If you haven’t yet seen and heard this PowerPoint presentation, given for the past few years on behalf of the Speakers Bureau of the NY Council for the Humanities, please do join us at the
Port Jefferson Free Library on Thursday, May 10^th at 7 PM.

 

Washington Crossing the Delaware:

The Story Behind the Painting

 

Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art

 

Presented by

Art Historian Elizabeth Kahn Kaplan

at a meeting of the Miller Place-Mt. Sinai Historical Society

Port Jefferson Free Library at 100 Thompson Street

Thursday, May 10, 2007 at 7:00 P.M.

 

How much of this iconic painting is fact? Analysis of Leutze's monumental 1851 painting provides the stepping-off point for discussion of the pivotal event that inspired it, when the Continental Army's Commander-in-Chief and his men successfully pulled off his daring military stratagem against Britain's Hessian encampment early in the morning of December 26, 1776 at the Battle of Trenton, NJ. That triumph rallied Washington's men, Congress, and the colonists after a disheartening defeat at the Battle of Long Island and the subsequent evacuation of New York City, and made possible continuation of the war to victory. Which man depicted in the boat would become fifth President of the United States? What is the significance of the black sailor next to General Washington? The work's oft-noted "errors" will be seen as deliberate choices by the artist to create a work of great emotional impact.

 

Information: 473-0022

 

This program is sponsored by The New York Council for the Humanities.