This was the second painting I started in Swedesburg, after Hiroshima. I did it over one long, cold, snowy winter. My friend, Hannah, posed for the central figure. The Battle of Nashville was one of the only Civil War battles fought in the snow. As I understand it, during the Civil War they didn’t fight in the winter.. it was just too cold and difficult to fight in the winter. That’s one of the reasons the war lasted so long. Nashville was a particularly harsh battle, a lot of troops died.
I posed for the Union soldier. Hannah posed for the Southern Belle. We actually shoveled snow from out in the street into the studio so that we could sit in a pile of snow, and I could paint from life. We put down polyurethane so it would be reflective as the snow melted. I was working on it, and I realized it just didn’t quite have what it needed, relationship tonally wise, so one day I started turning the central soldier into a Black slave figure, and it started to make more sense. It became this incredible relationship between this Southern Belle and this slave figure, sort of a Clara Barton image. We also posed outside at Valley Forge. I put three old guys back in the snow, sort of like The Listeners. There is a very phallic tree, and I worked hard on the passing, war-torn sky. I was well into the painting, about three-quarters into it, and thinking “This is a great idea.. nobody has ever come up with anything like this.” Then one morning I walked into the studio and said, “Wait a minute, what have I been thinking.. this is a Pietà!” It hadn’t dawned on me...I had done all the studies and all the planning. “Of course, it’s a great idea.. it’s a friggin’ Madonna.. an archetype!” Valley Forge looks like ChaddsFord.. a frozen tundra Nashville.. Hannah is a half Jewish Southern Belle Michelangelo Madonna...the artist is a Black Union soldier an escaped slave...snow in the studio.. melting.. a surreal dreamtime.. a personal psychology writ large in the guise of history painting.. Some wild stuff!
Currently on view at the Bo Bartlett Center
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