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The Confederate Image
The Confederate Image examines for the first time the popular lithographs and engravings cherished by Southerners after the Civil War. Until now, few of the pictures have been reproduced in books, and many have been relegated to dusty corners of museums, unframed and uncataloged. This book establishes the importance of such prints, for they helped revive and sustain Southern identity after the collapse of the Confederacy. If the myth of the Lost Cause was a Southern civil religion, then this book is a study of its icons.
- GenresHistory
Paperback
First published June 1, 1987
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
November 3, 2017
A good survey of wartime and postbellum Southern iconography as represented in popular prints, with twenty colour plates and 120 black&white illustrations. It offers plenty of solid background information about the artists responsible, and about the subject matter of the prints, not so much in the way of in-depth analysis or interpretation of the art.
The authors dabble a little in psychohistory. They argue that the proliferation of Northern prints of the capture of Jeff Davis while disguised as a woman helped defuse hostility toward the South; in a society based on strong beliefs about the importance of manliness, feminizing an adversary gave one psychological permission to dismiss him with a jeer rather than lunge at his throat. The "myth of the Lost Cause" (as conceptualized by Charles Reagan Wilson) is offered as a catch-all explanation for most of the postwar work.
The tone of the text varies startlingly from snippy to sympathetic, presumably a result of the book's multiple authorship.
The authors dabble a little in psychohistory. They argue that the proliferation of Northern prints of the capture of Jeff Davis while disguised as a woman helped defuse hostility toward the South; in a society based on strong beliefs about the importance of manliness, feminizing an adversary gave one psychological permission to dismiss him with a jeer rather than lunge at his throat. The "myth of the Lost Cause" (as conceptualized by Charles Reagan Wilson) is offered as a catch-all explanation for most of the postwar work.
The tone of the text varies startlingly from snippy to sympathetic, presumably a result of the book's multiple authorship.
Displaying 1 of 1 review