Surrender of a Confederate Soldier

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Surrender of a Confederate Soldier
File:Julian Scott - Surrender of a Confederate Soldier - Smithsonian American Art Museum.jpg
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ArtistJulian Scott
Year1873
MediumOil on canvas
LocationSmithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.
OwnerSmithsonian Institution

Surrender of a Confederate Soldier is an 1873 painting by Julian Scott in the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.[1] The painting depicts an injured soldier of the Confederate States Army in the American Civil War (1861 to 1865) waiving an improvised flag of surrender.[2] The soldier is accompanied by black man and a woman holding an infant: the black man is presumed to be the soldier's slave, and the woman and infant are presumed to be his wife and child.

Imagery and interpretation

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Smithsonian curator Eleanor Jones Harvey included Surrender of a Confederate Soldier in her 2012 exhibition The Civil War and American Art. In her catalog for the exhibition, Harvey asserts that the painting is part of a genre of images, painted in the Union states of the North, that showed the dignified surrender of the Southern soldiers as a way of depicting the emotional trauma of their defeat, the uncertainty of their social and economic future, and the possibility of a peaceful long-term reconciliation between the North and South. The artist served in the Union army and was a Medal of Honor recipient.[3]

See also

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References

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External videos
video icon Podcast: The Civil War and American Art, Episode 6, Smithsonian American Art Museum[4]
  1. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  2. ^ Silkenat, David. Raising the White Flag: How Surrender Defined the American Civil War. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2019. Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  3. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
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