Exhibition and Catalogue Review:
Manet and the American Civil War: the Battle of the "Kearsarge" and the
"Alabama"
at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
June 3 - August 17, 2003
In addition to its impressive and hugely successful exhibition
Manet/Velázquez: the French Taste for Spanish Painting, the Metropolitan
Museum of Art in New York has also mounted a much smaller show devoted to another aspect
of Edouard Manet's oeuvre. Manet and the American Civil War: the Battle of the
"Kearsarge" and the "Alabama," which runs through mid-August,
explores the artist's treatment of the 1864 naval battle between the U.S.S.
Kearsarge and the C.S.S. Alabama. Due to the fact that the run of the
"Manet/Velázquez" exhibition has been extended through June 28th,
visitors, for a brief time, can concurrently visit two very different but similarly
compelling presentations of Manet's career.
In brief, the British built and assisted the Alabama, a Confederate
commerce-raider that had destroyed eighteen "Federal" ships and took numerous
prisoners. While the Alabama was awaiting repairs in the English Channel, off the cost
of Cherbourg, France, the warship Kearsarge bided its time, waiting for the rebel ship
to enter International waters. The Kearsarge ultimately sunk the Alabama in a fight
lasting only an hour and a half. Widely reported in the European press (particularly in
France and Britain) the conflict inspired numerous engravings, lithographs and paintings.
Within weeks of the battle, Manet painted two significant related images, The "Kearsarge"
at Boulogne, now part of the Metropolitan's permanent collection, and The Battle of the
Kearsarge and the Alabama of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
This "dossier" exhibition, curated by Rebecca A. Rabinow and
Gary Tinterow, is installed in two rooms and is built around the Metropolitan's painting,
a relatively new acquisition. Originally owned by Louisine and H.O. Havemeyer, to whom the
Metropolitan owes much of its collection of nineteenth-century art, The "Kearsarge"
at Boulogne was obtained four years ago through a partial gift and a balance purchase after
having been on extended loan to the museum since 1991. Curators at the Metropolitan are
experts at promoting their own holdings; the ultimate goal of this exhibition is to give
The "Kearsarge" at Boulogne an important scholarly placement among Manet's
seascapes. This is supported in the exhibition and the accompanying catalogue by letters
dating to Manet's brief period at sea as a teenager, his related seascapes (in particular
Philadelphia's Battle of the Kearsarge and the Alabama), and other paintings, photographs,
letters, prints, and ephemera related to Manet or the battle. The exhibition is also an
hors-d'oeuvre -- the main course will be the exhibition Manet and the Sea which debuts
at the Art Institute of Chicago this fall (Oct. 20, 2003 - Jan. 19, 2004) and travels to the
Philadelphia Museum of Art (Feb. 8 - May 9, 2004) and the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam
(June 18 - Sept. 26, 2004). Many of the works exhibited in the current show will be included
in the Manet and the Sea exhibition.
Now that New York is finally seeing some summer-like days, Manet and the
American Civil War: the Battle of the "Kearsarge" and the "Alabama," is a
welcome summer exhibition. Overall the exhibition provides viewers with an enjoyable and educational
experience in a nice small dose, and keeps an otherwise dry subject in art history (i.e. military
naval battles) interesting with a variety of images on the subject. In addition to the five
seascapes by Manet, Henri Durand-Brager's painting Battle between U.S.S. "Kearsarge" and
C.S.S. "Alabama," (1864, Union League Club of New York) and two prints by Utagawa
Hiroshige are really quite a treat to see. Gustave Courbet's Marine (1870, Philadelphia Museum
of Art) is a not-to-be missed masterwork; one almost smells the sea when one views the tiny
abstract dots of black, representing seaweed, mixed in with the thickly applied white paint,
representing the salty, rolling foam of the waves. Courbet's proficiency at painting waterspouts
and sea storms will be instantly palpable.
There are a few minor problems with the exhibition. Firstly, hanging The "Kearsarge"
at Boulogne on the same wall and directly to the left of The Battle of the Kearsarge and the Alabama
unfortunately acts to underscore that The "Kearsarge" at Boulogne is without doubt the lesser
painting of the two. It is not that The "Kearsarge" at Boulogne is a poor work of art; it
just does not have the drama and bravado of the other. This may have been less noticeable if the two
paintings were placed on opposite walls. The wall text admits to the fact that Manet changed the
title of the Metropolitan's work to Fishing Boat Coming in Before the Wind in 1867, leading one to
believe that Manet himself no longer felt the work on the scale of his more powerful Kearsarge -
Alabama depiction. There is also an underlying theme that Manet's seascapes were influential to
other artists such as Courbet. While this is certainly possible, as Courbet's production of paysages
de mer increased significantly after his 1865 visit to Trouville with James McNeill Whistler,
Courbet began painting seascapes as early as 1859. Since Manet had borrowed so much from Courbet
throughout his career, the reoccurring reference to their influence going the other way is,
unfortunately, unfounded and less than convincing. Finally, the inclusion of Claude Monet's The
Green Wave (1866-67, Metropolitan Museum of Art), a muddy trifle, does not do justice to either
Monet or seascape painting in general; had it been left out it would not have been missed. Having
said all of this, however, it should be noted that these dilemmas, even as a group, are minor and
will either go unnoticed or will be forgiven by most viewers.
The catalogue for the exhibition (Manet and the American Civil War, New Haven
and London: Yale University Press, 2003; $19.95) by Juliet Wilson-Bareau with David C. Degener
is quite excellent and, as expected, well researched. The 86-page text can be read in a sitting,
and should be considered required reading for anyone interested in Manet's early career. While
the exhibition text lacks political details, the second chapter of the catalogue, entitled
"The Naval Engagement," is an impeccably detailed account of why and how a Civil
War battle came to be fought in the English Channel in the first place. A brief bibliography
and excellent illustrations complete this significant contribution to Manet studies.
Caterina Y. Pierre
Brooklyn, New York
21 June 2003
Copyright 2003 © Caterina Y. Pierre; all rights reserved
No portion of this text may be used without the written permission of the author
Contact the author at
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