BGuthrie Photos: VA -- Richmond -- Virginia Museum of History and Culture (VMHC) -- The Lost Cause: Myths, Monuments, & Murals (Four Seasons of the Confederacy Mural)

VA -- Richmond -- Virginia Museum of History and Culture (VMHC) -- The Lost Cause: Myths, Monuments, & Murals (Four Seasons of the Confederacy Mural):

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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. VHS4SE_101222_002.JPG: Four Seasons of the Confederacy: Murals by Charles Hoffbauer: In 1913, French artist Charles Hoffbauer was commissioned by the Confederate Memorial Association to paint a series of Civil War murals for the newly constructed Battle Abbey. With the outbreak of World War I, he interrupted his work to serve in the French army, leaving behind the Richmond project that he had only begun. Hoffbauer returned after the war only to obliterate his earlier work, explaining that front-line experience had radically changed his view of war. He began anew. Using the seasons of the year as an allegorical device to suggest the duration of the war, Hoffbauer illustrates the Confederate experience. Beginning on the east wall, the murals progress through the seasons of spring to summer to autumn to winter, from the opening years of the war to its close. They bring to life the vigor, enthusiasm and pageantry that the Confederate Memorial Association believed were the main attributes of the Confederate military experience. The murals were unveiled in 1921 and remain as Hoffbauer left them.
2. VHS4SE_101222_006.JPG: The "Four Seasons of the Confederacy" Murals: These murals, painted by Charles Hoffbauer, were commissioned as the principal decoration for this building, which was erected between 1912 and 1921 as the Confederate Memorial Institute. Conceived as a memorial to the Confederate soldier, it was called the Battle Abbey of the South, and still is popularly known as Battle Abbey. The Confederate Memorial Association merged with the Virginia Historical Society in 1946. Born in Paris in 1875, Charles Hoffbauer received thorough training in French academic painting at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. In 1906, he won the Prix National du Salon, the highest professional honor then available to a French artist. He began work in Richmond in 1913, only to be interrupted by service with the French army in World War I. He completed the Confederate murals between 1919 and 1921. A sensitivity to problems inherent in any selection (and consequent omission) of favorite episodes in the war caused Hoffbauer to render scenes that are unspecific and defy recognition. The artist's goal was to evoke the spirit of the Confederacy, as embodied by its military components. He adapted the history of the Confederacy, the western art tradition of equating seasons of the year with life and the passage of time. The murals are sufficiently grand in scope to enrich the architecture of their massive hall. They are read as a unit, pulled together by a harmony of coloration and composition. They are complex in their detail and sufficiently rich to warrant continued viewing.
3. VHS4SE_101222_009.JPG: The Summer Mural. General Robert E. Lee, Hood-Hampton-Ewell-Gordon-Jackson-Fitzhugh Lee, A.P. Hill- Longstreet-Jos. E. Johnston-Pickett-Beauregard-Stuart. Directly ahead is the Summer Mural. To mark the middle years of the war, when the Confederacy enjoyed its greatest successes, Hoffbauer conceived an imaginary grouping of more than a dozen Confederate commanders. Although no such meeting ever occurred, the artist created a group portrait with an atmosphere of dignity and authenticity. The generals are (left to right): John Bell Hood; Wade Hampton; Richard Stoddert Ewell and John Brown Gordon; Thomas Jonathan Jackson and Fitzhugh Lee, both on horseback; Ambrose Powell Hill, standing with hands on his sword hilt; Robert E. Lee, the central figure, with James Longstreet, holding binoculars, to his right; Joseph Eggleston Johnston, George Edward Pickett, and Pierre G.T. Beauregard, all mounted; and James Ewell Brown Stuart, leaning on his horse. For the figure of Robert E. Lee, the most photographed and most celebrated of the Confederate leaders, the public expected a depiction that would both resemble his best-known images and match his exalted reputation. Hoffbauer successfully developed through his pencil and pastel studies an impressive figure who appropriately dominates not only this mural but also the entire room. Lee's place in history, according to Douglas Southall Freeman, is that of a notable Christian gentleman and great soldier. The fundamentals of the Christian religion -- humility, prayer, faith, and kindness -- were his code of daily conduct. His unique relations with his soldiers, his affection for children, his dignified courtesy, and his self-control gave him legendary status even in his lifetime. Lee was early recognized as one of the greatest of modern soldiers and probably the most eminent American strategist.
4. VHS4SE_101222_014.JPG: The Spring Mural General Thomas J. (Stonewall) Jackson on Little Sorrel, Viewing the Arrival of his "Foot Cavalry" To your left as you enter the gallery is the Spring Mural, depicting Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson reviewing his troops in the Shenandoah Valley. It is a celebration of the early military successes of the Confederacy. Hoffbauer devised an inordinate number of studies for it -- close to two hundred -- because it was one of the initial scenes he developed and because Jackson was one of the principal Confederate figured singled out for adulation in the cult of the Lost Cause. Hoffbauer's human model for the gesturing foot soldier was his favorite, Bob Campbell, a Richmond resident and former stonemason. Not only did Campbell's distinctive physique give an appropriate prominence to the future, but his rough features served as well to suggest the common soldier for the Confederate army. The Confederate Memorial Association wanted to stress that the common soldier was not to be blamed for any wrongs or for the failure of the Confederacy; he acted only with valor. According to historian Douglas Southall Freeman, who housed Hoffbauer while the artist worked in Richmond and talked to the artist about the Confederate generals, even during Jackson's lifetime he was a southern hero, whose "foot cavalry," as his fast-marching infantry was called, was the most famous of the Confederate commands. Jackson shunned display, but he had personal peculiarities that lent themselves to legend. At thirty-eight, he was "Old Jack" to his adoring soldiers, who cheered him tumultuously whenever they saw him and magnified his every eccentricity. He wore a leather-beaten cap and gigantic boots, with the plainest of uniforms. He rode an ugly horse and was often mud-splattered. Hoffbauer, however, chose to downplay Jackson's oddities of appearance. The panel to the left depicts the engagement between the Confederate ironclad Virginia (formerly the Merrimack) and the Federal ships Congress and Cumberland. ... [???]
5. VHS4SE_101222_020.JPG: The Winter Mural. Directly behind you is the Winter Mural, the last of the seasons and Hoffbauer's grim treatment of southern defeat. Because the artist's work had been interrupted for more than four years while he served with the French army during World War I, Hoffbauer returned mindful of the horrors of war. Back in Richmond, he painted this last scene first, because it afforded the opportunity to convey the dramatic reality of battle. He worked laboriously on this mural, producing more than a hundred studies for it. In the end, he shows equipment that is shattered and soldiers exhausted in the cold [???]
6. VHS4SE_101222_025.JPG: The Autumn Mural. Gen. JEB Stuart Leading His Cavalry in a Charge. On your right is the Autumn Mural, which portrays JEB Stuart leading his cavalry on a foray through the Virginia woods. Here, Hoffbauer remembers the later period of the war, when the Confederacy suffered major defeats but enjoyed as well the valor of such figures as Stuart. Though the third scene chronologically, this was the last mural the artist painted. Exhausted by his previous labors and harried by Confederate veterans anxious for a finished product to view after a half century of waiting, Hoffbauer produced this painting with great speed. The final result has a freshness and boldness that suggest the vitality that animated Stuart's cavalry. According to Douglas Southall Freeman, Stuart made the most of the popularity he gained by his daring raids. His patriotism was real and his private life clean, but Stuart had an adolescent love of being dramatically conspicuous. He always rode a splendid horse -- and rode so hard that no animal could long survive the galloping. His gray cloak was lined with red; in the lapel of his jacket was a red flower or ribbon loveknot; his hat was cocked on one side with a star of gilt that held a peacock's plume. In his camp, there was much music and dancing and much jollity, but never any drinking under Stuart's eye, any swearing in his presence. He developed extraordinary skill as an intelligence officer, whom Lee regarded as the "eyes of the army." On Stuart's death, Lee said, "He never brought me a piece of false information." The Autumn Mural is flanked on the left by a panel showing "The Gray Ghost," John S. Mosby, on a midnight raid and on the right by a panel entitled "The Coast Artillery, Confederate Marines."
7. VHS4SE_101222_048.JPG: Colonel John S. Mosby on a Midnight Raid.
8. VHS4SE_101222_064.JPG: The Coast Artillery, Confederate Marines
9. VHS4SE_101222_074.JPG: The mural decoration of this room is the gift of Thomas F. Ryan of Oakridge, VA Contributed through the Hon. J. Taylor Ellyson The painting begun in 1913 interrupted by the European War and finished in 1920 is the work of the French artist Charles Hoffbauer
10. VHS4SE_101222_081.JPG: CSS Virginia Formerly the "Merrimac," First of the Ironclads, Engaged with the Federal Ships "Cumberland" and "Congress" Hampton Roads, March 8th, 1862
11. VHS4SE_101222_098.JPG: Hospital Train. Bringing in the Wounded.
12. VHS4SE_101222_120.JPG: Making the Murals: Studies by Charles Hoffbauer
13. VHS4SE_101222_146.JPG: The Artist and the Murals: The Confederate murals were painted between 1913 and 1920 by Charles Hoffbauer (1875-1957), an accomplished French artist and major prize-winner in 1906 at the Paris Salon. A resident of New York City between 1909 and 1912, Hoffbauer enjoyed acclaim there for both his traditional subjects from medieval history and his very different impressionistic scenes of modern city life. Through the 1920s and 1930s, his paintings were recognized at the French salons, and he produced additional murals both there and in the United States. At the end of a long career -- and the end of the mural era -- Hoffbauer was befriended by Walt Disney and entered the American motion picture industry as a technical adviser and artist. The Confederate murals were the principal accomplishment of his career, the project that inspired magnificent imagery from this former classmate of Henri Matisse and Georges Rouault. Hoffbauer was commissioned to paint the Richmond murals by the Confederate Memorial Association, a veterans' organization that in 1946 merged with the Virginia Historical Society. Following the theme "The Four Seasons of the Confederacy," the cycle equates seasons of the year with the passage of time. Beginning on the left (east) wall, the large murals progress through the seasons of spring to winter, from the opening years of the war to its close. Hoffbauer's paintings ennobled the Confederate experience. Their creation and veneration were part of a resurgent southern nationalism -- the so-called "cult of the Lost Cause " -- whose enthusiasts were determined that the region's past be interpreted in a manner to reinforce the present social order of the South and inspire the future.
14. VHS4SE_101222_148.JPG: The Studies: A graduate of Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, Charles Hoffbauer was thoroughly versed in French academic procedures of painting large-scale themes of grandeur and historical importance. In preparing the Confederate murals, he used a full repertoire of those techniques, illustrated by the studies in this room. These are a sampling of several hundred sketches and more than a dozen models he prepared. Unable to view events fifty years in the past, Hoffbauer by necessity invented the scenes of his murals. His production of imagery was a gradual process. One means by which the artist developed initial ideas of composition was the small ink and watercolor sketch. No less effective a device in the first stages of development were clay and wood models, which allowed Hoffbauer to invent and refine compositions. Literally dozens of very small ink and pencil sketches (arranged on matboard by the artist) were a means to develop precise details of imagery. The small sketches were tested on a large scale in some sixty crayon and pastel drawings, four of which are framed here. Most of the pastels, like most of the small drawings, are rendered on grids, which routinely were used as a means to enlarge and transfer figures from a small to a larger scale. In that process, the details in each small square of a grid is repeated in the corresponding square of a larger grid.
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Description of Subject Matter: Version through 2021:
Four Seasons of the Confederacy: Murals by Charles Hoffbauer
French mural artist Charles Hoffbauer was commissioned by the Confederate Memorial Association in 1914 to paint a series of Civil War murals for the newly constructed Battle Abbey. With the outbreak of World War I, he interrupted his labors and returned to France, leaving his project half completed. He came back after the war only to obliterate his earlier work, explaining that his front-line experiences had radically changed his view of war. The murals were unveiled in January 1921. Today, his work stands untouched. The murals follow the changing seasons and include the Spring Mural, the Summer Mural, the Autumn Mural, and the Winter Mural.
* The Spring Mural depicts Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson reviewing his troops in the Shenandoah Valley.
* The Summer Mural portrays a fictitious gathering of Confederate commanders.
* The Autumn Mural shows J. E. B. Stuart leading his cavalrymen on a foray through Virginia woods.
* The Winter Mural illustrates the misery of an artillery battery in retreat through the snow, its equipment shattered, its men on the verge of exhaustion.

Version Effective in 2022:
The Lost Cause: Myths, Monuments, & Murals
From May 14, 2022
This exhibition explores the history of the Lost Cause as expressed through a cycle of military murals and a sculpture of Robert E. Lee previously on view at the U.S. Capitol.
Square feet: 1,547
Number of artifacts: 4 murals, 1 sculpture
About the Exhibition: The Lost Cause was a widespread effort by former Confederates after the American Civil War (1861–1865) to justify and glorify the Confederacy. The Lost Cause manifested in different ways over many generations—from history textbooks to street names to various forms of memorialization. As with most of their counterparts, the monument and murals displayed in this gallery, as well as the gallery itself, tell us more about the intentions and values of the people who created them than about the historical subjects they depict.
About the Artifacts:
* Commissioned by the Confederate Memorial Association and executed by Charles Hoffbauer, the Confederate Memorial Military Murals were unveiled at the Confederate Memorial Institute in 1921. The Virginia Historical Society acquired them when it acquired the CMA in 1946 as its new home. The murals have remained on exhibit in the south wing of the former CMI building until the present time.
* The Edward Valentine sculpture of Lee stood as one of Virginia’s entries in the National Statuary Hall Collection at the U.S. Capitol from 1909 until 2020, when it was given to the VMHC by the Commonwealth of Virginia.
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