Frank Wright, Painting the Civil War

Gen'l Lee Over Yonder, 1994, oil on canvas, 8" x 10"

Our exhibition After Melville and Whitman, April 9 - July 5, 2013, MPA 2nd floor cases is on view in collaboration with the GW English Department and their hosting of the Ninth International Melville Conference, June 4-7, 2013.  The exhibit gives a contemporary view of how Herman Melville and Walt Whitman have influenced American Art.  Did you know one of GW's Fine Arts Professors is also a Civil War expert?

Frank Wright prefers to express rather than reflect. This may seem quite odd, due to the fact that most of his paintings are historical representations of DC. How exactly can one express the past without reflecting? Wright does this by masterfully blending facets of his life with historical reconstructions of Washington resulting in painstakingly detailed works of art.

This DC native, whose family has been in the area for six generations, paints images of Washington ranging from the old Analostan Island (now Roosevelt) to the original Willard Hotel and Pennsylvania Avenue. It is hard not to notice the incredible amount of detail in every brushstroke, but what one may not notice is just how Wright personalizes his paintings. He explains that you can find many a face of his friends, students, or literary figures (such as Walt Whitman) amongst the various crowds he paints. Such details add a particular touch to the impersonality of history. One thing is certain – Wright is incredibly talented.

He attended American University where he then won the Paul J. Sachs Fellowship in Graphic Arts. This led him to Paris, where he studied prints and woodcuts in depth at Atelier 17.  Gallery Assistant Hannah Spector, recently sat down with Professor Wright to discuss his work, the history of Washington, DC, and where the two intersect:


Hannah Spector: Do you mainly get inspiration for your historical paintings from photographs?

Frank Wright: Well, not exactly. There's no photograph of most of these, I made them up. Mainly
pictures of Civil War reenactments and I saw a guy there that looked like Robert E. Lee, so I turned him, into Robert E. Lee.

HS: I like how you do the perspective of old DC. Have you gotten that mainly from piecing together different sources?

FW: I have a large collection of old photographs of old Washington and my family has also been here for six generations. My grandfather and my family on my mother's side have also been here for six generations. The first one who came here was Washington S. Wright and he came here in 1826 from Alexandria, from old town Alexandria. His father was a hatter and his father before him was as well. They were on Navy Yard Hill, where of course the river traffic was very important in those days. He had a business there during and before the Civil War.

Frank Wright, The Grand Review, 1990-91, oil on canvas, 48" x 96".

HS: Is that why you have such an interest in DC's history?

FW: Well yeah, but I have a general interest in it. Of course being in an early office building just one block from Ford's Theater always meant I had a great interest in that area and I was there for 26 years, across from the Portrait Gallery.

HS: That's a pretty area.

FW: It is now, but it's been through its ups-and-downs.

HS: What's your favorite painting you've done?

FW: This is my favorite image, The Grand Review, 1990-91.  It took place on Pennsylvania Avenue on May 25, 1865 shortly after the President [Abraham Lincoln] was killed and it's based on a reenactment I saw in the early 90's.  The whole cast of Glory, the movie, marched in that parade.  So I ran in front of the parade all the way from 7th street to 14th street to get this image.  It took me well over a year to do.

detail from The Grand Review

HS: Is that Walt Whitman there?

FW: Yes, Walt Whitman.

HS: The detail is incredible, how do you have the patience for this?

FW: Time, time. Well, you know when you do a major project like this it's like doing embroidery where you think it will take its time and it will be finished when it's finished. But yes, this is Walt Whitman and this other man is his friend Pete Doyle and at the time of this parade they didn't know each other, but I decided to put Pete Doyle in it. He was the closest friend Walt Whitman had, very close relationship. These here are the contrabands. You know Washington after the war, they freed the contrabands. They were people owned by other people and they kept them on Mason's Island, which is now Roosevelt's Island. During the war they stayed there.

HS: Where's the Willard in this panting?

FW: Here. It's where Julia Ward Howe wrote the Battle Hymn of the Republic. Now, sometime after this, the present Willard was built around 1900. This is the former building that was there. When I was a child, it was quite a wonderful place filled with World War II activities. People would go down there, and it was "smokeville", everybody smoked and you could hardly see yourself through the smoke. Later on, the Willard went into disarray for a number of years it just sat there without being occupied. Then an enterprising group of businessmen brought it back.

HS: So are your paintings interspersed around different parts of DC?

FW: Yes, and Vienna. But this [The Grand Review] was one of the most ambitious paintings I ever did. Some of my friends were in the reenactment here, so they're in here. I have several of my students and friends in here. And everything is absolutely accurate because I was able to get access at the Library of Congress to pictures that were not generally known. Everybody knows the [Matthew] Brady ones, but they weren't as interesting as the ones I found that showed the streets and the stores. So, all of this is very accurate. Of course there was a welcome home sign in the parade from Washington school children. This is the second day of the parade. The first day was May the 23rd when Meade's army marched down. The second day was Sherman's army, they walked up from South Carolina... Sherman's army had suffered a great deal, but they were excellent in the parade. They marched very well and I have books about the parade.

HS: It's crazy how much history is behind each painting.

FW: I've done some paintings of the encampments along the Potomac.  This one, Watchfires in the Evening Dews and Damps, 1993, was at the Battle of Nashville, Tennessee.  It was a crucial battle in 1864 because Hood's army could never reorganize after that Battle.  It's a compilation of photographs and my imagination. 

HS: Did you ever go to art school or did you just study in Paris?

FW: I went to art school.  I went to American University, which had a great art department.  I also taught at the Corcoran for 4 years.

HS: They just partnered with Maryland.

FW: Yes.  Originally the Corocan School was the art department at The George Washington University.  When I was teaching there, there were GW students in the department.  We had a small department, just about 2 or 3 students at GW.  Then they sent all of them to the Corcoran, especially for painting, sculpture, and ceramics.  When I came in 1970, they lifted me from the Corcoran.  While I was there, they started to soar. 

HS: Do you teach painting?

FW: I am a painter, but I've always taught drawing.  Mainly because there was an opening and I took that person's place.  One of my best friends came a year earlier and taught painting, but we had our studio together, a man named [William] Woodward.  They whole time I was at the Corcoran, he was teaching painting and I was teaching drawing.  Then we both moved to GW and he taught for 32 years and I've been teaching drawing for 42 years.

HS: Can you tell me about your time in Paris?

FW: Well, I had a fellowship to Paris.  It was given to me by the founder of the printed collection of the National Gallery, named Lessing Rosenwald.  He wanted to establish a fellowship in honor of his best friend who got him started as a collector, who was Paul J. Sachs.  I was the first Paul J. Sachs fellow at the National Gallery and from there I went to Harvard and from there I went to Paris.  I didn't realize 'til much later that Paul's mother was Goldman and his father was Sachs.  So, I went to Paris at that time.

HS: Your prints are amazing.  What type are they?

A Man and His Dog, 1970, engraving, 6-3/8" x 4-3/8"

FW: They are engravings and etchings.  There's one around the corner called An Old Man and His Dog.  This fellow was a vagrant who used to go through the trashcans in front of the National Portrait Gallery.  He was an interesting looking character and I though I might be taking a chance but I invited him up to pose.  He lived in one of the boarding houses around, but he wasn't a derelict.  He was sort of an old man that used to ride the railroad.  He was from New Orleans, but I found him very interesting and bright and intelligent.

  

 

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It is evident that Wright knows an incredible amount of Washington history. By injecting history into his paintings, he is able to create pieces which are more than just an image – they are a story, an account, and a depiction of moments in time. His experience and natural ease with the brush make his works important for both the George Washington University, and Washington itself. A number of paintings by Frank Wright are currently on view on the 3rd floor of Gelman Library. For more of Wright's work, go to his website: http://www.gwu.edu/~fwright.

A Battle Scene by Il Bourgognone

One might think that a battle painting must be large in size and bright in color to show the grand chaos of the fray, but this small piece by Courtois demonstrates otherwise. The dynamic energy of the forms and brushwork hold power even four centuries later.

Work of interest: Untitled battle scene with cavalry painted by Jacques Courtois, (a.k.a. Giacomo / Jacopo Cortese, Le Bourguignon, or Il Borgognone), oil on canvas, ca. 1645-1655, 22” x 30” framed, 16” x 25” sight

Provenance: This work came to George Washington University as a donation with the founding of the Eleanor and Michael Burda Collection, which was dedicated in 2003. Mr. Burda had served as an intelligence officer in Europe in WWII before going into the insurance business, and some evidence suggests that he may have acquired the work while on his tour of duty. Although he is neither an alumnus nor a faculty member, he has made contributions to the G.W. Hospital, the School of Medicine and Health Sciences, and the university’s art collection, especially in honor of the doctors who cared for President Reagan after his assassination attempt in 1981.[1] More investigative work could be done on where Burda acquired the painting and where it had been in the previous centuries, though we do know that he thought the work to be of some value. (Read more about Michael Burda and his collection through the Gelman Library’s Special Collections Research Center.)

Conservation notes: There are significant regions of paint loss, especially in the lower right corner. While the painting may have been cleaned in the past, it also retains a layer of varnish, which in some areas has created a muddied effect on the old canvas. This work is in need of some careful cleaning in order to counteract the effects of the varnish, paint loss, and general grime due to age.

Details: fighter riding towards the tower; a painterly horse's head

Who was Jacques Courtois?

Born in Burgundy in 1621 as son of the painter Jean Courtois, Jacques Courtois (along with his younger brother Guillaume) would become known in Italy as Le Bourguignon or Il Bourgognone.[2] After studying under their father, the brothers traveled to Italy around 1637. Guillaume, the younger of the two, immediately began studying art in Rome and Bologna, while Jacques spent time with a fellow Burgundian in Milan and served in the French military for three years. According to a 1910 biographer, Guillaume’s “draughtsmanship is better than that of Jacques, whom he did not, however, rival in spirit, colour or composition.”[3] Apparently, some images of battles rekindled his interest in art, and Jacques Courtois also began to study art in earnest.

In Rome, he painted the subject of the Miracle of the Loaves in the Cistercian monastery but soon gained recognition for his skilled renderings of battle scenes. In Tuscany, Venice, and Florence he worked successfully on battle paintings commissioned by military patrons and also completed a series of twelve etchings of a similar subject. Later in his life, Jacques Courtois took the habit of the Jesuits in Rome in 1655, possibly to avoid trouble after it was rumored that he had poisoned his own wife.[4] As a Jesuit father, he worked primarily in the churches and monasteries around Italy until his death in 1676. Nevertheless, Jacques Courtois is most well-known for his scenes of contemporary battles in small yet energetic paintings, made in a style that departs from the neat definitions of French and Italian art in the Baroque era.

Details: some horsemen in the smoky distance; the central combatants

The battle scene:

Despite its size and aged appearance, this particular battle scene captivates the eyes in shades of red, rust, blue gray, and gleaming white.  The composition centers on a jumble of no more than a dozen mounted soldiers who clash and charge through clouds of smoke towards a fortification on the left. In the center, one cavalryman on a white horse engages another on a dark horse as their armor and swords catch the light. Below them, a fallen steed and crumpled rider lie on the ground near discarded armor and weapons. The robust strength of Courtois’s figures, men and horses alike, takes the forefront and creates a landscape of strong, jostling bodies heavily influenced by the Italian style. The land around them is difficult to distinguish, and one glimpses a horizon only on the right in the distance, where two small riders race away on the plain. Though murky at first glance, this battle scene gives viewers the sense of the effort of a battle, the movement over ground, through smoke, and against other bodies.

- M. Whitman

You can view more works by Jacques and Guillaume Courtois at these sites and elsewhere::

Art Resource

ArtStor

The Louvre Museum's Graphic Arts Database

Kunsthistorisches Museum Database

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Web Gallery of Art

Wikimedia Commons

References:

“Courtois, Jacques.” Web Gallery of Art. Created by Emil Krén and Daniel Marx. http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/bio/c/courtois/jacques/biograph.html.

“Courtois, Jacques (1621-1676)  and Guillaume (1628-1679).” The Encyclopædia Britannica: a dictionary of arts, sciences, literature and general information, Eleventh edition, Vol. 7. Edited by Hugh Chisholm. New York: The Encyclopædia Britannica Company, 1910. Google eBook. http://books.google.com/books?id=CioOAQAAMAAJ&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false. 329.

“Jacques Courtois [French Baroque Era Painter, 1621-1676].” Artcyclopedia. John Maylon, Specifica Inc., 2011. http://www.http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/courtois_jacques.html.com/artists/courtois_jacques.html.

Kinniff, Jennifer. "December Collection of the Month: Michael Burda/Ronald Reagan Inaugural Materials Collection, 1969-2003." The George Washington University Libraries, Special Collections News and Notes, December 5, 2011. http://www.gelman.gwu.edu/collections/SCRC/current-events/december-collection-of-the-month-michael-burda-ronald-reagan-inaugural-materials-collection-1969-2003.

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[1] Jennifer Kinniff, "December Collection of the Month: Michael Burda/Ronald Reagan Inaugural Materials Collection, 1969-2003," The George Washington University Libraries, Special Collections News and Notes, December 5, 2011. 

[2] “Courtois, Jacques,” Web Gallery of Art, created by Emil Krén and Daniel Marx.

[3] “Courtois, Jacques (1621-1676)  and Guillaume (1628-1679),” The Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh edition, Vol. 7, Ed.  Hugh Chisholm, New York: The Encyclopædia Britannica Company, 1910, Google eBook.

[4]  “Courtois, Jacques (1621-1676)  and Guillaume (1628-1679),” The Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh edition, Vol. 7, Ed.  Hugh Chisholm, New York: The Encyclopædia Britannica Company, 1910, Google eBook.