SEEING THE ELEPHANT: CIVIL WAR LANDSCAPES

American history is full of travelogues. Returning from South America in 1804 Alexander von Humboldt met with political and scientific leaders in Philadelphia, stating the need for artists to accompany scientific and military expeditions that had begun to explore and map the continent. Charting water-routes and wagon-roads, the Army was soon followed by pioneers and settlers, who described the terrors and wonders they beheld along the way as “seeing the elephant”. The expression was used by Civil War soldiers to characterize the firsthand experience of battle.
From 1991 to 2001, James McElhinney traveled through the South, exploring historic battlegrounds through his paintings and drawings, as a way of exploring how the American landscape is defined by ongoing struggles to define it.