Prisoners from the Front
Artist: Winslow Homer (American, 1836–1910)
Original Dimensions: 24" x 38"
Location: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
About Artwork: (1866) "Painted in New York after the Civil War, this work was inspired by the heroism of Homer’s friend Francis Channing Barlow, a Union Army general who captured a division of Confederate soldiers at Spotsylvania, Virginia, in 1864. The artist summarized their confrontation against a ruined Southern landscape while implying class differences between the elegant officer and the disheveled Confederate troops. In 1869 the critic Eugene Benson suggested that the painting transcended a specific event to portray the entirety of the war, noting that the prisoners represented "the elements in our Southern society that fomented and fed the rebellion."" - (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)

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