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Scenes of battle, bloodshed and cannonball blasts abound at the Late Show gallery this month.
Self-taught Missouri artist Harlan Bonar is a Civil War enthusiast. He has done a lot of reading on the subject and has visited some of the historical sites.
Combining his interest in the period with his artistic aspirations, Bonar began a series of Civil War oil paintings on canvas more than two decades ago.
Thirty-eight of those paintings are on view in an exhibit that demonstrates Bonar’s raw fervor to tell an epic tale of human struggle.
“The Bombardment of Fort Sumter” kicks off the show with an exciting depiction of the event that initiated the war. It features the fort in the harbor of Charleston, S.C., getting hit by a barrage of Confederate artillery under a black cloud of smoke. In the center of the composition, the U.S. flag defiantly flies amid the explosions.
“The Battle of Antietam: Bloody Lane” illustrates the bloodiest engagement of the war. Beneath a tree with bare branches, soldiers fire rifles from a winding trench. Too bad the artist passed up the opportunity to make the painting live up to its title. Although bodies are shown scattered across the Maryland fields, there is little blood.
“The Battle of Hampton Roads” presents one of the series’ few maritime scenes. It beautifully portrays the stalemate between the U.S.S. Monitor and C.S.S. Virginia. In the turbulent blue water, traditional and ironclad warships hash it out to no avail; in the sky, feathery pink and orange clouds form a calm contrast to the conflict below.
Bonar’s works are absolutely striking for their energy and their vivid colors, but they also have limitations. For example, his clouds can appear heavy and overworked. His foliage can appear unnaturally green.
On the rare occasions Bonar scales his figures up, as he does in “Quantrill’s Raid on Lawrence,” his difficulties with the human form are more apparent. Hands are a bit contorted, and heads are disproportionate to torsos.
Many of Bonar’s pictures are painted in such a way that every detail is given equal treatment. As a result, they can be visually overpowering.
Compare his depiction of the Battle of Gettysburg, replete with countless lethal confrontations, to mostly self-taught American artist Winslow Homer’s 1862 Harper’s Weekly wood engraving. In Homer’s print, which depicts a cavalry charge, effects of light and atmosphere emphasize the primary action in the foreground.
Deftly wrapping up the show, “The Surrender at Appomattox” portrays the episode that brought the war to a close. Against a picturesque landscape, the ranks of Ulysses S. Grant stand victoriously before Robert E. Lee’s soldiers, some of whom loaf around barefoot.
One has to ask: What, besides personal passion, compels an artist to draw on the Civil War as a source of inspiration?
Bonar said he wanted to create art about a period that had much to do with who we are as a country today.
By NICK MALEWSKI |
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