotype the two sides in the War?
How does this connect, or not, with the liberation narrative of Part
Three?
Winslow Homer, Prisoners from the Front, oil on canvas, 1866
Thomas Nast
“Patience on a Monument
Harper’s Weekly, October 10, 1868
Discussion Questions
How and why does Nast parody a typical public monument?
What does this image say about the white South’s perversion of
civic values?
Thomas Nast,
“Patience on a Monument,”
Harper’s Weekly,
October 10, 1868
Thomas Ball,
Freedmen’s Memorial to Abraham Lincoln,
1876
Discussion Questions
Compare this real monument with Thomas Nast’s imaginary one.
What is the slave figure doing, and why?
Ultimately, how is Ball’s monument more fictional than Nast’s?
Thomas Ball,
Freedmen’s Memorial to
Abraham Lincoln,
1876
Elizabeth Keckley
Liberty Quilt
1860s
Discussion Question
How does this quilt function as an alternative memorial to the War?
Elizabeth Keckley, Liberty Quilt, 1860s
For close-up, visit http://dept.kent.edu/museum/collection/keckley.htm