It’s the end of a long week. I’m kind of tired, and don’t feel much like writing. I think i’ll take off my hat and rest a bit.

Waud, Alfred R., [Lincoln Resting in Chair, Top Hat in Lap.], United States, between 1860 and 1865. Library of Congress. Click to open larger image in new window.

Presidential leadership

As always, Abraham Lincoln sets a sensible example. I figure if the president could take an occasional nap during the Civil War, I can take a break from writing the blog for a day or two.

Alfred R. Waud, artist

I publish a lot of 19th-century art on Clark House Historian. Colorful watercolors, hand-tinted lithographs, rich-hued oil paintings, and sepia-toned early photographs all grab the eye. But sometimes a simple pencil sketch manages to record a moment in time that could not be so quickly captured with those other media. The work of sketch artists was also essential in an era where—for technical reasons—photographs could not yet be reproduced in newspapers or periodicals such as Harper’s Weekly.

One master of the quick and often highly detailed pencil sketch—sometimes incorporating white highlights and charcoal shading—was “artist correspondent” Alfred R. Waud (1828-1891). For more on his life, Wikipedia has a good short bio here. And the Library of Congress has over one thousand of Waud’s original Civil War drawings digitized and online here. Many of these are the “snapshots” from the front lines that later became well-known engravings in the popular press.

Naptime.

Have a good weekend. See you soon.