Existing comment:
I shall hazard much and can possibly gain nothing by the issue of the interview . . .
-- Hamilton before his duel with Burr, 1804
Panel 17, 1956
The letter written by American statesman Alexander Hamilton before his impending duel with his political rival Vice President Aaron Burr detailed the motivations and regrets for the encounter Lawrence reimagined. Burr's shadow is in the center of the painting. He has just fired the fatal bullet with his extended arm, causing Hamilton's bloody struggle against his needless death. The black and gray coloration of his clothing repeats in the tomb-like structure of cloaks hiding the "field of honor" on the cliffs below Weehawken, New Jersey, on the Hudson River. Hamilton's black top hat rests next to the ominous shadow of his opponent. This stark palette and its associations with death also appear in the background where a symbolic tree of liberty has suffered a severed limb, a mortal gash, similar to the wound in Hamilton's torso. |