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Post by elcolorado on Jul 21, 2007 10:40:15 GMT -5
Tom
Both you and Mark provide great points in support of your views and I'm beginning to think that this issue may get filed in "unresolved drawer" due to the conflicting drawings and dates. I think the drawings of Gentilz, Everett, and Eastman are amazing....they all appear to be very detailed and accurate. For me, the devil is in the dates more so then in the details.
Again, let me refer to my post in regards to Seth Eastman's work. If Gentilz saw a small rectangular door in 1844, why then would Eastman draw an arched opening in1848?? If both, the artists and the drawings are correct, then the next question I have is: Who removed the small door that Gentilz saw in '44 and constructed the arched opening the Eastman drew in '48....and why?? Complicating the issue even more is Fulton's assertion of an arched opening in 1837 and the numerous drawings and plans that don't show an opening at all...of any type.
So...as it appears from the evidence...we have an arched opening in 1837 (Fulton)...it disappears around 1838-39 (Well, Maverick)...is reconstructed and becomes a small rectangular door on or before 1844 (Gentilz)...disappears again in 1845 (Blake)...is then converted back into an arched opening by 1848 (Eastman) and finally, on or about 1849, is rebuilt by the Army and once again becomes the small rectangular door. How, if possible, can we logically reconcile all the graphic evidence and still obtain an accurate or satisfactory conclusion??
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Post by marklemon on Jul 21, 2007 11:07:36 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] I wouldn't say that in my post I was putting "alot of emphasis" on Gentilz. But I suppose at this stage of the discussion I should be meticulously precise in my wording. I am not saying that he wasn't there. Nor am I saying he wasn't there in 1844, or that he put things in his paintings that didn't exist. What I AM saying is that he was there for MANY years, and that he tended to add, revisit, and touch up his work, as many artists do. In light of this, it is entirely possible that there are things in his paintings that did not exist together at the same time. The presence of a squared door in a painting that shows the scaffolding holes in the church facade, when it comes to Gentilz, proves nothing. There is nothing wrong or inconsistent with my citing his depiction of a so-called "crack," or otherwise depicted signs of a recessed arch, because I have hard evidence that by the 1860's, the fault in the wall, the "crack," (which was really an overlap, or offset,) had been cleaned up and "trimmed" by the Army to halt its further deterioration. This means that WHENEVER Gentilz depicted it (the signs of a fault), it had to have been between 1844 and the 1860's. And this fits right into what I am saying about the chronology of the wall's features, and has no effect whatever on the fact that, in many, many early drawings dating from 1836, some done by amateurs, and others by accomplished draftsmen, No OPENING, arched or otherwise, is shown, when they easily could have done so. You may think I have some personal stake in this, but the opposite is true. This is a fact that I have only recently come upon, AFTER I had already had the photo-illustrations for my book completed which DO show an opening there. So, if I had any stake in this, it'd be to say there WAS an opening in the wall in 1836. But I feel I have to go where the preponderance of the evidence leads, not citing one source as conclusive, when, as we know, one source can be mistaken. As I said before, and will continue to say, I feel Fulton saw an archway there, but that it looked to him that it was a "wide entrance" that had just been filled in, but that was open at the time of the battle. He most likely assumed this, and not bothering to include this detail. His denoting this feature, in the midst of other battle-related comments, indicates that he thought it had some significance for the battle period, was open at the time of the battle, and so did not mention it's "filling in." No other scenario fits at all. No large open archway would have been built in that location, when one remembers what was on the other side of the wall...a long row of apartments. It would have been a wide open arch in the back wall of someone's room. Absolutely NO drawing, whose dating is credible, and there are many, shows any opening in this wall UNTIL 1848. This is also the time that the Army was beginning its improvements. The reopening of a smaller inset arched door would have, initially, fit their purposes until a few months or perhaps a year later, in 1849 (the "1847" drawing by Blake, in Nelson, is mis-labelled. It should say "1849",) when a squared-off door is shown, meaning that the Army, not trusting the crumbling arch, squared off the top and placed a lintel there, as they did on many other locations in the Alamo. One source is sometimes used in scholarship, but one source, in the face of overwhelming evidence, both direct, and circumstantial, to the contrary, is unwise. I am paying the price right now for this philosophy, as my book will show a configuration that most probably did not exist in 1836.
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Post by marklemon on Jul 21, 2007 11:20:20 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. Rich, Thank you for thinking logically, and taking into account the over-arching (sorry!) history of the mission. I should have been saying what you said, and was trying to, in my way, but you said it better. One does not build a tiny doorway in a massive, tall wall without some kind of re-enforcement overhead. In the Alamo church itself, there are other examples of openings being topped by relieving arches. In the case of the first church built against the high connecting wall, it would have been appropriate to have in that area above the small door, a recessed arch, both to add strength to the wall thereby protecting the doorway, and giving the church's interior a decorative feature. Mark
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Post by elcolorado on Jul 21, 2007 15:29:21 GMT -5
Thanks, Rich. After reading your post, I want back into my copy of Nelson (1st ed) to see if I could find an example of the "recessed arch" that Mark has been trying to describe...I found two. On page 66, Seth Eastman's drawing of the "Rear of the Alamo" shows a recessed arch in the North transept and on page 67, Edward Everett's drawing of the "Interior view of Alamo Church" reveals an even better picture of the recessed arch in the North transept. This has helped me to better visualize what Mark has been trying to explain. Marks theory and description of the connecting wall makes a little more sense to me, now.
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Post by Rich Curilla on Jul 21, 2007 15:34:47 GMT -5
In the Alamo church itself, there are other examples of openings being topped by relieving arches. In the case of the first church built against the high connecting wall, it would have been appropriate to have in that area above the small door, a recessed arch, both to add strength to the wall thereby protecting the doorway, and giving the church's interior a decorative feature. Mark I have several books with scads of photographs of the San Antonio and California missions, and there are many examples of relieving arches over arched doorways. Some of these seem only decorative. So, I think this theory is right on the money, given the probability of the temporary church and its connection to the convento.
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Post by TRK on Jul 21, 2007 16:13:13 GMT -5
Mark, I'll believe that your theory concerning the wall, the relieving arch, and the door within the arch is based on sound reasoning and good evidence. You'll forgive me if I reserve my full support of that theory until I've had the opportunity to study that 1860s photograph that figures in your theory. And you may be correct about what Fulton saw...or rather, thought he saw, although it boggles my mind why, after surely having seen the wall in question up close a year after the battle, he would have made such a big deal about a "wide entrance," not only in his 1837 drawing of the Alamo, but years later on the "diagram." Maybe he had some kind of a fixation
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Post by Rich Curilla on Jul 21, 2007 17:48:32 GMT -5
And you may be correct about what Fulton saw...or rather, thought he saw, although it boggles my mind why, after surely having seen the wall in question up close a year after the battle, he would have made such a big deal about a "wide entrance," not only in his 1837 drawing of the Alamo, but years later on the "diagram." Maybe he had some kind of a fixation So what kind of fixation did William Bolleart have in 1844 when he drew the sketch of the low barrack and church from the south and turned the arched transept doorway into what appears to be a spot where a hunk of plaster fell off the wall? And how about Capt. Arthur T. Lee completely ignoring the existance of the south transept archway in his 1848 rear view painting of the church? I think they all had some kind of personalization fixation.
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crc
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Post by crc on Dec 8, 2007 18:01:43 GMT -5
So what kind of fixation did William Bolleart have in 1844 when he drew the sketch of the low barrack and church from the south and turned the arched transept doorway into what appears to be a spot where a hunk of plaster fell off the wall? Rich, all artists have their personal fixations, quirks, mannerisms – style. Certain things they observe don’t make it to the canvas or paper, others get exaggerated or de-emphasized. They’re people, not cameras, no matter how objective they may try to be. Different illustrators of the Alamo not only have different “fixations,” but also have different training, abilities, tastes, and objectives. The more we know about the artists (and the influences on their art), the more we’ll know what they are trying to show us. In some cases though, the “quirks” are with us, letting what we think we know interfere with what we’re being shown. As for Bollaert, the sketch you refer to was done on the way to visit the Alamo on September 20th, 1843. Given the view point, he probably stopped somewhere between present-day Crockett and Commerce streets after crossing the river. (He also drew the nearly washed- out Commerce Street bridge.) I think he captured what he saw pretty well – including the “ragged” hole in the south transept. If you’ll remember the Seth Eastman pencil drawing and watercolor of “the back of the Alamo,” you’ll see that there are large blocks of stone, partly dislodged, at the bottom of the archway in the transept. It’s reasonable to assume this opening was blocked up during the siege, and that it remained partially blocked up in 1843. From Bollaert’s perspective it appeared to be an irregular opening, and in his defense, even close up it seemed that way. James P. Newcomb, who arrived in San Antonio (as a child) in 1845, had this to say: “When I first saw the Alamo, in 1845, it looked as it did at the time of the memorable siege… In the south wall [of the church] was a breach near the ground, said to have been made by Santa Anna’s cannon.”- The North San Antonio Times, Thursday, October 28, 1971, excerpted From the San Antonio Express of April 9, 1905 In addition, Gentilz consistently illustrates damage to the voussoirs (the wedge-shaped stones making up the arch) on the right side of the arch as we view it (Eastman also, but from his angle, it doesn’t seem as extreme), and if accurate, would only contribute to the appearance of an irregular hole in the wall. Look also at Seth Eastman’s pencil sketch “Front view of the Alemo, (sic) Texas” from his sketchbook in the McNay collection, from page 76 of Nelson’s hardcover Illustrated Alamo, with Boll aert’s (not Boll eart’s as identified) sketch just below it – you can see their depictions of what is open and what is blocked in the south transept are quite congruent.
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crc
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Post by crc on Dec 9, 2007 1:46:32 GMT -5
And how about Capt. Arthur T. Lee completely ignoring the existance of the south transept archway in his 1848 rear view painting of the church? I think they all had some kind of personalization fixation. I’ll have to stick up for A.T. Lee here. The small size of the picture, the fact that the south side is in shade, and the extreme angle (the view is from almost directly behind the church) either preclude the transept archway from being discernable, or if one has a good copy (as in W. Stephen Thomas’ Fort Davis and the Texas Frontier with Lee’s Alamo watercolor reproduced on page 43), one could argue that there is a small dark spot where the unblocked area should be, and some rubble next to the wall. (But this borders on trying to squeeze more out of the picture than Lee deliberately put in.) Arthur Tracy Lee, Eighth U.S. Infantry, arrived in Texas late in 1848, so his watercolor depicts the Alamo no earlier than that. The latest date for Lee’s rendering is sometime before October 1849, when he was at Fort Croghan on the Colorado, where he remained “through most of 1850.” The Quartermaster was “ready” to place the roof on the Alamo in May of 1850, so it’s not likely Lee sketched at the Alamo after his Fort Croghan tenure, or he wouldn’t have seen the church roofless, and its walls uneven heights. Interestingly, in the aforementioned book, Thomas unequivocally states that Seth Eastman “was not where Lee was during those [1848-1849, and 1855-1856] periods.” Eastman was in San Antonio in late November 1848 for a few days, and then very briefly in August of 1849. Regardless, Thomas writes that the artists “probably knew each other” and were together at Fort Snelling, Minnesota earlier in 1848, where they may have sketched side-by-side. Thomas also suggests that Eastman might have influenced Lee’s art. Lee probably painted many of his watercolors “during his retirement from field sketches or finished pencil drawings” and this might explain any drift from the factual in the details. Likewise, Eastman painted his Texas watercolors from his sketchbook pencil drawings, and though painted within a year or so of the sketches, aren’t as proportionately correct as the pencil renderings, and leave out some details (such as a privy(?) alongside the acequia behind the church). I attempted to track down Lee’s sketches in the early 1980s through the Rochester Historical Society and Rush Rhees Library at U. of Rochester, but came up empty-handed. A brief correspondence with Mr. Thomas was cut short due to his poor health, and I never received word as to whether Lee’s sketches survive somewhere, or whether other Alamo watercolors were painted and are still extant.
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Post by Jake on Jan 4, 2008 13:10:56 GMT -5
Concerning Lee's work -- Mentioned somewhere in all the labyrinth of topics here is that he showed windows in the east end wall of the Low Barracks. But I haven't seen mentioned that he shows an entire second floor to the building. Look closely at the north face as he has it drawn, and you see two levels of rows of windows, one at ground floor level and one at second floor level. I have to suppose these are an error -- the building was never that tall.
As to the arched opening in the south transept of the church ... so far as I can determine, the existence of that can't be proved earlier than the first drawing that shows it, sometime in the 1840s or so. No reference to such an opening in any of the colonial documents, and I'll bet there's no clearly identifyable reference to it in the Battle documents. So, far as we can know, it could have been created in the period of 1836-early 1840s.
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Post by elcolorado on Jan 4, 2008 14:55:03 GMT -5
Jake
I've always wondered about the opening in the south transept and what purpose it may have served. Would you say that this is an uncommon feature in comparison with other missions you've looked at? I was looking through Nelson's "Alamo Illustrated" and noticed that his ca. 1795 painting of the church has the feature in question blocked by scaffolding (intentional?).
Glenn
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crc
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Post by crc on Jan 5, 2008 1:50:37 GMT -5
Concerning Lee's work -- Mentioned somewhere in all the labyrinth of topics here is that he showed windows in the east end wall of the Low Barracks. But I haven't seen mentioned that he shows an entire second floor to the building. Look closely at the north face as he has it drawn, and you see two levels of rows of windows, one at ground floor level and one at second floor level. I have to suppose these are an error -- the building was never that tall. As to the arched opening in the south transept of the church ... so far as I can determine, the existence of that can't be proved earlier than the first drawing that shows it, sometime in the 1840s or so. No reference to such an opening in any of the colonial documents, and I'll bet there's no clearly identifiable reference to it in the Battle documents. So, far as we can know, it could have been created in the period of 1836-early 1840s. Jake, I'm curious as to the reason for your posting; you don't directly refute or supplement my comment on Lee. I simply explained that the question of why the archway in the transept is not visible in his watercolor is moot. I'll gladly send you photos or show you in person in March what I may have failed to convey in my posting. As to other details, I also explained that Lee's sketches are unlocated, so we don't have his direct response to what he saw - we only have a watercolor done from those sketches, perhaps many years after he was in San Antonio. Generally, every step away from the all-important direct observation potentially erodes detail accuracy, even in as fine a draftsman as Seth Eastman (whom I'll be writing about for The Alamo Journal this year). That being said, it is your assumption that Lee is portraying an "entire second floor" on the "Low Barrack." The Army rebuilt the building to be used to store forage - and as any hay barn owner will tell you, the structure needs venting. So one could just as well interpret the "second story" windows (dots really) as vent windows, just as the upper window appears to be in the west end of the same building in the "General Twiggs" woodcut from an 1861 Harper's Weekly, (Nelson, 1st edition, page 74; 2nd edition, page 79). Since there is a figure standing by the eastern end wall in Lee's watercolor, you can see the building scales out close to what you figured out for the height of it using Eastman's fine pencil drawing (Nelson, 2nd edition, page 73), maybe better. Yes , Lee shows what looks like windows in the northern half of the end wall where Eastman does not, but he at least has the dividing line down the middle of this wall, and uses a different color to indicate the peculiar wooden northern half of this wall as detailed by Eastman. If you want to trash Lee as a "source" for some reason, knock yourself out - I'm not his champion or using him for anything critical; however I prefer to take a positive approach, finding mutually corroborative points across multiple images, and using my training and experience as an artist, and my years of observation of, and patience with the subject to understand as much as I can of what these amateurs, draftsmen, and artists are showing us. I don't like throwing out babies with the bath water; there is too little material to work with as it is. As a last word on Lee: since he is the only artist that has (as far as we know) drawn the entire north face of the gate complex from experience, we shouldn't rush to judgment on his depiction until we chance upon another image showing the same elevation during the same period. So Jake, since I don't really think you are gunning for Lee in a fit of pique, I must assume your posting is a cautionary one, mainly directed at my earlier posting on Bollaert and the south transept archway. Since I didn't claim knowing a specific date of its inception, my offense must have been when I said: "It’s reasonable to assume this opening was blocked up during the siege..." I believe you are hinting that I should have added: "...if it was there at all." I acquiesce, but will trust the readers of this forum to decide which is the more plausible: that a stone arch (identical in construction to other Spanish colonial arches or arch fragments still visible today), at the bottom of a massive transept in the church of the Alamo, known present in 1843 (if you want to start with Bollaert, or as early as 1837 if you can argue that you see a filled-in arch in Fulton) also existed during the siege of the Alamo; or your suggestion that some unknown, un-named entity in postwar, desolate Bexar, might actually have taken the time and enormous effort to insert a damaged archway in an abandoned ruin. If that sounded sarcastic, I apologize and use your exact quote: "So, far as we can know, it could have been created in the period of 1836-early 1840s." Again, I leave it to others to decide for themselves which is the more likely... -Craig
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