Reflections of the Civil War: Motifs in Hudson River Landscapes

Join professor and historian Richard J. Friswell and living-history actor and historian Gwendolyn Quezaire-Presutti for a talk, performance, and gallery walk in honor of Juneteenth, as they explore the decades surrounding the Civil War (1861–65) and the historic shift in painting styles from the dramatic landscapes of the Hudson River School to the serene studies of the Luminist period. 

Using paintings on view in Collection Spotlight: The Hudson River School and excerpts from Harriet Tubman’s famous 1904 speech, “I Cannot Die But Once,” Friswell and Quezaire-Presutti discuss this period of upheaval—at the center of which was the controversial question of slavery and its ongoing place in our economy and body politic—and look at paintings that underscore and reinforce the message of anti-war sentiment, societal trauma, violence, and loss as expressed through motifs portrayed in nature.

Richard J. Friswell is a visiting scholar at Wesleyan University where he co-directs the Wesleyan Wasch Seminars, their adult education program. As a cultural historian, his lectures and publications deal with topics of historical importance through the imagined eye of a storyteller.

Gwendolyn Quezaire-Presutti is a living history performer. Storytelling is her vehicle for sharing untapped American history. She reclaims and creates heightened awareness about Black women’s contributions and struggles, including that of Washington’s slave, Ona Judge Staines, abolitionist Harriet Tubman, and Zora Neale Hurston, a central figure of the Harlem Renaissance. Women like these have made Black American survival and progress possible.

Followed by a photo op with Quezaire-Presutti and a book signing with Friswell, author of Hudson River Chronicles: In Search of the Splendid & Sublime on America’s ‘First’ River.

This program will feature simultaneous ASL interpretation. 

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