Art as text, war as context: The art gallery of the Metropolitan Fair, New York City's artistic community, and the Civil War.

摘要

This study analyzes a three-week-long art exhibition held in New York three years into the Civil War. It asserts that in April 1864 the city's artistic community created an unprecedented event promoting patriotic sentiment and nationalistic goals that fueled the pursuit of Northern victory. A component of the Metropolitan Fair, this massive art spectacle held the Northern home front's allegiance to the war effort while raising funds for the United States Sanitary Commission, a civilian medical relief agency. The nation's most acclaimed artists, businessmen, and their families created this pivotal moment that culminated years of struggle to establish New York as a center for American art. This landmark event invigorated the city's artistic community to coalesce finally as a cultural, economic, and political force sufficient to transform New York into a national resource for the fine arts, thus heralding the attainment of high civilization in the New World.;Divided into six chapters, this study initially reviews the city's artistic community in the decade before the war. Chapter Two addresses the Civil War as it affected its artists and businessmen. Chapter Three outlines contributions to mobilize the city's home front to ensure the Northern army's health and welfare under the auspices of the United States Sanitary Commission. Chapter Four argues that the Metropolitan Fair taught the value of nationalistic policies, universal participation, and popular sympathy while celebrating a society free from oppression. Chapter Five focuses on how the Committee on the Fine Arts also furthered the goals of the North's propaganda machine. Chapter Six addresses the formal art exhibition as a tangible monument to the city's art-wealth and to Northern prosperity in the midst of national turmoil. It contends that specific paintings were selected because they elicited calculated responses and served as components of an overall reassuring theme suggesting to this wartime audience that the conflict was part of a larger plan destined to run its course. As its legacy, this art spectacle created sufficient momentum and cultural capital to encourage the establishment of a lasting institution dedicated to the appreciation of high art, namely the Metropolitan Museum of Art.