In pockets across the South, there has been uncertainty over how to commemorate the sesquicentennial of the Civil War. Some have even questioned if the anniversary of the conflict, which ignited 150 years ago Tuesday with Confederate fire on Fort Sumter in South Carolina, should be observed. Up on Long Island, artist Mort Künstler is riddled by no such reservations.
The native New Yorker concurs with Civil War historian James I. Roberston Jr., who writes in the introduction of Künstler’s 13th collection of War Between the States paintings, "For Us the Living: The Civil War in Paintings and Eyewitness Accounts" (Sterling, $35): "The war is not some closed chapter in our dusty past. It is ... the starting point from which we measure the dimensions of just about everything that has happened to us since."
Much has happened for Künstler, now 79, since he was commissioned in 1982 to do a painting for the CBS miniseries "The Blue and the Gray," soon becoming one of the preeminent contemporary capturers of Civil War history. A strong representation of the work that has dominated the last three decades of his prolific career is being showcased in the touring exhibit "Mort Künstler’s Civil War Art: For Us the Living," just opened at Cartersville's Booth Western Art Museum.
Künstler was already an accomplished illustrator and artist before he became consumed with America's divisive conflict. His professional arc is the stuff of the go-go ad agency world depicted in "Mad Men": working his way up from illustrations for men's and outdoors magazines such as Argosy and True Adventures, to pulp fiction covers and movie posters ("The Poseidon Adventure," "The Taking of Pelham One Two Three"), to Newsweek covers and National Geographic illustrations, to national magazine ads for Fleischmann's Gin and Old Crow, to becoming the go-to guy for all things western and an official NASA space shuttle artist.
All of that was but a build up to his painstakingly researched, often monumental Civil War paintings that bring the conflict to life with wide-screen sweep, cinematic perspective and Technicolor hues. A prime example: "War is Hell!" (2001), a 54-inch-by-88-inch oil on canvas depicting Gen. William T. Sherman astride his steed as Atlanta is engulfed in an orange inferno of flames so dramatic that a gallery visitor can almost feel the heat.
If the show's 40 major paintings -- given context by 80 preliminary sketches, documentary photographs, studio artifacts and other objects -- look familiar, there's a reason. They've all been reproduced on calendars, silk ties, puzzles, ceramic coasters, posters and countless series of limited-edition prints that are all available for purchase, conveniently enough, on his official website, www.mortkunstler.com.
"He is the foremost Civil War artist of our time (if not all time) because of his devotion to truth and detail and history," writes Robertson, director of the Virginia Center for Civil War Studies at Virginia Tech. "To study his paintings is simply to see history alive."
Künstler said he understands that not everyone wishes to see these particular painful chapters of American history come to life again.
"Everybody is embarrassed about slavery," he said in an interview from his home-studio in Oyster Bay, N.Y. "I think blacks are embarrassed about it. I think whites are embarrassed about it." He observed that many Southerners whose ancestors saw duty in the conflict a century and a half ago feel the Confederate battle flag has been "stolen from them by the political right wing."
But while he certainly gets why sales and editions have shrunk of his prints depicting flags flying, he deferred when asked to discuss the war's political sensitivities.
"I’m not a sociologist," he said. "I don’t know what it is. I just like painting my pictures."
Priding himself on the accuracy of his imagery, Künstler draws from a deep library of American history tomes and a jammed Rolodex of Civil War scholars he turns to when the written word doesn't supply him enough visual information. While getting small details right is important, he said, so is accurately reflecting the spirit of a scene.
"I want to make you feel that you’re there and I want to do it in a dramatic and compelling way," Künstler said of his goal.
But after completing his first Civil War canvas, a depiction of Gettysburg carnage, he determined he didn't just "want to paint pictures of guys stabbing each other with swords and bayonets.
"I decided I wanted to paint pictures that my wife would like and the wife of the historians would, too," Künstler said. "I think I was the first ever to paint what you might call genre street scenes, and women and kids in paintings that just happened to take place between 1861 and 1865."
Thus gory images of Gen. Stonewall Jackson leading the charge at Antietam are balanced by a painting of Jackson sharing "A Fleeting Moment" with his wife, Anna, on the snowy streets of Winchester, Va., before galloping off into the shadow of night and the uncertainty of battle.
After completing 5,000 pieces, Künstler feels that his last history canvas, "The Great Chain," depicting Washington at West Point in 1779, is one of his best. Yet turning 80 this summer, and painting six hours a day when he once worked 12, he knows he'll never mine all the rich material the Civil War affords.
"There are hundreds of pictures waiting out of there to be painted by me," Künstler said. "I have lists of them. I read a lot of books. And a sentence that no one else in the world would dream would make a painting is what sparks so many of my ideas."
On view
"Mort Künstler’s Civil War Art: For Us the Living"
Through Sept. 4 at Booth Western Art Museum. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesdays-Wednesdays, Fridays-Saturdays, 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Thursdays, 1-5 p.m. Sundays. Adults $10, ages 65 and over,$8, students $7, ages 12 and under free. 501 Museum Drive, Cartersville. 770-387-1300, www.boothmuseum.org.
Other Civil War sesquicentennial observances
- "Civil War: America's Long Struggle" symposium, 9 a.m. Saturday at the National Archives in Atlanta. Continues at 2 p.m., "Civil War Treasures in Your Nation's Attic," a display and assessment of artifacts and family heirlooms from the war. 5780 Jonesboro Road, Morrow. 770-968-2555. www.archives.gov/press/press-releases/2011/nr11-84.html
- "Civil War Medicine" exhibit opens at the Crawford W. Long Museum with amputation re-enactments at 11 a.m. and 1 and 3 p.m. Friday and Saturday. 28 College St., Jefferson. 706-367-5307, www.crawfordlong.org.
- Candlelight hike at Sweetwater Creek State Park to ruins of Civil War-era textile mill, 8 p.m. April 23. 1750 Mt. Vernon Road, Lithia Springs. 770-732-5871, www.georgiastateparks.org/SweetwaterCreek.
- "Civil War Comes Alive!" 10 a.m.-5 p.m. April 30, presented by the Bartow History and Booth Western Art museums in downtown Cartersville, features cannon demonstrations, music by the Georgia 8th Regiment Band, displays of Civil War art and artifacts, conversations with "soldiers" from the Union and Confederate armies. 770-387-1300, www.boothmuseum.org.
- Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield hosts a talk by Atlanta History Center military historian Gordon Jones, "Georgia on the Eve of War: 150 Years Later," 7 p.m. Monday. 770-427-4686, ext. 0, www.nps.gov/kemo/planyourvisit/events.htm.
- Atlanta History Center hosts the exhibit "War in Our Backyards: Discovering Atlanta, 1861-1865," which uses maps, video and photos to show where the war was fought in the city. Through Oct. 1. The exhibit complements the History Center's permanent Civil War artifact collection, "Turning Point: The American Civil War." 130 W. Paces Ferry Road, Atlanta. 404-814-4000, www.atlantahistorycenter.com.
- The Southern Museum of Civil War & Locomotive History boasts permanent exhibits including one on the Great Locomotive Chase and "Railroads: Lifelines of the Civil War." On May 28, the museum opens a history exhibit about the Atlanta Gate City Guard, with objects to include medals, swords, pikes, a masthead lantern and a LeMat revolver. Many members of this quasi-military group established in 1857 were early volunteers for the War Between the States. 2829 Cherokee St., Kennesaw. 770-427-2117, www.southernmuseum.org.
More information on anniversary observances: www.gacivilwar.org.
Compiled by Howard Pousner
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