Visual Arts and War

Early War Art

One of the earliest practitioners of war art in America was Amos Doolittle, who created four engravings depicting the events at Lexington and Concord in 1775; these were the first eyewitness depictions of war in the country and are among only a handful of contemporaneous images of the Revolution. Later, John Trumbull's grand epic paintings, which appeared after the end of hostilities, were inspired by the success his fellow countryman Benjamin West experienced with his stirring canvas of the death of General Wolfe at Quebec in 1759. West, Trumbull, and John Singleton Copley realized that grand heroic tableaux depicting military events might appeal to the art-buying public and began to produce a series of war-inspired paintings suitable for commercial engravings.

The Revolutionary War, as any other war, was followed by a period of assessment, then one of nostalgic overview. In the first decades of the 19th century, illustrated histories of the Revolution began to appear, aimed at exploiting the groundswell of interest in the beginnings of the new republic. Artists and illustrators such as Alonzo Chappel turned their attention to the task of creating representations of the great battles that shaped the country. Historical painting continued into mid-century, epitomized by Emanuel Leutze's canvas, Washington Crossing the Delaware.

The Civil War and Aftermath, 1861–1900

The Civil War spawned countless paintings and illustrations capturing the four years of fighting. Capitalizing on the public fixation with the war, commercial printmakers including Currier & Ives began to produce popular, highly stylized lithographic prints of the battles and personalities. Some mainstream artists such as Winslow Homer committed to canvas the scenes they had witnessed. It was the era of the “special artist” employed by such illustrated newspapers as Harper's Weekly and Frank Leslie's and sent to the front to sketch the events. Homer was among this small, select group, which also included Alfred and William Waud. At the same time, Mathew Brady, Alexander Gardiner, and others were exploiting a ready market for photographic images of the war and portraits of the combatants.

A period of nostalgia for the Civil War set in during the 1870s and 1880s, and artists and publishers responded with illustrated histories and paintings popularizing the conflict. The period saw the serialized publication of Civil War Battles and Leaders in Century Magazine, with sketches by [Page 891]Edwin Forbes and others. At the same time, academic artists, including Gilbert Gaul, William Trego, and Julian Scott (a veteran of the war) began to exhibit war-related canvases at the National Academy and elsewhere, hoping to attract buyers from among the many veterans.

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