Call to Duty: N.C. Wyeth’s Civil War Illustrations

This year marks the 150^th anniversary of the beginning of the American Civil War. The process of looking back at that time must also include looking back at previous attempts to look back, including (and perhaps most especially) remembrances around the 50^th anniversary of the conflict’s beginning, when World War I and the question of America joining the fray in Europe plagued the national consciousness. Romance in Conflict: N.C. Wyeth’s Civil War Paintings, which runs at the Brandywine River Museum through March 20^th, focuses on the way that preeminent illustrator N.C. Wyeth envisioned the War Between the States for a new age through the prism of old-fashioned values of honor and duty. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Call to Duty."

[Image: N.C. Wyeth (1882-1945), War (1914), oil on canvas, illustration for War, by John Luther Long, published by Bobbs-Merrill Company, private collection.]

[Many thanks to the Brandywine River Museum for providing me with the image above and other materials for Romance in Conflict: N.C. Wyeth’s Civil War Paintings, which will run at the museum through March 20, 2011.]