Angel of Death by Annalisa Dagnino
Frank W. Benson’s Summer is an allegorical painting in the impressionism genre located in the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Benson uses oil paint as a medium to create a rich color with a wide range from light to dark. Impressionism is based on the practice of painting outdoors and spontaneously ‘on the spot’ rather than in a studio from sketches. This would provide the idea that the woman in the painting was being painted by Benson in real time.
Allegory is used in art when the subject of the artwork, or the various elements that form the composition, is used to symbolize a deeper moral or spiritual meaning such as life, death, love, or virtue. The characteristics of Summer suggest the woman as a depiction of death within the somber and almost motionless appearance of the scene.
The woman depicted in Benson’s Summer appears very fragile and stoic within the painting. The position of her body and arms provide an almost weightless or airborne position. Her angelic features are soft with the dainty structure of her jaw or neck along with the appearance of her collar bones and suggest a very feminine aura around this mystic woman. The woman is framed within the painting due to the stark contrast of the dark trees that seem to form an arc around her body. The trees almost resemble a door as they form a gate or border around her. It can be argued that this woman is a depiction of death due to her soft yet macabre features. Her eyes have a dull and lifeless look as they are clouded in white and gray paint that similarly compares to the hazy film that forms over the eyeball of a deceased individual. Her skin is pale and greatly contrasts the dark colors that take up the space around her. She represents a very feminine and divine character as her arms are outstretched to welcome deceased individuals. Her character is a very unique depiction of the Grim Reaper. In comparison to the dark aura that is usually associated with death, her gentle and motherly features provide her with a delicate semblance of death as she welcomes deceased individuals into another world. The clothes softly float around her body and make her seem weightless and divine like that of a greek goddess. A crown of flowers maintains her flowing hair as nature is depicted in this piece of art. It can be argued that the woman depicted in Benson’s Summer is an angel of death that gently welcomes deceased souls to eternal peace.
Benson’s creative use of oil paint creates an aura of another world around the woman that may represent the heavens and the welcoming of death. The woman generates a divine and feminine power as she seamlessly fills the space of the painting with her gently flowing clothes and outstretched arms. Due to the lifeless nature of the women, she can be interpreted as an angel of death as she welcomes death with open arms. Seeing this painting in the Smithsonian American Art Museum created a new and less used depiction of death commonly used by artists.
Death is usually depicted as an excruciating experience as the Grim Reaper rips us from life. This woman gently takes us from our pain and welcomes us like a mother. Benson is an outstanding artist that uses the rich colors of oil painting to bring this woman to life or even death as she takes us with her towards the divine heavens.
The Modern Medea by Grace Novascone
In 1867, Thomas Satterwhite Noble painted a transformative real-life event that profoundly impacted the way Americans viewed slavery. Born into a wealthy Kentucky family of slave owners in 1835, Noble was a surprising yet outstanding proponent of slave resistance. During the Civil War, Noble fought with the Confederate Army from 1862-1865 until the surrender of the South. After the war, Noble was paroled to St. Louis and began painting. Moving to New York, between 1865 and 1869, Noble produced a series of eight paintings on slave subjects, representing timeless humanatic portrayals of the anti-slavery movement.
The event inspiring Noble’s painting called The Modern Medea, started in the middle of a frigid Sunday night in January 1856, when a 22 year old Kentucky slave named Margaret Garner gathered up her family and raced north across the frozen Ohio River towards Cincinnati and desperately seeking freedom. Unfortunately, Margaret’s master followed just hours behind and soon surrounded the runaways. Thinking all was lost, Garner took a butcher knife and killed her two-year-old daughter Mary, nearly decapitating her. Garner screamed in agony that she would rather see her children dead than return to slavery. She was about to kill her other three children, but the slave catchers ran in and stopped her.
Noble’s painting, the Modern Medea, depicts the aftermath of the murder – not the act itself. The audience sees the pool of blood and might ask themselves who is to blame for this. The reactions from the public and Garner herself are represented in the painting itself. While the men to the left look appalled and the man pointing exudes utter terror, the mother to the right points to her child in an almost accusing manner. Perhaps Margaret Garner is saying, “You made me do this. I love my child, but I would rather her be dead than go through slavery. This is what slavery made me do.” Even though Garner did indeed kill her child, she is standing over the corpse in a fury blaming her white captors.
All the ideals of motherhood seem to be abandoned in Garner’s questionable act – “How could any mother kill their own child?” Nevertheless, Garner is desperate. She would rather her children die than go through slavery again. Garner leaves the audience to decide whether her acts were a heroic or a demonic choice. Noble’s message and influence is powerful in this piece by the color scheme, facial expressions, and small details. However in Noble’s painting it is slightly inaccurate of this historical event; Garner’s son is shown killed, lying in a pool of blood when in fact it was the two-year-old daughter Mary who was killed.
Margaret Garner’s story of her willingness to kill her own child to prevent her from being returned to a life in bondage received national attention. A growing number of people across the country began to view slavery as inhumane, a marked change from seeing slaves as property. Margaret Garner’s child murder captivated the United States, culminating in the longest, most inspirational fugitive slave trial in history. Abolitionists and slaveholders fought over the meaning of the murder, and the case came to symbolize the faults of the Union in those last bleak decades before the Civil War. Even though Margaret Garner died in 1858 from a typhoid epidemic, her story lives on today through countless theatrical productions, Thomas Noble’s oil painting, as well as Toni Morrison’s Pulitzer prize-winning novel Beloved.
Surrender of a Confederate Officer by Penelope Vickers
From the title of the painting, one would expect the main character of the painting to look defeated and hopeless, but instead we see the confederate soldier looking dignified and almost dignified. The reasoning for this could be a number of things, including protecting his child, or simply the termination of thousands of deaths a year. There are many subtle historical references that the artist of the painting includes in this piece, such as body language of all three people as well as the objects they hold.
The audience can see the wife of the soldier on the left, sitting behind her husband, holding their newborn child in her arms. The only person in the painting sitting being the woman could relate to the dominance of patriarchy and suffrage at the time. Although African Americans had just been granted emancipation, the fact that the freed man is standing could symbolize the fact that black men will be able to vote before any women. Another indicator of female stereotypes being incorporated would be how the wife is looking towards her husband with a fearful, saddened expression. Once again, male dominance and characteristics heavily influenced the media back then.
To prove this point, the main figure in the center of the painting standing in a powerful stance is a white, wealthy, male slave owner. The soldier may be surrendering physically, but it is clear that he is mentally undefeated and seemingly anticipating the change that the end of the war will cause. He holds the white flag over his head with a stoic facial expression that lacks fear or remorse, holding a weapon in his other hand. This body language indicates that the soldier might be ready for the war to be over, for better or for worse. The soldier might be losing his slave, but it is possible that he might have had mixed emotions about the war. Such as the loss of Americans overall not being worth the fight for slavery. The free slave on the right is seen looking off into the distance, holding only a very small bag of belongings. This was probably all he was given to live off during the war. He is most likely looking off into the distance, away from the white couple to his right, because they are no longer going to be a part of his future. He may even be feeling a mix of hope and fear due to the uncertainty of his future.
In conclusion, this painting represents the three extremely different mindsets that varying people experienced during the conclusion of the war. Mindsets and feelings are all conveyed through this still image. Whether negative or positive, there was a hopefulness of a better future to come from each person depicted in the painting, while each of them had very different obstacles in their way.
