59 year old NC uniform plate.

[major bill]

This is a uniform plate from 59 years ago. I am seeking comments on the changing way we see uniforms illustrated. This plate was state of the art in 1957. New material is added to our collective knowledge every year on both Civil War uniforms and Civil War era civilian dress. The way artists illustrate the uniforms plates has also evolved over the last 59 years. However this plate is very high quality and was likely hand colored in Paris. All in all the plate itself is in excellent condition considering its age. I do love modern uniform art work, but there is something about these old uniform renderings.

 

[7thWisconsin]

There's more movement implied in modern plates, less of the figures standing like mannequins. Also, for quite a while there has been a movement away from reconstructing perfect uniforms and toward depicting uniforms as they get worn, faded, torn, etc. During the Centennial, a lot of artists recreated the colorful early war uniforms, I think because the public was only used to seeing "blue" and "grey" as the choices. The older plate style tends to use less shading in the clothing, so that the viewer can easily determine what color that garment should be, which is very helpful to the miniature painter. They tended to be less concerned about arms and accoutrements than artists now. If a guy liked drawing 1842 muskets, he'd give them to every unit he drew. Cartridge boxes were just black boxes on a strap, etc.

 

[Package4]

I actually prefer the newer plates like those of Troiani, who actually may have an original uniform, of the subject material. Don's paintings and plates are very often derived from reenactors, who are run fairly hard, so that they have an more natural appearance. I can remember being run all over a field with traps flying and sack coat bunching up. Don looks for realism and it shows.

I liken those older plates to the car ads of the 1950s.......

 

[major bill]

Prior to the 1950 nearly every uniform plate show the soldiers as a hero often in dress uniforms even if the dress uniform would not have been worn on campaign. The 1950s move more towards showing the soldiers as real people, but the 1950s plates lacks real movement. In the mid to late 1960s there was still a lot of stiffness to the soldiers. Here is a plate by Preben Kannik ca. 1968.

 

[major bill]

In 1970 this began to change. Gerry Embleton was one of the artist who took stiffness out, added a bit more movement and made the soldiers more human as opposed to heroes. Note some stiffness still exists

But look how Embleton shows the Confederates. They are much more human and are doing things soldiers might do. Soldier No.64 is checking out his shoe. Mr. Embleton is using the plate to tell a story as much as to show the uniforms. Mr Embelton improved on this as time went by