'The Civil War and American Art' at Smithsonian American Art Museum

This morning's Washington Times featured this article about a new Civil War exhibit at the Smithsonian American Art Museum:


The Smithsonian American Art Museum’s new exhibition, “The Civil War and American Art,” which opens today, has two stars. One is the enslaved black American; the other is Winslow Homer.
The issues of emancipation and racial equality – Frederick Douglass‘ “great, paramount, imperative and all commanding question” – are addressed in some of the exhibition’s most moving paintings.

The exhibit "examines how America’s artists represented the impact of the Civil War and its aftermath. The exhibition follows the conflict from palpable unease on the eve of war, to heady optimism that it would be over with a single battle, to a growing realization that this conflict would not end quickly and a deepening awareness of issues surrounding emancipation and the need for reconciliation. Genre and landscape painting captured the transformative impact of the war, not traditional history painting." 

Hawaii's distance from this exhibit is not necessarily an issue for those of you interested! 

Go to this link for a slideshow of selected works. This link on Flickr features photos of the opening of the exhibit. 

Click this link for a presentation delivered by Eleanor Jones Harvey on six featured paintings.

For educators there is a Teacher's Guide available via download free of charge.