Surrender of a Confederate Soldier
1873 painting by Julian Scott
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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.
| Surrender of a Confederate Soldier | |
|---|---|
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| Artist | Julian Scott |
| Year | 1873 |
| Medium | Oil on canvas |
| Location | Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C. |
| Owner | Smithsonian Institution |
Imagery and interpretation
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]
