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Post by marklemon on Jul 19, 2007 2:11:15 GMT -5
The trouble with the Fulton statement is that, while compelling on its face, it doesn't exist in a vacuum, but rather is out there swimming amongst all the other data that tends, rather convincingly, to refute the idea of a wide, open arch. There are many other reasons than those I've previously stated, to take the position that, far from there not being a large wide arched opening, there may in fact have been none at all, at least not in the strictest sense.
Look at, not only all the later Army plats from the mid to late 1840's (which, I'll admit by themselves prove nothing) but also the contemporary (to the battle) plan views.
Sanchez-Navarro, who wasn't shy about depicting doorways, shows absolutely no opening at all, in his admittedly contorted map.
More significantly, LaBastida, who drew irrefutably the most accurate early plan of the compound, also drew a solid wall where, one year later, Fulton saw his "wide entrance."
Now, we are not talking about a short thin little wall here. It was a monster, standing about 18 to 19 feet tall, and ranging in thickness from 3 to 3.5 feet thick. Anyone going there and looking at even the surviving portion is struck by its massive girth. So The prospect of just cutting a little, much less a gaping wide arch there takes no little engineering skill, which, after 1836, was not anywhere to be found at the Alamo until the arrival of the army in the late 1840's.
The Catholic church after secularization was having nothing whatever to do with the place insofar as major upkeep, so their involvement is pretty much a non-starter.
So what I am saying is that what existed on that wall in 1836, existed in 1837. What do I mean? I mean that, in light of the lack of any 1836 data to otherwise support a large OPEN arch there, none would have been built by 1837 when Fulton saw it. What this leaves us with is, I think, this: As I have said previously, as part of the failed early church built against that portion of the wall, there remained several strange features, among them were two large quatrefoils seen in Gentilz' drawings and paintings, and also an 1860's photograph, as well as a recessed arch, very much like, but smaller, the ones to be found today on the inner face of each of the transepts of the current church.
Into this recessed arch was set a smaller door. The purpose of the recessed arch was not only to save stone, but to provide a "relieving arch" a strengthening feature which took the massive load from above, off of the smaller door. This same feature is to be found in a number of other missions and for the same purpose.
This recessed arch, or the last vestige of it, is actually to be seen in a crystal clear photo of the Alamo and wall area taken in the 1860's. There is no doubt whatsoever that this arch was recessed, as it clearly shows up in the photo (as do faint traces of the quatrefoils).
What I think we are seeing with Fulton, based on ALL the other evidence, is this: What he probably saw in 1837, was the large recessed archway I described, whose smaller inset door had been filled in, most likely in 1836 (thus explaining the lack of opening at all in Sanchez-Navarro, LaBastida, Blake, and Eastman's maps). This gave the appearance of a large opening which had been blocked up. Later, in the late 1840's, the smaller opening was opened again, perhaps by the army.
Remember Fulton said "wide entrance," not "wide opening." The differnce may seem small, but is I think, when seen in light of all the other evidence, pretty important. An entrance may be closed as well as open.
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Post by Allen Wiener on Jul 19, 2007 7:37:35 GMT -5
When I was at the Alamo in March one of the docents told me that there was originally a covered walkway that connected the church to the convento, which ran along the very wall we are discussing. Did such a walkway exist and how does that jibe with the doorway?
AW
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Post by TRK on Jul 19, 2007 8:24:17 GMT -5
When I was at the Alamo in March one of the docents told me that there was originally a covered walkway that connected the church to the convento, which ran along the very wall we are discussing. Did such a walkway exist and how does that jibe with the doorway? Might've been talking about the wing of the convento that at one point in history ran along the inner (i.e., northern) side of that wall.
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Post by TRK on Jul 19, 2007 9:13:03 GMT -5
Mark, I assume that the 1860s photo which you refer to as showing clear evidence of the recessed arch and remnants of the quatrefoils is unpublished. Any chance it will be published in your forthcoming book? Maybe it will help to straighten out some doubts of mine.
I don't have any big investment in Fulton's version of what the "entrance" to the convento courtyard comprised, and am open to other interpretations. Still, Fulton was an eyewitness, his 1837 drawing seems to emphatically show a large, arched opening (delineated a shade darker than the wall itself), and years later, in his notes to John Henry Brown, he thought the feature, as he remembered it, was significant enough to indicate on Corner's map. If the "entrance" wasn't so "wide" afterall, it begs the question why Fulton would have thought it important enough to indicate on Corner's map, along with only two other features (the locations he was shown for Bowie's and Crockett's deaths.)
As for the Labastida and Sanchez-Navarro maps, Labastida shows no doors or entrances in the interior of the compound except for the church, and Sanchez Navarro shows some interior doors, but their placement is not entirely accurate (see the convento, for example).
Playing devil's advocate, perhaps by the time Fulton sent his notes to John Henry Brown, perhaps he had exaggerated in his mind the size and nature of the entrance. Perhaps the large archway in the 1837 drawing was a blind arch that Fulton, while making his 1837 sketch from outside the compound, mistook for an large, open entrance. On the other hand, the "wide entrance" was obviously a feature that loomed large in his mind for many years, and in my dictionary, an "entrance" is a "means or point by which to enter."
What I was saying about repairing or filling in an arched entrance to shore up a wall in danger of collapsing, whether done at the instance of the Catholic Church or by local residents doing it on their own initiative for whatever their purposes, is this: With all the rubble stone lying around the Alamo after the battle, it would not have taken a major construction project to lay up a recessed arch and set a smaller entrance in it. Can I prove this happened? No. But it doesn't seem far-fetched.
-Tom
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Post by marklemon on Jul 19, 2007 16:44:30 GMT -5
Mark, I assume that the 1860s photo which you refer to as showing clear evidence of the recessed arch and remnants of the quatrefoils is unpublished. Any chance it will be published in your forthcoming book? Maybe it will help to straighten out some doubts of mine. I don't have any big investment in Fulton's version of what the "entrance" to the convento courtyard comprised, and am open to other interpretations. Still, Fulton was an eyewitness, his 1837 drawing seems to emphatically show a large, arched opening (delineated a shade darker than the wall itself), and years later, in his notes to John Henry Brown, he thought the feature, as he remembered it, was significant enough to indicate on Corner's map. If the "entrance" wasn't so "wide" afterall, it begs the question why Fulton would have thought it important enough to indicate on Corner's map, along with only two other features (the locations he was shown for Bowie's and Crockett's deaths.) As for the Labastida and Sanchez-Navarro maps, Labastida shows no doors or entrances in the interior of the compound except for the church, and Sanchez Navarro shows some interior doors, but their placement is not entirely accurate (see the convento, for example). Playing devil's advocate, perhaps by the time Fulton sent his notes to John Henry Brown, perhaps he had exaggerated in his mind the size and nature of the entrance. Perhaps the large archway in the 1837 drawing was a blind arch that Fulton, while making his 1837 sketch from outside the compound, mistook for an large, open entrance. On the other hand, the "wide entrance" was obviously a feature that loomed large in his mind for many years, and in my dictionary, an "entrance" is a "means or point by which to enter." What I was saying about repairing or filling in an arched entrance to shore up a wall in danger of collapsing, whether done at the instance of the Catholic Church or by local residents doing it on their own initiative for whatever their purposes, is this: With all the rubble stone lying around the Alamo after the battle, it would not have taken a major construction project to lay up a recessed arch and set a smaller entrance in it. Can I prove this happened? No. But it doesn't seem far-fetched. -Tom Tom, The 1860's photo was sent to me by Criag Covner, and while I haven't seen it anywhere else, I have heard that a copy of it is on display in the Long Barracks museum. That this photo has not appeared anywhere in print that I know of is strange beyond understanding, as this photo alone clears up so many heretofore unanswered questions.Really, anyone interested in the compound needs to study this picture closely. As for the Fulton drawing, I wouldn't go so far as to say anything about it is shown empahatically, especially not the arched feature, which Covner and myself have examined under extreme magnification to try to get some more detail from it, without result. Some say that there is a smaller dark shape seen in the arch, but it looks like a smudge to me. No, in looking at the drawing again, I can't agree that the inner portion is really any darker than the outer, except for a small portion at the lower right corner, and a curved line which correspods to where the shadow may be from the overhang. And I'm not saying that the arch wasn't wide, just that it was not an open arch. This question of the Fulton drawing really must be examined in light of all the other evidence, and not solely on its own. The Labastida map does show entrances and openings. Look at not only the main gate area, but the porteria, the gatehouse type opening in the Convento, which is shown so strongly that it is shown as a break in the building. In addition, he shows the opening in the "low wall." I feel confident that if there were such a large arch in the connecting wall, it would be there in his plat. And while I agree that Sanchez-Navarro's plat has some significant inaccuracies, he does show most openings where they actually were. Take the porteria, for example. It is shown very close to its actual location. He even, though bizarrly skewed, shows the connecting wall, with no opening except a break in a portion he may have meant to be the "low wall." I'll not go too deeply into the repair by locals or the church, as both to me seem just so unlikely. Why would they have cared if the wall fell down? The whole place was falling down and no one took it upon themselves to repair anything. In fact, better if it did fall down, as it would make scavenging building materials so much the easier. It has been said that , of all the early drawings of the Alamo, absolutely none were done by mexicans, all were done by Americans, who seemed to find the place romantic. The locals were so used to it that they hardly payed it any attention except to occasionally go there to gather stones. One other interesting fact: I noted that in all the pre-1848 drawings of the Alamo, whether in plan view or elevation, there is NO opening shown at all. Note the following: Labastida 1836- No doorway Sanchez Navarro1836 -No doorway Mary Maverick1838- No doorway Lysander Well1839- No doorway William Bisset1839 -No doorway Unknown artist 1840 -No doorway Edward Blake 1845-No doorway Edward Everett 1846 -No doorway Edward Everett 1847 (not published in Nelson's book)-No doorway NOW, suddenly, in 1848, there is in Everett's plan of the Alamo, for the first time ever, a doorway shown there in the wall. It is a very small to medium sized door. This is the same year that Eastman shows the small, arched doorway from the opposite side. No here is the key point. The army did not just "build" this small doorway. As Rich has very correctly pointed out, the Army did not build arched doorways. They simply placed a wooden lintel above the doorways. And in the case of this particular doorway's position, you may be sure that the Army would not have tried something so difficult and potentially dangerous as cutting an opening in a huge high wall, then trying to arch the top of it. This kind of thing can be done, but it is much more difficult and requires a very experienced mason. So my point is, that in 1848, an arched, small doorway suddenly appears that the Army in all likelihood did not, and would not, have made. The only solution is that it was there all along, but blocked up, only to reopened after the Army had arrived and was just beginning very preliminary modifications and alterations. This brings us back to the recessed arch, which acted as a relieving arch and took great strain off of the smaller doorway within. Sometime around, say 1835, or 1836, either the Mexicans under Cos, or the Texians decided to block up the opening for reasons of both security and better defense, or perhaps just to keep the horses controlled in the courtyard. The porteria most likely had a grated gate which controlled access, so having this as the only means into the courtyard may have made sense to them. Now along comes Fulton in 1837. Who knows how close he got to the place? Or how close he really examined the things he was looking at. Being no expert in architecture, he or in fact anyone looking at a closed-in recessed arch would most likely think, "hmm, wide entrance, probably just blocked up," not realizing that the real entrance was a smaller, now hidden opening he didn't notice. Anyway, that's my take on it. The data stacks up on the side of it being an old, arched opening built when the wall itself was being built, then later being blocked up, and then even later, being reopened again. Mark
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Post by elcolorado on Jul 19, 2007 22:42:33 GMT -5
I've been reading this thread and posts with great interest. I found the absence of a door or entrance in all the pre-1847 plans and drawings that I have examined puzzling since so much of the art work and plans from post-1847 reveal some kind of door or opening. Adding to the confusion...at least for me, is Seth Eastman's 1848 drawing which clearly shows an arched entrance, whereas an 1847 drawing done by Edward Everett shows a small rectangular door (BTW, I'm using Nelson's "Illustrated History" pp-60). Although the early (pre-1847) drawings Mark listed don't even show a hint of a sealed-up doorway, I accept his explanation that a door or opening of some kind did exist but was blocked-off or sealed-up by Cos or the Texan defenders. While I feel it's inconclusive, it's the most plausible explanation I've read so far.
Is it possible that Fulton just got the date wrong and meant 1847 instead of 1837?? I know I'm just speculating, but how else can the absence of an opening in all the early drawings be explained? Since he referenced "Hugo & Schmeltzer", I take it Fulton's report was done many years after his visit.
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Post by marklemon on Jul 19, 2007 23:10:40 GMT -5
I've been reading this thread and posts with great interest. I found the absence of a door or entrance in all the pre-1847 plans and drawings that I have examined puzzling since so much of the art work and plans from post-1847 reveal some kind of door or opening. Adding to the confusion...at least for me, is Seth Eastman's 1848 drawing which clearly shows an arched entrance, whereas an 1847 drawing done by Edward Everett shows a small rectangular door (BTW, I'm using Nelson's "Illustrated History" pp-60). Although the early (pre-1847) drawings Mark listed don't even show a hint of a sealed-up doorway, I accept his explanation that a door or opening of some kind did exist but was blocked-off or sealed-up by Cos or the Texan defenders. While I feel it's inconclusive, it's the most plausible explanation I've read so far. Is it possible that Fulton just got the date wrong and meant 1847 instead of 1837?? I know I'm just speculating, but how else can the absence of an opening in all the early drawings be explained? Since he referenced "Hugo & Schmeltzer", I take it Fulton's report was done many years after his visit. I think that it is very significant that there is an unbroken series of drawings from 1836 up to the late 1840's showing, at first, no opening (notice I said "no opening" and not "no doorway," as I really feel it probable that there was an older blocked up portal there until it was re-opened by the Army to suit their needs.)..and then around 1847-1848, there suddenly and consistently appears to be, first an arched door, then soon after, a rectangular one. You are right that there is a seeming disconnect in that the Eastman drawing (clearly dated Nov 22, 1848) shows an arched opening, and Everett's purported 1847 drawing shows an Army type linteled doorway. My take is that Nelson may be incorrect in his denotation of this drawing as 1847. I say this not because it fits my scenario, but because, after reading your post I referred to my copy of Everett's 1847 plat (not reproduced in Nelson's book, but almost identical to his plat of 1846, in Nelson's at page 64 (second edition), and found that the Army improvements shown in the Everett drawing you referred to (you said page 60, but in my book, it's on page 63) DO NOT APPEAR in 1847. Not only that, but in 1847, there is NO DOORWAY in Everett's plan view. But then it DOES show up in Everett's 1848 plan view. This must mean that, sometime in late 1847, to early 1848, the Army opened the old blocked up door. Then Eastman drew it in 1848. Then, by 1848 to 1849, the Army had placed the lintel above the door, which you see in the "1847" (Really, 1848-1849) elevation by Everett. Looking further, I noted by a study of the plats that the Army improvements shown in the Everett elevation (supposedly 1847) really don't appear until 1848-1849. So then the seeming inconsistency goes away, when you realize that soon after the Eastman drawing showing the arched doorway (from the courtyard interior) the Army began their changes.
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Post by elcolorado on Jul 20, 2007 8:55:35 GMT -5
That sounds about right, Mark. I thought it was possible...even probable that the 1847 date underneath the Everett drawing in my copy of Nelson could be incorrect. As for Eastman's drawing, it is clearly dated "22 Nov 1848", so if the Army opened up the wall, it was done some time after that date....maybe 1849.
I still find it curious that none of the early drawings we've looked at reveal a blocked-off opening. Take another look at the 1845 drawing by Edward Blake. He has two examples of what a blocked-off opening may look like. The window of the "Baptistry" and a window of a room by the old convent building are clearly sealed-up. I think that if either Cos or the Texans blocked-off the opening in question, then it might have appeared as the windows do in Blake's drawing. In other words...the wall looks too good, as if it was constructed without an opening at all. If it was indeed an opening at one time and later blocked-off, it must have been done by someone with decent masonry skills...possibly the original builders?? Maybe they (original builders) sealed it up after the "Temporary Adobe Church" collapsed in the 1700's...just a thought.
And the more I think about it...the more I feel that the date of 1837 in Fulton's report is probably incorrect.
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Post by TRK on Jul 20, 2007 8:58:24 GMT -5
A couple of things:
-The Green B. Jameson plat, a facsimile of which was published in Adina De Zavala, History and Legends of the Alamo . . . (1917) shows a prominent gap, which I take to signify an entrance, in the middle of the wall between the church and convento. Yes, I realize this plat is an engraving of a copy of a copy of Jameson's original plat, and that another version of the plat in the Amelia Williams dissertation, based on a tracing of the same copy-of-a-copy that De Zavala used, does not show that gap or entrance (among other discrepancies). Evidently, Jameson's original plat is lost forever, so we are left with differing facsimiles with and without the entrance.
-Theodore Gentilz sketched the Alamo in the early 1840s, and his oil painting showing the church and the connecting wall is dated 1844. (There is a similar sketch in Nelson, p. 63 of my edition; pagination varies by edition.) I doubt that Gentilz backdated the painting, but if he did, it was presumably based on sketches of that date. The painting shows a small door with a straight--not arched--top.
-As for the various drawings by Maverick, Well, and Bissett, their emphasis was on the facades of the convento and church, not the connecting wall, which is viewed obliquely. Sometimes the wall is in dark shadow, sometimes in full sun, but I wouldn't rely on these particular drawings to heavily for details of the connecting wall.
As I said, I don't have any money bet on Fulton's version of the entrance to the convent yard (or lack thereof). Mark presents a well reasoned theory of the evolution of that piece of wall. But don't forget, Fulton was an eyewitness to the Alamo in 1837; he didn't just view it from a distance, but went in and toured the grounds and made at least one sketch of it. Memory of a "wide entrance" stuck in his mind for many years. I wouldn't discard his observations out of hand, but would file them away for future reference.
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Post by TRK on Jul 20, 2007 9:00:21 GMT -5
"And the more I think about it...the more I feel that the date of 1837 in Fulton's report is probably incorrect."
Nope, it's well enough documented that he made the trip in early August 1837...17 months after the fall of the Alamo. He made a sketch of the Alamo from the south at that time (drawing is in the Texas General Land Office). Years later, around 1890, he was in correspondence with the historian John Henry Brown, and it was then that Fulton sent Brown a copy of a map of the Alamo on which he (Fulton) superimposed three markings, including where he said he saw the "wide entrance."
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Post by elcolorado on Jul 20, 2007 9:45:13 GMT -5
Tom
I have the Theodore Gentiliz drawing you mentioned, unfortunately none of drawings he did that are in my copy of Nelson are dated. If the 1844 date you sited is accurate then that puts me back to square one...thanks (LOL). The Eastman drawing (1848) adds an interesting wrinkle. Eastman's work, in my eyes, appears to be very detailed and quite accurate. So I don't understand why he would draw an arched opening in the connecting wall instead of a small rectangular door...it just doesn't make sense.
As for the early drawings...I agree...to a point..that we shouldn't rely too heavily on them. However, I find it more then a little odd that all of the early drawings would omit an opening in the connecting wall if one did indeed exist...Blake's 1845 drawing in particular.
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Post by Herb on Jul 20, 2007 11:09:09 GMT -5
Reference the Hospital question.
Looking through Nelson this morning (trying to follow the debate on the "gap" in the connecting wall) I re-noticed the supposed Jameson plat on page 47. According to this plat, the upper story was the hospital and the lower story was an armory. If the plat has any accuracy at all, it clearly argues against the first floor being used as a hospital.
As has been pointed out according to some of the Mexican accounts part of the Low Barracks was also used as a hospital. Thinking this through, it only makes sense, before the siege ie normal garrison operations having the hospital on the second floor puts it in the most out of the way place ie away from the hustle and bustle of daily activities and the work to strengthen the defenses. However, this location becomes a weakness once the siege begins, not simply from possible exposure to cannon fire, but the difficulty of safely and rapidly delivering wounded during any fire fight to the hospital. Relocating the active hospital, to the Low Barracks, one of the stronger and more protected structures with covered access, as long as the perimeter is intact, is only common sense. I would speculate that Mark's theory is correct, that the upper story hospital in the Long Barracks was primarily where the sick and wounded prior to the siege were treated/held, while the Low Barracks became the active hospital that housed the overflow, and any newly wounded/sick patients eg Jim Bowie.
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Post by marklemon on Jul 20, 2007 20:55:55 GMT -5
The Jameson maps cannot be used to eiher prove or disprove any particular point,as we all know the problems with their provenance. Not so with the key, however, which was copied verbatim from the original. So no answers there......
Theodore Gentilz absolutely did back date his paintings. In fact Eric Von Schmidt made the mistake of believing his (Gentilz')painting dates, and began using Gentilz' Alamo painting as a source for his huge painting The Storming of the Alamo in 1986, only to find it was actually painted a full 50 years later (than 1844). Gentilz didn't just visit the town briefly, he lived and painted in San Antonio for the last half of the 19th century. He arrived late in 1844, and returned to France briefly in 1849. He then returned to SA in 1849, and later taught art at St mary's College from the 1860's to 1894. He from all accounts constantly added and revised his sketches and paintings, and this is not really unusual for an artist to do. I tend to have great skepticism for anything he painted or drew, as it became a "work in progress" that he would return to and "touch up" for years after he started it. So, no answers here.... As Craig Covner stated in his excellent 1990 article in the Alamo Journal concerning contemporary artists (Maverick, Well, Bisset, etc) these drawings, however primitive they may appear to us, are giving us vital information, and the drawings of Maverick, Well, Bisset,the unknown 1840, and above all, the excellent 1845 Blake drawing, ALL show no doorway there, arched or otherwise. And no one can say that Blake was focused only on the facades of the buildings, as is evidenced by the great detail he gives us on the south face of the convento, as well as the small window high in the alcove just to the north of the Confessional. One instance of a lack of doorway being shown may have been an oversight, two a coincidence, but 5??? No, there is something to this...where there's smoke, as they say, there is fire. And last of all, we have to allow the possibility (I say probablilty)that Fulton was simply seeing the recessed arch, noting it, and just assumed it had been an open arch at one time. Thus, his "wide entrance," didn't have to have been open at the time.
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Post by Rich Curilla on Jul 21, 2007 3:55:12 GMT -5
I am also beginning to believe that the early adobe church had a LOT to do with this recessed arch and arched doorway. Whether the church ran north-south or east-west (along the wall), it would have needed an entrance from the convento.
Visualize this first church on the inside. Let's say it ran north-south, as does the main wing of the convento. Let's say it was built like the granary at Mission San Jose and the convento at Concepcion -- a long room with a vaulted roof connecting at its north end to the south wing of the convento. This alone would leave a large arched ridge of stone or brick on the south face of the wall in question. Then, in the middle of this end wall of the slightly-more-than-temporary church, was a small arched doorway leading to the convento.
If the church ran east-west, this feature could have been a relieving arch or recessed arch, as in the Alamo church transepts, with the convento entrance in the middle. Then east from there, other features on this inside wall of the temporary church could have been Gentilz' rose window details -- this (these) would have been in the partition wall between the temporary church and the south wing of the convento upstairs, allowing convento inmates to look down on a church service -- exactly as in the church of Mission Concepcion.
These suppositions would explain the large arch and the arched doorway, and provide a reason why they would have been there during the siege, walled in or not.
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Post by TRK on Jul 21, 2007 8:02:59 GMT -5
Mark wrote, "I tend to have great skepticism for anything [Gentilz] painted or drew, as it became a 'work in progress' that he would return to and 'touch up' for years after he started it. So, no answers here...."
Why, Mark, on page one of this thread, you were placing a lot of emphasis on Gentilz's "1844" drawing as the basis for the supposed recessed arch, as it appeared in or circa 1844. Does this mean you no longer trust Gentilz's painting "El Alamo" and the similar painting in Nelson as true representations of how the Alamo appeared around 1844?
I'm not so ready to dismiss Gentilz. He didn't arrive in San Antonio in late 1844, but rather made his first visit to that place from about late March 1844 to the first of September of that year. That gave him five months on-site, and it is well documented that he spent that time intensively sketching the local scene. He may have later painted successive versions of certain paintings, including of the Alamo, but they were based on his on-site sketches. To get an idea of Gentilz' sense of detail, look at the first edition of Nelson, The Alamo: An Illustrated History, p. 63. At the top is a laterally corrected reproduction of the earliest known Alamo photograph, the 1849 daguerreotype. Below the photo is a Gentilz painting of the Alamo, DRT Library, no date given but presumably based on sketches he took during his first visit to San Antonio in 1844. (There is a similar oil painting, titled "El Alamo" at the DRT Library, reproduced in Dorothy S. Kendall's book, Gentilz: Artist of the Old Southwest, p. 55) Notice that in the Gentilz painting there are prominent holes peppering the south side of the church (to anchor scaffolding beams) as well as a couple on the southern part of the church facade. Take a close look at the 1849 daguerreotype, and you'll notice that many of these holes coincide exactly with those that Gentilz shows. Those holes were filled in by the early 1860s, if not a decade before during the army's renovations to the church, so their presence in Gentilz' paintings is further evidence for his early sketching of the site.
Granted, dating Gentilz' paintings is problematic; he failed to paint dates on many of his finished works, and confusing matters, late in the 19th century he began copyrighting many of his works, sometimes painting the copyright date on the canvas of earlier works of indeterminate date.
As Susan Prendergast Schoelwer pointed out in her article, "The Artist's Alamo: A Reappraisal of Pictorial Evidence, 1836-1850" (Southwestern Historical Quarterly, XCI, no. 4, p. 463), "Gentilz had evidently begun to study the Alamo shortly after his arrival in Texas, reading available accounts, interviewing local residents, and measuring the extant ruins. [He was a surveyor-TRK] His manuscript notes and sketches, preserved in the extensive Gentilz-Fretelliere Collection at the Daughters of the Republic of Texas Library at the Alamo, San Antonio, contain an annotated diagram of the compound as well as numerous perspective studies of the buildings. The precise detail of these sketches demonstrates that, even if Gentilz did not complete his paintings until after 1850, he must have inspected the ruins prior to their renovation by the U.S. Army." [emphasis added]
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