The Arts Reflect Daily Life

Ever present in the consciousness of 19th century America was the frontier. The Missouri genre artist George Caleb Bingham portrayed the dignity of the frontier way of life. Genre subjects were translated into sculpture by John Rogers. But with the Civil War and its horrors of death, disease, and dislocation, most artistic endeavors came to a halt. Much of what we know about the brutal reality of the war is through the photographs of Matthew Brady and the paintings of David Gilmore Blythe.