Washington Crossing the Delaware (Metropolitan Museum of Art) (1/24/1905) by Leutze, Emanuel (1816-1868)The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
On the snowy night of December 25, 1776, the American revolutionary general George Washington led around 2400 troops across the Delaware River in a surprise attack on the Hessian mercenaries of the British forces.
His Continental Army had spent months fighting, with nothing to show for it. Victory was essential, for the men, and for the revolution.
Washington Crossing the Delaware (1851) by Emanuel Gottlieb LeutzeThe James Monroe Museum
Despite facing 'infinite difficulties' in the treacherous, ice-filled river and howling winds, the attack succeeded. Washington secured not only a resounding victory, but also his reputation as a military commander, and a renewed public enthusiasm for the war.
Washington Crossing the Delaware (Metropolitan Museum of Art) (1/24/1905) by Leutze, Emanuel (1816-1868)The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
Today, Emmanuel Leutze's idealised vision of the courageous leader defying the odds has entered public consciousness. It has inspired many imitators and homages which seek to elevate their own subjects to that of the United States' most famous citizen.
Shimomura Crossing the Delaware (2010) by Roger ShimomuraSmithsonian's National Portrait Gallery
In 2010, American-Japanese artist Roger Shimomura joined the crowd of imitators with his painting Shimomura Crossing the Delaware. Shimomura draws on the subject of Leutze's painting, but in a style indelibly associated with that of Japan - woodblock prints.
In doing so, he made a wry, provocative comment on the place of Japanese-Americans in American society and art, and the history of American-Japanese relations.
Shimomura was born in 1939 in Seattle, himself the son of second-generation Japanese-Americans. But when the USA entered the Second World War, he and his family were interned in Idaho under the Alien Enemies Act, suspending their rights as US citizens.
Shimomura himself takes the place of Washington, standing upright, dressed in revolutionary garb, with the Betsy Ross flag flying beside him. Rather than patriots, his boat is piloted by a group of samurai, styled in traditional Japanese dress.
The background of the image has changed, from the delaware river, to the San Francisco Harbor. With Angel Island, the processing centre for Asian immigrants, in the background.
Casting himself as an Asian general engaging in a surprise attack, Shimomura recalls the memory of when in 1941, the Japanese Empire launched a surprise air attack on the American naval base at Pearl Harbour.
Washington Crossing the Delaware (Metropolitan Museum of Art) (1/24/1905) by Leutze, Emanuel (1816-1868)The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
Leuke's work is painted in a style of heroic realism. We can feel the physical struggle of the men as they push and paddle their way through the ice. The clouds part, and the sun shines down on the noble general and his army.
Shimomura Crossing the Delaware (2010) by Roger ShimomuraSmithsonian's National Portrait Gallery
While Shimomura's painting recalls the irreverence, humour, and anti-naturalism of Pop Art - there's nothing heroic contained within Andy Warhol's Campbell soup tins.
Shimomura seems to be saying that American identity is contradictory, founded by conflict and immigration, locked in boom-bust cycles of aspiration and depression.
