The Music That Crossed the Color Line
The fiddler’s performance reaches everyone, even as the social conventions governing who belongs inside remain intact.
Opinion
MORE FROM THE EDITORS
The American Promise of Religious Liberty
Along the bottom of the canvas, an inscription celebrates the treaty as a foundation of religious and civil liberty in America.
The Discovery of America Through the Eyes of Edward Hicks
The painting offers a glimpse of how Americans once understood the origins of their civilization, and how dramatically that understanding has changed.
A Vanishing World on the Missouri
By the time Bingham painted the scene, the fur-trading culture it depicts was already beginning to fade.
The Quiet Discipline of an American Champion
The painting is striking for its quiet treatment of success. Schmitt has already won, yet the moment Eakins gives us is calm and workmanlike.
After the Flood, a Republic
The Revolution had swept away the old authority of the British Crown, and the young republic stood, like Noah’s world, before the difficult promise of renewal.
The Soldier Who Painted Washington
Peale painted this Washington soon after the victory at Yorktown had effectively secured American independence.