Met Museum: The Civil War and American Art

The current exhibit at the Met Museum, The Civil War and American Art, is primarily of historical rather than aesthetic interest.  Put on display to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, the works exhibited consist primarily of landscape paintings by second generation artists of the Hudson River School, figurative paintings by such artists as Winslow Homer and Eastman Johnson and several albumen photographic prints.  Of all these, only the work of Winslow Homer is worth seeing for its artistic value.

Most prominently displayed are the works of Frederic Edwin Church who, probably not coincidentally, was instrumental in the founding of the museum itself.  His highly sentimental Our Banner in the Sky (1861) in fact serves as the exhibit's avatar on the museum's website.  Certain of his works shown, such as Meteor of 1860, are of doubtful relevance, even as metaphor, to any history of the Civil War.

Of greater documentary value are the paintings of Conrad Wise Chapman and Sanford Robinson Gifford who played similar roles as visual historians though on opposing sides of the conflict.  Chapman was a Confederate and concentrated primarily on views of Fort Sumter and Charleston harbor.  He was commissioned by the Chief of Staff of General Beauregard to create 31 paintings of Charleston's defenses.  His most interesting work on display is Submarine Torpedo Boat, H.L. Hunley (1863) as a depiction of the military technology advanced by the war.  Gifford, on the other hand, was a Hudson River School painter who became attached as a corporal to New York's Seventh Regiment (he was with the 7th when they were sent to NYC to quell the 1863 Draft Riots) and most of his paintings here show the regiment on the march or bivouacked.

The best work contained in the exhibit are the figurative paintings of Winslow Homer.  Their quality sets them apart.  Sharpshooter (1863) is a study of a Union soldier taking aim from high in a tree.  Great care has been taken to show how carefully the subject has balanced himself in his precarious perch as he raises the rifle to eye level.  The Bright Side (1865) is a study of three Afro-American Union Soldiers at ease outside their tent.  Homer's respect for these men's individuality raises the work from a mere propaganda piece to a penetrating character study.  Likewise, Visit from the Old Mistress (1876) is psychologically powerful in its depiction of three former female slaves confronting their former owner.

In distinct contrast to Homer's work, the paintings of Eastman Johnson, a cofounder of the Met Museum (his name is inscribed above its door), rarely rise above the level of stereotype as in Negro Life at the South (1859).  Only his Old Mt. Vernon (1857) catches the viewer's interest for its unorthodox back view of George Washington's estate and of the slaves who worked there.

Of the photographs shown, the most interesting is John Reekie's albumen print Burial Party, Cold Harbor (1865), notable for its depiction of the dead already reduced to skeletons and skulls and for the fact that the burial party consists entirely of Afro-Americans.

There is an "extension" of the exhibit on another floor that features still more landscapes by the ubiquitous Frederic Edwin Church.  These works - enormous canvases entitled The Icebergs (1861), Cotopaxi (1862), Rainy Season in the Tropics (1866) and Aurora Borealis (1866) - have nothing whatsoever to do with the Civil War or the current exhibit.  One feels the museum hung them only as an excuse to take them out of storage.

The exhibit continues through September 2, 2013.