George Caleb Bingham: 6 works

'Like the New England Yankee or the Western cowboy, Bingham's Missouri boatmen were celebrated for their independence and helped to create both a regional and a national sense of identity.'

'George Caleb Bingham created dozens of drawings as studies for his well-known paintings depicting Missouri life and politics. This drawing of a fiddler is a study for The Jolly Flatboatmen (1846; private collection), one of his most famous compositions.'

'"Country Politician" promotes Bingham's grassroots view that such difficult questions should be left to the "wisdom, intelligence and patriotism of the people of the entire Union"'

'Bingham also suggests some of the problems of 1850s American politics.'

'Bingham, although a Union supporter, could not condone the atrocities legitimized by Order No. 11 and exclaimed, "If God spares my life, with pen and pencil I will make this order infamous in history."'

'The fame of Emanuel Leutze's Washington Crossing the Delaware (1851) inspired this heroic scene by genre painter George Caleb Bingham. As weary soldiers row through the icy waters, Bingham presents Washington above on horseback, an elegant ideal of masculinity and leadership.'