I've long been enamored with the Wyeth school of illustration, to the point that I've sat on the bench in front of his NATION MAKERS, not only to absorb it's impact but to watch the reactions (or lack thereof) of passersby.
Chalk this up to 'the more you know the more you realize you're ignorant', but I only recently discovered this painting.
I see two nameless men dedicated to the job of killing, pared down to only the bare basics for the job on a hot day - even in the depths of a primordial forest. They're caught in a moment of sunlight but to their victims they'd be invisible.
If one or both were discovered by Yankees, could they have become one of the countless skeletons discovered in the Wilderness after the war?
It's alternate title is "CONFEDERATE SHARPSHOOTERS" and unsurprisingly for these times, the museum sorta glosses over it's description.
From the following letter written in August, 1911, it is clear that Wyeth must have used Miller's "Photographic History of the Civil War," published in 1911, as a reference for the Cease Firing images.
http://collections.brandywine.org/o...=653e95ac-c174-4dd1-a737-24b55a8bd2e4&idx=157
It was used to illustrate Mary Johnston's book CEASE FIRING.
"The acclaimed sequel to The Long Roll vividly dramatizes the final years of the Civil War
A Confederate artilleryman from Virginia, Richard Cleave was in Chancellorsville when Stonewall Jackson lost an arm—and eventually his life—to a bullet fired by one of his own men. Now, Cleave is on hand for the long and devastating siege of Vicksburg, a major turning point in the war. When Lee loses his confrontation with Grant at Gettysburg and the Army of Northern Virginia begins its tortuous retreat south, all appears lost for the Confederacy. But there is still fighting and dying in store for the men on the road to Appomattox: The bloody fields of Chickamauga, the Wilderness, and Spotsylvania await Cleave and his compatriots in gray.
Based in part on actual Civil War memoirs and transcripts, including those of the author's illustrious cousin, Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston, Cease Firing endures as one of the most realistic and moving novels ever written about the War Between the States."
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27813645-cease-firing
Related threads
https://civilwartalk.com/threads/so...on-and-stonewall-jackson.113707/#post-1123334
https://civilwartalk.com/threads/wyeth.101593/#post-905788
Chalk this up to 'the more you know the more you realize you're ignorant', but I only recently discovered this painting.
I see two nameless men dedicated to the job of killing, pared down to only the bare basics for the job on a hot day - even in the depths of a primordial forest. They're caught in a moment of sunlight but to their victims they'd be invisible.
If one or both were discovered by Yankees, could they have become one of the countless skeletons discovered in the Wilderness after the war?
It's alternate title is "CONFEDERATE SHARPSHOOTERS" and unsurprisingly for these times, the museum sorta glosses over it's description.
From the following letter written in August, 1911, it is clear that Wyeth must have used Miller's "Photographic History of the Civil War," published in 1911, as a reference for the Cease Firing images.
http://collections.brandywine.org/o...=653e95ac-c174-4dd1-a737-24b55a8bd2e4&idx=157
It was used to illustrate Mary Johnston's book CEASE FIRING.
"The acclaimed sequel to The Long Roll vividly dramatizes the final years of the Civil War
A Confederate artilleryman from Virginia, Richard Cleave was in Chancellorsville when Stonewall Jackson lost an arm—and eventually his life—to a bullet fired by one of his own men. Now, Cleave is on hand for the long and devastating siege of Vicksburg, a major turning point in the war. When Lee loses his confrontation with Grant at Gettysburg and the Army of Northern Virginia begins its tortuous retreat south, all appears lost for the Confederacy. But there is still fighting and dying in store for the men on the road to Appomattox: The bloody fields of Chickamauga, the Wilderness, and Spotsylvania await Cleave and his compatriots in gray.
Based in part on actual Civil War memoirs and transcripts, including those of the author's illustrious cousin, Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston, Cease Firing endures as one of the most realistic and moving novels ever written about the War Between the States."
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27813645-cease-firing
Related threads
https://civilwartalk.com/threads/so...on-and-stonewall-jackson.113707/#post-1123334
https://civilwartalk.com/threads/wyeth.101593/#post-905788
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