Artists and Illustrators Throughout the Civil War artists were dispatched to the front line to produce illustrations of the conflict for newspapers and periodicals These men were considered reporters and referred to by their papers as special artists Images of the Civil War were relayed to the American public to an extent not seen before in war Although today the best-known images of the conflict are the photographs by Mathew Brady and others the public at the time was more familiar with the black-and-white illustrations produced in periodicals such as Harper’s Weekly and Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper Photography was still in its infancy Cameras did not have a fast enough shutter speed to take action shots so images of battlefield action came from artists sketches In addition many of the photographs taken remained classified until late in the 19th century It was artists and engravers who shaped the public’s view of the war as it occurred Special artists went to the battlefront as artist reporters A few such as Alfred Waud his brother William and Edwin Forbes gained popularity for their individual style and attracted a following Other artists were more anonymous Artists working for the foreign press also produced illustrations of the war notably Frank Vizetelly who covered the conflict from the Confederate side for the British Illustrated London News The specials produced sketches that were made into woodblock engravings to print The style of the artist was partly lost in this process which turned subtle drawing into flat blocked lines Today the original sketches of artists such as Alfred Waud are valued for their delicacy as well as their subject matter Curriculum Context What difference might have made by the public seeing what was happening on the battlefields Classified Declared an official secret by the government Woodblock A form of printing that carves lines into a piece of wood to print 6 Behind the Fighting
Soldier artists Many illustrations were made by soldiers themselves Newspapers included advertisements recruiting artists who were about to enlist Julian Scott and Charles W Reed were among the artists who were serving Union soldiers Scott’s most famous work is The Drummer Boy while Reed produced humorous illustrations for Hardtack and Coffee a popular book published in 1887 Winslow Homer One war artist who went on to become a celebrated painter was Winslow Homer 1836 1910 who worked during the conflict as an artist for Harper’s Weekly Homer depicted the squalor and boredom of camp life while giving his soldiers a quiet grandeur Home Sweet Home 1863 shows a soldier in camp making the most of his makeshift surroundings In Prisoners from the Front 1866 a tall arrogant Confederate cavalryman and two other prisoners stand before their Union captors Homer expertly captures the tension between the men His interest in the way ordinary soldiers looked and acted shaped a new genre of military art Interest from abroad The most famous of the foreign artists who depicted the Civil War was the French Impressionist Edouard Curriculum Context Homer’s war paintings could be included in a discussion of currents and themes in American art in the 19th century Winslow Homer’s Drum and Bugle Corps 1865 Homer was a freelance illustrator who followed the Army of the Potomac He was drawn to scenes of everyday soldier life rather than battle action and produced a number of oil paintings in the genre Artists and Illustrators 7
Alfred Waud made this pencil and white paint sketch at Gettysburg on July 3 1863 It shows swaths of smoke hiding the Union forces just before the Confederates launched their last doomed offensive of the battle Pickett’s Charge Commerce raider A fast ship used to intercept Union ships at sea and seize their cargo Curriculum Context Cole was seen as the founder of the Hudson River School a group of artists who were inspired by the landscapes of upstate New York and the western frontier 8 Behind the Fighting Manet 1832 1883 He painted a battle he witnessed at the French port of Cherbourg between the Confederate commerce raider CSS Alabama and the Union warship USS Kearsarge James Walker meanwhile painted a notable depiction of the Battle of Lookout Mountain The battle was a Union victory and Walker was commissioned to do the painting by the victorious Union general Joseph Hooker for 20,000 Haunted memory Before the Civil War American art had been dominated by the sense of wonder felt by European settlers at the sheer size and richness of the land they had occupied The American painter Thomas Cole 1801 1848 declared that American artists had privileges superior to any other All nature here is new to art Other artists reveling in America’s size and beauty were Frederick Edwin Church 1826 1900 and Albert Bierstadt 1830 1902 William Sidney Mount 1807 1868 and George Caleb Bingham 1811 1879 painted outdoor scenes of everyday American life War brought horrors that demanded and inspired new ways of seeing in its aftermath doubt tension and danger crept into depictions of the great wide-open spaces of North America
Winslow Homer’s postwar work continued to have an undercurrent of psychological tension In The Veteran in a New Field 1865 he painted a Confederate soldier harvesting wheat The empty field feels full of ghosts a reminder that the land was recently a battleground Homer’s near contemporaries Thomas Eakins 1844 1916 and Albert Pinkham Ryder 1848 1917 did not witness the Civil War at first hand but they learned its artistic lessons through the older man’s work Among other noted postwar artists were the Southern veterans Allen C Redwood Conrad W Chapman and William L Shepherd Striking images Some Civil War pictures had an immediate effect on public opinion George Caleb Bingham covered the Civil War His Order No 11 a painting of Missouri residents being driven from their homes by Union troops provoked widespread public contempt even in the North for the army’s conduct Other works eroded the idea of military glory Winslow Homer painted The Sharpshooter 1862 showing a lone sniper sitting in a tree hidden from his target Homer wrote to a friend that this struck me as being as near murder as anything I could ever think of in connection with the army Close to the Battle Curriculum Context It might be interesting to compare Bingham’s painting with images that affected public opinion in later wars such as World War II and Vietnam Artists like reporters photographers and nurses often found themselves in danger The photographer Mathew Brady and the illustrator Alfred Waud were almost captured by the Confederates at the First Battle of Bull Run when they found themselves too close to the action Alfred Waud spent much time with soldiers in camp and in battle and shared their experiences When his work took him onto the battlefield Waud was usually weighed down with drawing gear haversack bowie knife revolver flask and a bedroll Artists and Illustrators 9
