MS01.01.03.B01.F25.021

20

His study of [u] Negro Boy [/u] shows a sensitively painted black lad
sitting in the door of a log cabin playing a reed flute. In 1862, two
years after [u] Negro Boy [/u] was completed and Johnson did a painting
called (SLIDE #37) [u] The Young Musicians [/u] in which a small black
child and man are seen listening in the background to the music.
(SLIDE #38) [u] A Ride for Freedom - Fugitive Slaves [/u] was completed
in 1863 and is said by the artist to be a scene he witnessed at Centerville,
Virginia on the morning of March 2, 1862 when McClelan's troops
advanced on Manassas. 15 Johnson was interested in black life and
is well known for his celebrated work (SLIDE #39) [u] Old Kentucky
Home[/u]. (SLIDE #40) [u] Portrait of a Negress [/u] shows an old woman
leaning forward so as to rest on her walking stick. The portrait was
completed in 1866 as was (SLIDE #41) [u] Fiddling His Way [/u] which
shows a black musician playing a fiddle in the home of common
whites (SLIDE #42 [u] Negro Youth, 1863 [/u])

The talents of artists Emanuel Gottlieb Lentze, born in
Germany, Ferdinand Reichardt from Denmark, Buscher of Switzerland
and Thomas Hovenden, a native of Ireland, were joined with a host
of Americans of the pre-Civil War era and late 19th century to
produce images that mirrored the various ways in which Blacks were
viewed by Whites in American life. [crossed out: Lentze, a painter of
murals in the U.S. Capitol, was caught up in recounting historical
themes (SLIDE # ) such as [u] Mrs. Schuyler is accompanied by a
black servant who carries the lantern which supplies the fire. [/u])

[crossed out: Of equal importance is John Quidar, was a painter of
solid imagination and one who filed his compositions with suspense
and drama. Note the minstrel like characterizations given the
frightened black subject in (SLIDE # ) [u] The Money Diggers. [/u]