National

Focus exhibition: March 6, 1994-April 16, 1995

Jasper Francis Cropsey

The Spirit of War andThe Spirit of Peace

Franklin Kelley, Curator American and British Painting

Jasper Francis Cropsey, The Spirit of War, 1851, oil on canvas, 43 5/8 x 67 5/8 in. (110.8 x 171.6 cm). National Gallery of Art, Washington. Avalon Fund. 1978.12.1.
Jasper Francis Cropsey, The Spirit of Peace, 1851, oil on canvas, 43 3/4 x 67 in. (111.2 x 170.2 cm). The Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia. Charles Knox Smith Collection.


CROPSEY WAR & PEACE In December 1851 the Bulletin of the American-Art Union took note of the most recent works by a promising young landscape painter named Jasper Francis Cropsey (1823- 1900 ):
Mr. Cropsey, who in many respects resembles Mr. [Thomas] Cole, has lately been carrying the resemblance still farther, by painting two pictures in that epico-allegorical style, if we may so call it, in which our great landscape painter delighted. They are large works, measuring each six feet by four feet, and may soon be seen at the artist's studio...they are called the Spirit of War and the Spirit of Peace. 1

Cropsey is best known today not for paintings like The Spirit of War (fig. 1 ) and The Spirit of Peace (fig. 2 ), but as the creator of landscapes celebrating the glories of American autumnal scenery, such as his masterpiece Autumn-on the Hudson River of 1860 (fig. 3 ). Indeed, so thoroughly is Cropsey associated with the imagery of Hudson River School landscape painting that some viewers might be surprised he actually created these elaborate imaginary pictures. Surely what they depict-a rocky, storm-tossed mountain landscape with a heavily fortified castle, knights on horseback, and a burning village on the one hand, and a sunny, semi-tropical coastal scene with classical architecture, a bustling harbor town, and men and women walking, dancing, and conversing peacefully on the other-seems quite literally worlds away from the Hudson River Valley and the Catskill Mountains.

Cropsey's contemporaries, however, would have had no difficulty recognizing The Spirit of War and The Spirit of Peace as being by him, for they considered them among his most important achievements. Exhibited seven times between 1852 and 1857 in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, the paintings were discussed and praised in leading newspapers and journals. However, not long after this widespread public exposure they dropped from view, accessible only in the private home of Joseph Harrison, Jr., a leading Philadelphia collector. 2 In 1912 , when Harrison's estate was sold, the pictures went to different buyers, separated after sixty-one years. The Spirit of Peace did not go far, for it joined the private collection of Charles Knox Smith, another Philadelphian, in his grand Chestnut Hill house (now the Woodmere Art Museum). The Spirit of War was not so fortunate, and gradually slipped into obscurity. In 1978 it was rediscovered in a barn in the Adirondack region of New York State, miraculously preserved in excellent condition, and still housed in an original gilt frame identical to that on The Spirit of Peace. This exhibition marks the first time since 1857 the two paintings have appeared together publically. Now that they can be seen and understood in the way Cropsey intended-as pendants exploring a complex series of ideas and employing a carefully constructed system of contrasting elements- The Spirit of War and The Spirit of Peace can legitimately reclaim their place of prominence among the artist's most important works.


Cropsey's Early Career
Jasper Francis Cropsey was born in Rossville, on Staten Island, New York on 18 February 1823 . At an early age he became interested in architecture and in 1837- 1842 worked as an apprentice in the office of a New York city architect. In 1843 Cropsey established his own architectural practice in New York, but he also began exhibiting paintings. In 1844 he was elected an associate of the National Academy of Design in New York, an event that signalled his intentions to pursue a career as a painter. Following his marriage in May 1847 , Cropsey traveled extensively in Europe, visiting England, France, and Italy. While in Rome in 1847- 1848 he used the same studio that Thomas Cole ( 1801- 1848 ) had occupied in 1841- 1842 when he painted the replica set (now in the National Gallery) of his famous four-canvas series The Voyage of Life. Cropsey returned to America in 1849 , intent on establishing his reputation as a landscape painter; he began exhibiting his works regularly and was elected to full membership in the National Academy in 1851 .

Landscape painting underwent a remarkable development during the first half of the nineteenth century in America, rising from relative obscurity to preeminence. This was due largely to the efforts of Cole, whose dramatic wilderness images such as Sunrise in the Catskills ( 1826 , National Gallery of Art), found immediate favor with patrons and critics. Cole was much indebted to European prototypes, in particular the works of such revered landscape painters as Salvator Rosa ( 1615- 1673 ) and Claude Lorrain ( 1620- 1691 ), but he tempered these foreign influences with a close study of American nature. His finished landscapes employed effects of composition and lighting that paid homage to the grand traditions of art embodied by Old Masters, but were also innovative in the way they captured the actual look and feel of American scenery. In spite of his early success, Cole was not long content with painting only pure landscapes, for his overriding ambition was to create what he called "a higher style of landscape" in which he could express complex ideas about man and his place in the world. 3 Realizing that paired pictures would allow for greater thematic development, he created in 1827- 1828 his first efforts in this "higher style," The Garden of Eden (fig. 4 ) and Expulsion from the Garden of Eden (fig. 5 ).

During the 1830 s and until his untimely death in 1848 , Cole divided his time between painting relatively straightforward landscapes, sometimes of New World scenes (for example, The Notch of The White Mountains (Crawford Notch) ( 1839 , National Gallery of Art), other times of Old World subjects ( Italian Coast Scene with Ruined Tower, 1838 , National Gallery of Art), and elaborate serial images such as The Voyage of Life. Other artists, such as Asher B. Durand ( 1796- 1886 ), were encouraged by Cole's success and also became full-time landscape painters in the 1840 s, as did Cole's most significant pupil, Frederic Edwin Church ( 1826- 1900 ). And Jasper Cropsey, as we have seen, turned his attention from architecture to landscape painting in 1843, no doubt also inspired by Cole.

Many of Cropsey's early works are meticulous, close-up views that suggest his natural inclination was for a highly realistic depiction of nature. In fact, he stated his beliefs clearly in an 1845 lecture: "I find in recalling to mind those [artists] that have the greatest works (I have reference to landscape only) have been the most attentive to nature...their best works or the works that met with the most admiration, are their nearest approaches to nature." 4 Nevertheless, Cropsey also felt the pull of Cole's "higher style of landscape," as did Durand, Church, and others. Thus, in the early years of his career he also created several imaginary works based on sources from literature and poetry. In the years immediately after Cole's death Cropsey faced a dilemma that was shared by other aspiring American landscape painters. Should he follow Cole's example as the painter of American landscapes or emulate the higher style of painting Cole considered far more important? There is ample evidence that Cropsey, in addition to advocating "the nearest approaches to Nature," also deeply admired the power of Cole's imagination. As he said after Cole's death: "Though the man has departed, yet he has left a spell behind him that is not broken...we feel more than ever the devotion, genius and spirit of the man." 5 Not everyone, however, was equally affected by that spell, for even during Cole's lifetime some critics and patrons expressed their preference for recognizable depictions of American (and, to a lesser extent, European) scenes. By the late 1840 s and early 1850 s, as the "truth to nature" aesthetic of the English writer John Ruskin became widely influential in America, the critical debate over real versus imaginary landscapes became even more strident. Some critics argued that promising landscape painters like Cropsey and Church should abandon imaginary painting altogether, considering it ill-suited to the needs of a nation that was still establishing its own cultural identity. It would be better, they suggested, to attend to the "truth" of American nature than to use paint and canvas to teach moral lessons or strive for poetic sentiment.

Cropsey was surely aware of these conflicting opinions, and he doubtless realized that critical and economic success might eventually depend on acceding to the changing taste. But when he painted The Spirit of War and The Spirit of Peace Cropsey had clearly not abandoned his allegiance to Cole's higher style. Although hardly an unknown in the world of American art, he was not yet in 1851 reckoned one of its leaders. Cole's death had left a vacuum, and talented men like Durand and Church were vying for the premier spot among American landscape painters. One way to demonstrate a full mastery of landscape painting was to conceive and execute complex and dramatic imaginary works that would rival anything Cole had ever done. Thus it was that Durand painted his Landscape, Scene from "Thanatopsis" ( 1850 , Metropolitan Museum of Art) and God's Judgment Upon Gog ( 1852 , Chrysler Museum, Norfolk), and Church created The Plague of Darkness in 1849 and The Deluge in 1851 (both unlocated). And thus it was, too, that Cropsey, in emulation of Cole and in competition with his fellow artists, created The Spirit of War and The Spirit of Peace. At a time when the influence of Cole's "higher style" was at its greatest, Cropsey's pair is arguably the clearest and most fully expressed evidence of that influence, and the most faithful to the departed painter's lofty ideals. As a contemporary observed: "The subjects are treated in the true spirit of poetry, abounding in all the excellencies which gave the lamented Cole such empire over the feelings of the soul." 6

Creating Images of War and Peace
We do not know with certainty why Cropsey chose the theme of war and peace for his pair of pictures, but the seriousness of his intentions was clear. Not only were these the largest canvases he had yet attempted, they were by far the most complicated in composition and the most complex in conception. The Spirit of War and The Spirit of Peace were, he said, his "first efforts in this class of art," and in them he hoped "to express on canvass [ sic] the highest intellectual expressions" (see Appendix). The very fact that Cropsey chose to paint not one, but two large pictures, at the cost of considerable time and effort, indicates that he, like Cole, understood the expanded possibilities for expressing content and meaning a pair offered. 7 Paired paintings, or pendants, had been created by European artists from the Middle Ages on, with landscape pairs particularly in vogue during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. 8 Cropsey would surely have known, if only through prints or descriptions, pendant landscapes by painters such as Claude Lorrain, which often presented contrasting times of day and different types of scenery or opposing themes. But the example of Cole was, of course, closer at hand, and undoubtedly exerted the immediate influence. Cropsey probably had Cole's first pendant landscapes, the Eden pictures of 1827- 1828 , specifically in mind as he began work on his own "first efforts in this class of art." Certainly the contrast of moods in Cole's paintings-the fiery drama of the Expulsion versus the lyrical beauty of The Garden-accords perfectly with the opposing moods of Cropsey's War and Peace. 9

One thing particularly surprising about The Spirit of War and The Spirit of Peace, especially considering their size and complexity, is that no preliminary drawings or oil sketches unquestionably related to either painting are known today. This may be purely an accident of survival, for such studies do exist for other works. But Cropsey often referred to studies of scenery, architecture, or figures in his sketchbooks for general, rather than specific inspiration. And certainly there are many pages in his pre- 1851 sketchbooks with details of medieval and classical architecture, mountain scenes, pastoral landscapes, trees, figures, and animals that would have been useful in painting War and Peace. But we should also keep in mind that the very act of painting this kind of imaginary landscape required a special approach. As Cropsey said, "In their treatment I wished to avoid all that might be repulsive or commonplace, and to give rather an abstract expression of the subject than an actual one, such as a poet might be supposed to give" (see Appendix). Thus, we can reasonably assume he relied largely on memory and imagination in working out specific details in the two pictures.

In broader terms, two paintings by Cole seem to have played important roles as Cropsey developed the general conceptions of his pictures. The Spirit of War unquestionably resembles Cole's The Departure (one of a pair with The Return; figs. 6 and 7 ), which has a similar mountainous setting, hilltop castle, stone bridge with pointed arches, and knights mounted on horseback. Cropsey himself implicitly acknowledged their kinship when he described his picture using the same lines from Sir Walter Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel Cole had earlier used as a text for The Departure. 10 But if the relationship between The Spirit of War and The Departure seems obvious, the same cannot be said about The Spirit of Peace and The Return. In Cole's pair the narrative is more or less continuous: the quest that began at dawn one morning with knights riding out to do battle has ended some later day at sunset, as the vanquished warriors return home. The landscape is also continuous (or more properly, contiguous), for what shifts is not location, but the vantage point of the viewer, which rotates 180 degrees. Cropsey's The Spirit of Peace, by contrast, takes us to a different time and place, from the mountains to the seashore, from a time of warfare to one of peace, from a world of things medieval to one where the spirit of the classical reigns. That we are still in the same general region of this imaginary world is suggested only by the distinctive mountain peaks in the left background, which recall those in The Spirit of War.

Thus, Cropsey must have looked to another work by Cole in conceiving The Spirit of Peace, one with an idealized, arcadian mood more suitable to the imagery of peaceful existence. Cole painted several
such works, but his Dream of Arcadia (fig. 8 ) comes closest to The Spirit of Peace. Although differing in specifics of architecture and setting, the two share key motifs (figures dancing in a woodland glade, goats being tended, a prominently placed mother and child) and a common elegiac mood. Cropsey certainly knew The Dream of Arcadia; in fact, he admired it enough to own an engraving of it. 11

Given Cropsey's early training as an architect, it is not surprising that buildings play a major role in both The Spirit of War and The Spirit of Peace, assuming far more prominent places than man-made structures generally did in Cole's works. While in Europe in 1847- 1849 Cropsey had visited many famous architectural sites and made detailed sketches of castles, temples, towers, and other buildings. Although the structures in The Spirit of War and The Spirit of Peace do not precisely derive from specific architectural monuments, two that particularly interested Cropsey may have been on his mind. One was the great castle at Warwick, England, which he visited in June 1849 , sketched in detail, and later made the subject of a finished oil (fig. 9). The other was the Temple of the Sibyl at Tivoli, Italy, which Cropsey saw in October 1848 and made the subject of at least a half-dozen paintings, the first of which appeared as an engraving in 1851 (fig. 10 ). More generally, the medieval and classical buildings in The Spirit of War and The Spirit of Peace echo the architectural tastes of the era, which was marked by a highly eclectic use of historical styles. By 1851 banks, colleges, government buildings, and private houses based on Greek and Roman temple forms were common across America, as were structures using a variety of medieval styles. For Americans who had seen such buildings as William Strickland's Merchants Exchange in Philadelphia ( 1832- 1834 ), with its semi-circular Corinthian colonnade, or James Renwick's Smithsonian Institution in Washington ( 1847- 1855 ), with its irregular silhouette of towers and turrets, the temple and castle in Cropsey's paintings may have evoked a foreign time and place, but they would also have seemed strangely familiar.

The Spirit of War and The Spirit of Peace Exhibited
We do not know precisely how long Cropsey spent painting The Spirit of War and The Spirit of Peace, but the account in the Bulletin of the American Art-Union tells us they were nearing completion in December 1851 . We also know that Cropsey first showed the paintings in his own studio in New York. This was not an unprecedented act, for other artists occasionally debuted particularly important works in this manner. The advantages were many: the viewing conditions could be controlled; the artist did not have to wait for one of the major art exhibitions held only in the fall and the spring; the work could be seen alone, without competition from the hundreds of other pictures that were customarily included in the exhibitions of the National Academy of Design and the American Art-Union; a publicity campaign, if carefully managed and orchestrated, could be used to encourage interest in the pictures (and perhaps attract potential buyers). Cropsey seems to have paid particular attention to this last matter. The Bulletin of the American Art-Union did more than just take note of his new works; it also published lengthy descriptions of each picture. These descriptions were said to have been sent by "a friend." 12 Evidence strongly indicates this "friend" was none other than Cropsey himself, for the language used is closely paralleled by his words in a subsequent letter that survives in draft (see Appendix). 13 These texts provide valuable and detailed descriptions of each painting:

The Spirit of War.-The material of this picture is that of feudal times. Storm and tempest have raged during the night. The first rays of the morning sun spread a red and lurid light over the scene; it gleams through heavy mist and storm-clouds, upon a dark and gloomy castle, which crowns a rocky and inaccessible eminence. Its halls have rung with revelry, while an enemy have passed up the valley, sacking and burning the little hamlets, and are now seen watching the flames. They are discovered; the beacon fires blaze from the summit of the mountain-the alarm is given, and the feasting knights ride out with precipitate haste for battle; the goatherd drives his frightened flock to the castle-keep for safety; the mother and child, having fled from the burning town, lie exhausted at the road-side; in the craggy rock, upon which stands the castle, is seen the wizard, invoking evil.
The deep red banners-the red lurid light and conflagration-are suggestive of blood and carnage; the disarrangement of pastoral life and domestic unhappiness follow in the footsteps of war.

The Spirit of Peace.-Here the sun is setting with a mellow light, while the new moon smiles upon a partially new scene; for now the ocean comes in view, and the snow-covered mountains are distantly seen. The spirit of war and its associations are buried in the silence and peace of the tomb. By the sculpture upon it of a knight, followed by the figure of Death, bearing burning torches, and treading over the dead, the pictures are identified. Palm and olive trees grow upon the ruin of War's strong towers, and amid them has arisen a temple to Peace, from the altar of which ascends a spontaneous and unceasing incense to the sky. At the temple is a statue of the lion, lamb, and child together, and sculptured upon its pedestal are the incidents of turning "their swords into plowshares," and "their spears into pruning-hooks." Industry, Agriculture, and Commerce are indicated by the cultivated fields, the busy and growing appearance of the town, and sails which "whiten the sea." Where, in the picture of War, originated Evil and Sorrow, is now Happiness, Pleasure, and Learning, suggested by the happy mother, and the goatherd gently leading his flock, the dancing and merry-making group and the figures of History and Science.

Upon the frieze of the temple is sculptured, in the principal compartment, the angel appearing to the shepherds, announcing the birth of the highest Peace Advocate-the Saviour, accompanied by the words-"On earth, peace." The other compartments contain incidents from His life. In one, His Sermon on the Mount, with the inscription-"Blessed are the peace-makers." In another His blessing of little children, and in the last one, His triumphant entry into Jerusalem, and the passage-"Peace in Heaven." The cornice is formed of the wheat-sheaf and palm-branch-emblems of peace and plenty. Open to all is the altar of the Temple; in relief upon it are angels, supporting a book, written with letters of gold, as though from the heart up through the influences of the sacred volume there breathes a pure and acceptable peace-incense to God.

Although many people could have seen The Spirit of War and The Spirit of Peace on view in Cropsey's studio (we have no records telling us), certainly far more had the opportunity once the paintings began appearing in public exhibitions. Their first such appearance was at the annual exhibition of the National Academy of Design, which opened in April 1852 . Hung in the first gallery of the Academy's building on Broadway, they must have stood out dramatically among the seventy-nine other portraits, landscapes, and figure pictures also shown in that room and, indeed, among the 471 works in the entire exhibition. The exhibition catalogue printed descriptions of the pictures, again apparently based on Cropsey's own words. 14 Perhaps the only other landscape that could challenge The Spirit of War and The Spirit of Peace for attention was Durand's God's Judgment upon Gog, which was hung in the second gallery.

Although generally well received in their first official public appearance, Cropsey's pictures were faulted by some for their highly detailed handling. George William Curtis, critic of the New-York Tribune, found Cropsey "too conscientious....Each spire of grass, each shrinking leaf must appear upon canvas, because it really exists in nature." 15 Although he praised "the great fertility of his imagination," Curtis concluded that Cropsey had failed in obtaining a harmonious composition. "Fine words do not make a poem," he wrote, and "Picturesque forms, brilliantly painted, do not make a good picture." But Cropsey had deliberately attempted to do exactly what Curtis criticized: use precise detail to give his imaginary compositions some sense of the real world. Other landscape painters, including Church and Durand, were doing the same, seeing it as a way to make Cole's higher style more palatable to the taste of the times. Cropsey was particularly good at it, for even given their imaginary qualities, one notices again and again in his pictures insistent details of reality. Whether it is the faithfully delineated skunk cabbage at the lower left of The Spirit of War, or the lovingly detailed palm trees in The Spirit of Peace, Cropsey infused his ideal worlds with unmistakable signs of the real.

The Spirit of War and The Spirit of Peace were shown again in New York in 1853 and subsequently at the Boston Atheneum in 1855 . They were also shown on four separate occasions at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. Cropsey's satisfaction with the pictures is evidenced by the fact that he subsequently borrowed from each to create major new works. The general medieval theme and specific details of The Spirit of War recur in his Days of Elizabeth (fig. 11 ), a more light-hearted evocation of the days of chivalry. Even more impressive is his reworking of The Spirit of Peace in a painting called The Millennial Age (fig. 12 ), perhaps the most richly symbolic work of his entire career. The general setting of the earlier painting and its lyrical mood were retained, but the circular temple has been replaced with an extraordinary sculptural group that was present only in nascent form in The Spirit of Peace.

By the time of the last public appearance of The Spirit of War and The Spirit of Peace in 1857 , popular and critical enthusiasm for imaginary and allegorical landscapes had largely waned. Cropsey himself was by then already known for works such as Indian Summer Morning in the White Mountains ( 1857 , Currier Gallery of Art, Manchester, New Hampshire), which depicted American scenery in all its autumnal splendor. Never again after the mid- 1850 s would he paint works like The Spirit of War and The Spirit of Peace that so obviously emulated Cole's allegorical manner. However, through such efforts he had mastered an approach to landscape painting that assembled elements as a vocabulary for imparting content rather than simply as a means for describing natural appearances. That, in the end, was the fundamental lesson Cropsey learned from Cole, and it was something he never forgot. Thus, as first chapters in a long story, The Spirit of War and The Spirit of Peace provide information crucial to grasping the full measure of Cropsey's achievement as a painter of American scenery.

The Spirit of War and The Spirit of Peace in Context: Meaning and Interpretation
Cropsey's intentions in The Spirit of War and The Spirit of Peace, and what the paintings mean, singly and together, may seem so obvious as to require no further comment. After all, war and peace are enduring facts of human history, giving them a familiarity of meaning that approaches the universal. Certainly America, born of revolution and involved in several international conflicts during the first half of the nineteenth century, knew well the alternating cycles of wartime strife and peaceful prosperity. And in that sense Cropsey's paintings, though ostensibly set in some indefinite time in the Old World, had meanings that Americans of the mid-nineteenth century could easily grasp. Through a series of carefully opposed elements the artist showed how the hardships and privations of war are countered by the pleasures and bounties of peace. War is set in a stern, cold and rocky landscape; peace in a gentle, warm, pastoral one. Storm clouds at sunrise give way to the clear skies of late afternoon. The castle and its knights, embodiments of conflict, are replaced by a temple and dancers. In War a mother and child and a herdsman with his flock flee their burning village, desperately trying to reach safety, while their counterparts in Peace go their way untroubled. The sorcerer who stands in a dark cave in a ring of fire casting his evil spell in The Spirit of War, is replaced in The Spirit of Peace by men (representing History and Science, according to Cropsey) standing in the bright light of day by a sarcophagus and discussing (one imagines) the lessons of the past and the futility of armed strife. Other examples of such contrasting elements could be cited, but it is clear Cropsey intended all the various elements of his landscapes, whether natural forms or ones associated with mankind and human activities, to play roles in conveying meaning.

Moreover, Cropsey shared, as we have seen, Cole's belief that the landscape painter's most serious duty lay in using his art to convey "the highest intellectual expressions." And those expressions, in turn, needed to be intelligible to the painter's audience and have some larger significance beyond the confines of art. Recent scholarship on American nineteenth-century landscape painting has argued that for artists like Cropsey and Church such larger significance may have come through associating their images with issues of national identity. 16 If that is correct, then the political and social events in America around 1851 must be considered. Certainly the period that preceded the creation of Copley's paintings was one marked by a particularly controversial armed conflict: the Mexican-American War of 1846- 1848 , in which America demonstrated a highly aggressive expansionism. Perhaps that war was, in part, a factor in Cropsey's decision to paint his images of war and peace, but another event even closer in time may also have played a role. The national debate over whether or not slavery should expand into new territories (including the western territories acquired in Mexican-American War) led to widespread feelings of anxiety in the late 1840 s. The Compromise of 1850 , which attempted to reconcile the various sectional antagonisms, seemed to many observers to pave the way for national peace. If Cropsey shared this hopeful attitude, his paintings might be seen as celebrating the avoidance of war on the one hand and predicting a new period of peace and plenty on the other.

It would seem this last interpretation is indeed correct, for Cropsey's The Millennial Age of three years later reasserts his hopes for peace in even stronger terms. 17 In the same way, we can read his Autumn-on the Hudson River (fig. 3 ) as an entirely naturalistic statement of his enduring belief that the American nation was following a virtuous course. Though not an imaginary scene like The Spirit of War and The Spirit of Peace, Autumn can be read in a similarly allegorical way, with the various elements functioning as parts of the larger story. Thus the very progression of the landscape from near to far and from wilderness to civilization (with all the appropriate attendant symbols-hunters, log cabin, rustic road, village, city, and so on) serves as a metaphor for the nation itself and the course it has taken. Nothing suggests that course will be interrupted; the sun shines benignly in the western sky, its rays seeming to radiate God's blessing on a chosen people.

Cropsey was living in London when he painted Autumn-on the Hudson River, so perhaps he did not recognize the signs that all was not well with the America of 1860 . Or perhaps he chose to ignore them. But the conflicts that had simmered up around 1850 were only momentarily quelled by the Compromise of 1850 , and flared up again at various times during the rest of the decade, eventually erupting in the apocalyptic violence of the Civil War. Cropsey, of course, had no way of knowing it when he painted The Spirit of War, but it ultimately proved to be far more prophetic than its companion. He may have hoped for the sunny skies of peace, and he may have used his art to express that hope with eloquent conviction, but something in him must have sensed that the storm clouds of war would always inevitably return.

~Franklin Kelly
Curator, American and British Painting


This booklet has been made possible through the generosity of Mrs. John C. Newington.
The Spirit of Peace has kindly been lent by the Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia.




Photo credits (only illustrations 1 and 2 are reproduced in this electronic version of the brochure)

1. Jasper Francis Cropsey, The Spirit of War, 1851, oil on canvas, 43 5/8 x 67 5/8 in. (110.8 x 171.6 cm). National Gallery of Art, Washington. Avalon Fund. 1978.12.1.
2. Jasper Francis Cropsey, The Spirit of Peace, 1851, oil on canvas, 43 3/4 x 67 in. (111.2 x 170.2 cm). The Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia. Charles Knox Smith Collection.
3. Jasper Francis Cropsey, Autumn-on the Hudson River, 1860, oil on canvas, 59 3/4 x 108 1/4 in. (151.8 x 274.9 cm). National Gallery of Art, Washington. Gift of the Avalon Foundation. 1963.9.1.
4. Thomas Cole, The Garden of Eden, 1827-1828, oil on canvas, 38 1/2 x 52 3/4 in. (97.8 x 134 cm). Amon Carter Museum, Forth Worth, Texas. 1990.10.
5. Thomas Cole, Expulsion from the Garden of Eden, 1827-1828, oil on canvas, 39 x 54 in. (99.1 x 137.2 cm). Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Gift of Mrs. Maxim Karolik for the Karolik Collection of American Paintings, 1815-1865.
6. Thomas Cole, The Departure, 1838, oil on canvas, 39 1/2 x 63 in. (100.4 x 160 cm). The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington. Gift of William Wilson Corcoran.
7. Thomas Cole, The Return, 1838, oil on canvas, 39 3/4 x 63 in. (101 x 160 cm). The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington. Gift of William Wilson Corcoran.
8. Thomas Cole, Dream of Arcadia, 1838, oil on canvas, 39 1/4 x 63 1/16 in. (99.7 x 160.2 cm). The Denver Art Museum. Gift of Mrs. Katherine H. Gentry.
9. Jasper Francis Cropsey, Warwick Castle, 1857, oil on canvas, 31 5/8 x 52 1/4 in. (78.9 x 132.1 cm). National Gallery of Art, Washington. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Norman Hirschl, in Honor of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the National Gallery of Art. 1991.142.1.
10. After Jasper Francis Cropsey, Temple of the Sibyl, at Tivoli, engraving from Bulletin of the American Art-Union, December 1851. Courtesy of Library, National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington.
11. Jasper Francis Cropsey, Days of Elizabeth, oil on canvas, 38 x 54 in. (96.5 x 137.2 cm). Newington-Cropsey Foundation, Hastings-on-Hudson, New York.
12. Jasper Francis Cropsey, The Millennial Age, oil on canvas, 38 x 54 in. (96.5 x 137.2 cm). Newington-Cropsey Foundation, Hastings-on-Hudson, New York.


Acknowledgments
For assistance and support, the author is grateful to Barbara Newington, James F. Cooper, Sandra L. Sanderson, Florence Levins, Gertrude Wilmers, Mei Wu, Dr. Michael W. Schantz, Nicolai Cikovsky, Nancy Anderson, Deborah Chotner, Jenny Friel, Kathy McCleery, Frances Smyth, Mary Yakush, Chris Vogel, Steve Wilcox, Susan Arensberg, Gaillard Ravenel, and Dodge Thompson.
Appendix
Draft letter of 12 May 1854 from Jasper F. Cropsey To "Mr. M." This letter is known only in draft and exists in two fragments in the collection of the Newington-Cropsey Foundation, which has kindly made copies available and given permission to publish them in this brochure. No overall attempt has been made to correct Cropsey's grammar and spelling; however, missing letters are indicated in brackets and changed and deleted words are indicated by overstrikes. The transcript printed here was made by Franklin Kelly working from a xerox copy of the original and a transcript provided by the Newington-Cropsey Foundation.18

In reply to your letter I must begin by thanking you for the admiration and kindness you express, and the confidence you repose in me.
I have always been impressed with the idea that an artist to do justice to himself and his art should seek to express on his canvass the highest intellectual expressions, adding thereto all the refinement of poetry, and a well guided imagination his thoughts should be pure and noble and the style simple but firm and I trust that my works and self may be worthy of it and merely not wasted on trifles-polished smoothness and excessive imitation, nor to the other extreme of dashy handling and gaudy colour, often other terms for crud[e]ness and a discuised substitute for talent: always there should be the characteristics of intelligence and a firm settled conceinciousness a dwelling upon detail where the subject required it, and his heart entered into it-again free and graceful where his spirit flowed lightly and his labours seemed easy; thus will his work come forth the type of his mind and give to the car[e]ful observer the corresponding pleasure and instruction
It was because I loved to be at that which gave me more oppertunities for thought and study than the ordinary every day kinds of art, which artists are apt to designate as "pot boilers" and patrons as "very pleasing"-"pretty bitsÄÄBlack vistas" and "beautiful bits." I have no fault to find with these when they are good in their way, and they no doubt give to the mass more pleasure than works of a higher order:-thus at my leasure I engaged upon these pictures-my first efforts in this class of art-
In their treatment I wished to avoid all that was ÄÄBlackmight be repulsive or commonplace, and to give rather an abstract expression of the subject than an actual one-such as a poet might be supposed to give, not describing it in language ÄÄBlacknot in a litteral sense in which ÄÄBlackwith the dead crowded in heaps mangled and torn upon the field of strife-this would be repulsive-nor any mere pastoral scene as would be met in any meadow-this would be commonplace but that gathering of incidents, as should awaken in the observer the spirit of the subject with all its purity and beauty on the one hand and absence from corse passion and repulsi[ve]ness on the other
Thus in war I have choosen the incidents of the feudal times, that period when constant strife existed among the knights ÄÄBlackBarons-as it at once afforded picturesque incident and material of an appropriate kind for the subject.
It is supposed to be the early dawn of morning after a stormy and rainy night-red, lurid clouds hurry across the heavens, deep snow bathed in the same red flush of light, cap the summit of wild jagged mountains in the distance; hovering arround their base, and in the rocky pass, is the deepÄÄBlack thick cold, mists of the rainy night with an obscure and dark vista of valley underneath its forboding forms, promising naught but the uncertain and gloomy future of warlike times. The red glare of the burning hamlet breaks up against it, while the enemy gathers around in ruthless id[l]eness. The green and yellow banners bespeak their jealous purposes
Rising high about the little Hamlet is the stern feudal castle its battlemented walls and gloomy tower presenting a stern visage of defiance and awe. In its windows there yet glows the light of the Banquet hall where debauched knights, and Baron's vassals keep their midnight revelry:-but the bell tolls, and beacon fires blaze on the summit of the mountains announcing the Enemy's approach, and bidding them to arm for deeds of strife and blood-Soon we see them full armed ride through the dark castle ÄÄBlackcourt of the castle, and hear the sound of their steeds heavy tread, as they pass the port-cullis and come forth to Engage in the fi[e]rce Encounter. The goatherd hurries his flock to the castle court for safety, the mother and child fled from her burning home has fallen exhausted by the road side. Keepping pace with the sentiments of the times, and as an eppisode to the spirit of the picture, will be seen in the mouth of the grotto on the leftÄÄBlack right hand side, the wizard practicing his evil incantation. Pastoral life and Domestic Happiness find only desolation in war. Its stern mountains promise promise [word repeated] no prosperity to agriculture, and no where is there the genial impulses we seek in peace. That wild grandeur of the achievements of war find a further expression in the grand but yet dreary forboding tone of the whole picture. Sir Walter Scott has expressed it,
Full wide and far was terror spread
For pathless marsh, and mountain cell,
The peasant left his lowly shed.
The frightened flocks and herds were pent
Beneath the peel's rude battlement;
And maids and matrons dropp'd the tear
While ready warriors seized the spear.

[second fragment]
In turning our attention to the picture of Peace, we perceive a great change has come over that which was once the scene of war. All the strife and incidents of it have passed away, leaving as it were its ruins to cover the ground. Here its Tomb finds a place to identify its locality and the pictures. Its spirit is laid. Rude sculpture on the side of the tomb, of a Knight riding to battle; and in another compartment, of the figure of Death bearing burning torches and treading on the dead is its last emblems. Growing among its ruins is now sweet scented flowers, instead of rank weeds, and palm and olive trees, emblems of peace. Rising above all and amid these muter expressions of peace is the Temple of Peace-beautiful and yet collossol in its proportions; occupying a commanding position and prospect over a fruitful country, growing city, and open sea. In its design and ornament the hand of the sculptor has given the emblems of purity in peace and plenty, in its lilly capitals-its red bands of porphyry girdling it as it were with belts of love, in contra-distinction to war's red emblems of destruction and death-19 in its cornice of the wheat-sheaf and palm-branch,-its sculpture of the angles proclaiming the birth of the prince of Peace "On Earth Peace"-his sermon on the mount "Blessed are the Peace Makers"-his triumphant entry into Jerusalem on EarthÄÄBlack ÄÄBlack"peace in EarthÄÄBlack Heaven"20 and, in the altar of angels holding an open book written with letters of gold, thus opening to all all the bright pages of inspiration and by its genial influences man's nature is refined and pure emotions go forth.
Another emblem presents itself in the prophycy fulfilment of the Lion, Lamb and Child, and turning the sword into the plough-share-as is intended in the sculpture on the side of its pedestal.
Commerce has its good sea opening to distant lands. Domestic happiness finds place in the Happy Mother and her children. The herdsman can enjoy his pastoral peace, and lead his flock gently homeward. Rustic festivity and enjoyment is undisturbed Their banner is the dove with the olive branch. Grey headed age can mingle its declining days in its pure pleasures. youth may gather its flowers, and receive its lessons-and love can whisper happy words.
History can peruse his page and point his brother science to the record of the period past, in the page before him, and the sculptured tomb. as behind the blue waters sink the sun of a cloudless day in a cloudless sky-leaving the new moon to renew by night the tale of happy and perpetual change that has followed the stern and desolate times of human strife. Man's peace is made with man and his Creator from the altar of his heart assends unceasing and acceptable incense to those who come to proclaim peace on Earth
I fear you will not be able to find all the things I have hinted at, fully work out, but such was the process of the mind through the work, and had I have choosen larger canvas I might have given more force to many points of detail which in the above I have mentionedÄÄBlack, but I wished the pictures to be in a limit of size not beyond our dwelling houses or private galleries.
I fear also you may think I am rather enthusiastical in my descriptions, but I wished to convey my sentim[en]ts as developed in the pictures, and had I have had more leisure at this time to write I should have hoped to have done more justice even to this. Describing my own works always makes me nervous but yet I do not wish them misunderstood.
Trusting this may be of the desired service to you, and hoping soon to see you-with best regards joined by Mrs. C. to yourself and Mrs. M.
As ever
J F Cropsey

Written in reference to the pictures of
Spirit of War
and the
Spirit of Peace
May 12th 1854

Notes
1. "New Works by Cropsey," Bulletin of the American Art-Union (December 1851), 149. On Cropsey's life and art see William S. Talbot's 1972 dissertation for New York University, "Jasper F. Cropsey, 1823-1900" (reprint, New York and London, 1977).
2. On Harrison see Nicholas B. Wainwright, "Joseph Harrison, Jr., a forgotten art collector," Antiques 102 (October 1972): 660-668; this article does not mention Cropsey's paintings. Harrison also owned the so-called "Vaughan portrait" of George Washington by Gilbert Stuart that is now in the collection of the National Gallery (1942.8.27).
3. Cole, letter of 21 May 1828 to Robert Gilmor, Jr.; quoted in Howard S. Merritt, "Correspondence between Thomas Cole and Robert Gilmor, Jr.," in Studies on Thomas Cole, an American Romanticist (Baltimore, 1967), 58.
4. Quoted in Ella M. Foshay, Jasper F. Cropsey: Artist and Architect [exh. cat., New-York Historical Society] (New York, 1987), 19-20.
5. Cropsey, letter to his wife of 7 July 1850; quoted in "'The Brushes He Painted With That Last Day Are There...': Jasper F. Cropsey's Letter to His Wife, Describing Thomas Cole's Home and Studio, July, 1850," The American Art Journal 16 (Summer 1984), 81.
6. "Fine Arts," The Home Journal, 27 December 1851, 2.
7. Although it might seem that the sharply contrasting nature of the subjects war and peace would have naturally required the creation of two separate images, that is not necessarily so. Cropsey's contemporary George Inness (1825-1894), for example, painted a single canvas called Peace and War (1848, private collection; see Nicolai Cikovsky, Jr., George Inness, New York, 1993, 12) in which resting shepherds in the foreground are contrasted with mounted knights in the distance.
8. For a useful summary of pendants in an American context, see Henry Adams, "A New Interpretation of Bingham's Fur Traders Descending the Missouri," The Art Bulletin 65 (1983), 675-680.
9. Asher Durand's Landscape Composition, Morning and Landscape Composition, Evening (also known as The Morning of Life and The Evening of Life) of 1840 (National Academy of Design, New York), were probably also known to Cropsey. That Durand's paintings contrasted not just times of day, but also classical and medieval architecture conceivably could have been of influence on Cropsey's choice of a similar contrast for The Spirit of War and The Spirit of Peace.
10. See Appendix; the lines Cropsey quoted are from Canto III. They are also quoted in the entry for Departure in Exhibition of the Paintings of the Late Thomas Cole [exh. cat., American Art-Union] (New York, 1848), 15-16; the foreword to the catalogue states that "The descriptions of the pictures...are those which were prepared by Mr. Cole himself." Cropsey also must have known the remaining four lines of Canto III, for they include elements that also apply to The Spirit of War:
From Branksome's towers, the watchman's eye
Dun wreaths of distant smoke can spy,
Which curling in the rising sun,
Showed southern ravage was begun.
11. Foshay, Cropsey, 27.
12. "New Works by Cropsey," 149: "A friend sends the following description of them." The Literary World ("Movements of Artists," 13 December 1851, 471-472) also printed long descriptions, again apparently based on the artist's words.
13. It was not unusual for artists to provide detailed descriptions of their works to institutions such as the Art-Union and the National Academy, and for them to remain anonymous in doing so. Still, there is no conclusive evidence that Cropsey was the author of these particular passages, and it remains possible that they were drafted by someone else based on his comments. But even if Cropsey was not the actual writer, the fact that he borrowed so liberally from them in his own subsequent letter indicates they clearly had his approval.
14. Catalogue of the Twenty-Seventh Annual Exhibition (New York, 1852), 13. The Home Journal ("Fine Arts," 8 May 1852, 2) considered the Academy's willingness to print these texts "an honour" to Cropsey and "a merited compliment...."
15. "The Fine Arts. Exhibition of the National Academy," 24 April 1852.
16. For Church, this view is presented in Franklin Kelly, Frederic Edwin Church and the National Landscape (Washington, 1988); for mid-century landscape painters in general, including Cropsey, see Angela Miller, The Empire of the Eye: Landscape Representation and Cultural Politics, 1825-1875 (Ithaca and London, 1993); for Miller's discussion of The Spirit of War and The Spirit of Peace, see 122-127.
17. The influence of millennialism (or, millenarinism)-the belief (based on the book of Revelation) that the second coming of Christ will usher in a thousand year era of peace and holiness on earth-on American painting is discussed in Gail Husch, "'Something Coming': Prophecy and American Painting, 1848-1854," (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Delaware, 1992). Many mid-nineteenth-century Americans with strong religious beliefs, including Cropsey, hoped that America would follow a virtuous course and strive to achieve a political and social equivalent of the millennium.
18. Although this draft letter has been dated 1852 in previous scholarship (see, for example, Talbot, Cropsey, 365 and Foshay, Cropsey, 29), Gertrude Wilmers, Research Curator for the Newington-Cropsey Foundation, has read the date as 1854, based on her familiarity with Cropsey's handwriting. Cropsey was probably writing to the Philadelphia collector E. P. Mitchell at the time of the exhibition of his pictures in that city. Mitchell owned both Cropsey's Days of Elizabeth (1853) and The Millennial Age (1854).
19. Here, in a footnote, Cropsey wrote: "red in art in a good sense expresses love, faith & [missing word] but in a bad sense it expresses blood, carnage, etc."
20. Here, in a footnote, Cropsey wrote: "scripture quotations over the sculptered compartments."


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