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Post by pff on Jun 11, 2009 11:44:12 GMT -5
regarding McArdle's 1905 "Dawn of the Alamo" has it ever been pointed out that -in contrast to his 1895 "Battle of San Jacinto"-that the "Dawn of the Alamo" has paintfully bad mistakes: At left background behind the Long Barracks{?} the post 1836 "humped" front facade of the Alamo Chapel! Lower left Jim Bowie with his knife and Ordance Sgt Evans about to blow up the magazine-even through Bowie was in the barracks by the main gate and Evans was in the Chapel! Lower right: Crockett fights the Mexicans below Travis-although Crockett was killed between the Chapel and the Long barracks! Upper right: a about to be bayonted in the back uniformed Travis fights with sword and pistol and kills a mexican standard bearer-even though Travis had a shotgun and was killed by a bullet in the forehead at the North Battery; Also in the left center-what is the large structure behind the well in the middle supposed to represent?
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Post by Paul Sylvain on Jun 12, 2009 5:22:18 GMT -5
Well, I guess we can chalk it up to "Artistic License". John Wayne took plenty with his version of the Alamo, but it still is a wicked good movie to watch, isn't it? Some of the things you mention as fact may never be known with certainty (although this forum helps us get closer to ironing those debates out). I'm thinking, for example, the comment about where Crockett died.
Another piece of art that fascinated me when I was a kid was a painting of Custer's Last Stand. Budweiser used it for something and so they were found in bars and restaurants all over the country. Great piece of art, and very exciting (especially to a young kid's imagination), but there were many, many things historically wrong with the depiction. Still, it's a great work of art.
Paul
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Post by stuart on Jun 12, 2009 7:36:02 GMT -5
Another piece of art that fascinated me when I was a kid was a painting of Custer's Last Stand. Budweiser used it for something and so they were found in bars and restaurants all over the country. Great piece of art, and very exciting (especially to a young kid's imagination), but there were many, many things historically wrong with the depiction. Still, it's a great work of art. Paul Like the Zulu warriors for instance ;D ;D ;D
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Post by Paul Sylvain on Jun 13, 2009 1:53:25 GMT -5
Ah, yes -- someone else remembers! lol
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Post by pff on Jun 24, 2009 8:21:51 GMT -5
You know I even tried looking a version of this painting in a mirror-and for the life of me I just could not figure out what corner of the Alamo fortress this is supposed to be-it couldn't be the northwest corner just west of where Travis fell-because for one thing the Alamo church facade is impossible to see from that angle! It couldn't have been the southwest angle where the 18 pounder was-because all though you can see the Alamo Facade -you can't see the N.W. Angle? Lastly if this was either the NE or SE angles it would simply be impossible to see the facade as well! Whatever plan/source did the artist ever use for a basis for this painting?? Is the dawn at the right supposed to be the "rising sun" of texas Independence
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Post by Kevin Young on Jun 24, 2009 8:39:36 GMT -5
Another piece of art that fascinated me when I was a kid was a painting of Custer's Last Stand. Budweiser used it for something and so they were found in bars and restaurants all over the country. Great piece of art, and very exciting (especially to a young kid's imagination), but there were many, many things historically wrong with the depiction. Still, it's a great work of art. Paul Like the Zulu warriors for instance ;D ;D ;D One of these hung in my local barber shop-just loved looking at it. One of those great childhood memories.
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Post by Paul Sylvain on Jun 24, 2009 22:36:10 GMT -5
Like the Zulu warriors for instance ;D ;D ;D One of these hung in my local barber shop-just loved looking at it. One of those great childhood memories. There was a place called Dube's Diner, or something like that, where I'd pop in for a sandwich and fries as a kid. It was more of a barroom, I guess, but they served food so was licensed as a restaurant. Anyway, they had one of those "Last Stabnd" paintings in there. Like you, it's a great childhood memory, and as a painting it sure captured my imagination back then. Paul
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Post by pff on Feb 17, 2012 11:07:15 GMT -5
COuld it be a view from the North wall looking South? If so why can you see the Alamo facade at upper left?
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Post by Kevin Young on Feb 18, 2012 9:47:08 GMT -5
McArdle's notes and scrap books are on on line at the Texas State Archives site.
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doc
Full Member
Posts: 88
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Post by doc on Feb 18, 2012 21:34:38 GMT -5
Hey, Thunderous One, why no mention of "Sparky," the fighting Alamo dog?
Doc
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Post by Kevin Young on Feb 19, 2012 11:58:09 GMT -5
DOC-PYF
I knew someone would bring old Sparky up!
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Post by loucapitano on Feb 19, 2012 16:33:10 GMT -5
I'd love to get my hands of a print of the Budweiser Custer's Last Stand. I have a beautiful copy of it in The American Heritage "History of the Great West" and I want the Budwieser copy to hang next to my print of Gary Zaboly's "Moment in Time" masterpiece. I know Custer didn't have a sword at the LBH, but the swirl of action, terror and violence really captures one of history's most dramatic confrontations. I first saw it around 1960 and it haunts me to this day.
I gave up on the 1905 "Dawn at the Alamo" years ago for the same reason most of you guys mentioned. It's exciting and dramtic but so full of historical flaws that it confuses more than it illuminates. I like Zaboly, although there are some depth and perspective licenses taken, it really comes about as close as I've seen to reality based on 20th Century research. Of course, now some new artists have really taken to produce historically accurate and dramatic paintings and I'm beginning to collect them (although my MAN CAVE is about a cluttered as my wife will let me get it.)
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Post by Allen Wiener on Feb 19, 2012 19:04:12 GMT -5
Lou, by far the best Custer LBH painting is "Here Fell Custer" by Eric Von Schmidt. It is exhibited at the LBH visitor's center and the only one I can recall that shows the scene from behind the soldiers, looking down into the valley toward the river. I'm not as fond of his "Storming the Alamo," but it's still a great painting as well. If you ever travel out that way, do not miss the Buffalo Bill Museum in Cody, WY. Among the many artifacts, displays, works of art, etc., is a collection of paintings depicting the LBH fight down through the years, including the famous Anheuser-Busch painting, "Custer's Last Fight" by Otto Becker, which dates from around 1890; the brewer initially shipped 150,000 copies of it around the country and in 1942, during WWII, was shipping something like 2,000 per month to servicemen overseas. It, too, sort of shows the view looking down into the valley, but not with the accuracy or feeling that's in Von Schmidt's painting -- different images from different eras. You can get a fair look at both paintings here, but this doesn't really do justice to them: www.vonsworks.com/
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Post by pff on May 24, 2014 8:52:00 GMT -5
McArdle painting 1871 version www.tsl.texas.gov/mcardle/paintings.html1905 version www.tspb.state.tx.us/SPB/Gallery/HisArt/10.htmNever can understand that the perspective--is that supposed to be the long Barracks at the left? Is this sopposed to be loosing from the southwest 18 pounder postion? It so --what a mishmash-even worse than John wayne version! Travis was killed in the North Battery;-he didnt have a pistol-he had a shotgun-he was not bayonted from behind-he was shot in front! Jim Bowie was a in room just north of the Main gate-he may have been too ill/dying to fight back... David Crockett was no where near the 18th pd cannon postion-according to Susanna Dickinson she saw he lying between the church and the long barracks....certainly the main gate and outbuildings didint look like that...nor the well was there at all.... PS As for the Beer version of Custer last stand...try Ebay
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Post by Rich Curilla on May 24, 2014 15:53:34 GMT -5
This is the approximate angle of the Henry McArdle painting "Dawn at the Alamo" as replicated just now on my virtual model. I have turned it into "Late Afternoon at the Alamo" in order for you to see the church facade better -- it is visible over the low part of the Long Barrack to the left, its baptistry topped by the flag. (Remember, this is a foot-accurate layout of the Alamo). McArdle's dilemma was that he -- admirably -- chose to show the whole plaza as the stage for his battle painting as in truth it was rather than just stage it around (or on!) the church like most painters and illustrators before him. McArdle was what we might call "cutting edge" with this and IMO is to be applauded. Choosing this angle from the north however came with the problem that you just can't see the famous facade from there. In this high angle from McArdle's approximate viewpoint, you can see how uncooperative the true layout of the fort was for his concept. If he moved forward enough to capture at least some of the facade (seemingly, an Alamo art necessity), he would lose the majority of the compound. So, he simply took the time-honored right of "artistic license" by cheating angles and viewpoints a bit to do both. He also wished to honor the memories of key participants in his 12-foot wide painting. The key players for the work of art were Crockett, Bowie, Travis, Mrs. Dickinson, Joe and Robert Evans. Now how on earth could you get all these people in one angle? It is indeed an impossibility. But paintings of the day had an answer for this -- the vignette. It was totally appropriate, even in the greatest art, to include secondary images within the primary one. McArdle chose this technique (as a filmmaker today might intercut scenes) to allow these passionate individual actions and reactions to read as part of the overall work. Thus, you see tableaus of Crockett and Travis fighting bravely in the right third of the canvas, Bowie and Evans in the left third and the Alamo's Madonna and Child with Joe in a tableau in the extreme lower-left. The reach for the general Truth in the painting trumps the literal fact (in this case, the specific fort location of these deaths -- totally inconclusive at that time, and partially so even now.). McArdle also took creative license by expanding on one detail from his own quite accurate plat of the Alamo based on the Giraud survey for Sam Maverick and R. M. Potter's 1860 plat. He took the idea of a "a small piece on a high platform," as described by R. M. Potter in his 1878 (highly accurate for that time) account of the battle, and expanded it into the large structure in the middle of his painting, passionately rendered with ruins, sharp angles and centerpiece battle action around a flag. Henry McArdle spent years doing research for his painting, his notes from which are still feeding historian. At the end of the day however, he was still following the rules of art and not the science of history. His primary job was to move people, not inform them.
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