Content

I.  Introduction  3

II.  Painting: The American South (1788-1860)  4

2.1  The Early Republican Period.  5

2.2  From the Jacksonian Era until the Civil War  8

III.  Painting and Writing.  10

3.1  Slave Market in Richmond, Virginia.  11

3.2  Natural Bridge, Virginia  12

IV.  Literature: Thomas Nelson  14

4.1  No Haid Pawn: Content and Structure  15

4.2  Pictures of the South in No Haid Pawn.  17

V.  Conclusion.  19

VI.  Bibliography  20

5.1  Theory.  20

5.2  Painting.  20

5.3  Literature  20

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I. Introduction

The modern viewer's perception of a historical period, of its people and their way of life, is influenced by the knowledge gathered about it since then - information that might prevent him/her to see this time solely through the eyes of those who experienced it themselves. In the arts, hermeneutics, the method of visualizing a piece of art from within, an attempt to experience the feelings and motivation of an artist when he/she created a painting or a literary work - in contrast to the analysis of art on the basis of its historic and social background -, has (not exclusively) been used since Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1911) to gain an understanding of such a period and the life people led at that time that goes beyond plain, measurable facts from historical documents or records. ¹ Life in the American South of the 19 ^th century has been widely represented in pictures from or about the period until the Civil War, after which the region was called "Old South", the adjective describing sentiments connected with the irretrievable past. Picture in this paper does not only refer to paintings or drawings but includes also pictures drawn with words: stories, novels, legends, myths. They portray the artist's individual perception of his/her time or past time, which may be influenced by mood, outside circumstances, temporal or emotional distance, ability etc., and allow the viewer who tries to "experience" the piece of art to get a more personal account of how life in the Old South was, even though the single picture can show only a small section of it, which might not generally hold true or comply with the factual reality.

From the early republican period until the Civil War, portraiture had been the main genre pursued in painting. In the beginning the intention was the creation of a record, a real likeness. When the invention of the photography slowly took over this purpose, painters could turn in greater numbers to other genres and objectives. In literature, writers of the Local Color Movement concentrated on the description of life in the ante-bellum South. Those authors, among them George Washington Cable, Kate Chopin and Thomas Nelson Page, had in most cases experienced the "Old South" only as children or young adults. Their stories were written after the Civil War, after life in the South had changed dramatically. Although their works are said to be glorifying the past and lacking realism, they are still records of the authors' individual experience of the country, its people and their life at that time as it was preserved in the writers' memories.

¹ Pinkerneil (1973), p. 95 f.

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The purpose of this paper is to show how southern life in the late 18 ^th and first half of the 19 ^th century is manifested in artistic accomplishments of and about that period. Special attention is paid to the methods used by painters and writers in creating their very own pictures of the South. The first section gives an overview of painting at that time; the popular genres, subjects and techniques are discussed to demonstrate the role of painting in the region. Occasionally, records of descriptions of the same object by a writer and by a painter have been preserved. Section II looks at two of those "dual" records and compares the techniques employed by either artist to state their respective intention and their effects on the modern viewer. In section III, Thomas Nelson Page's In Ole Virginia, especially "No Haid Pawn", is analyzed, concentrating on the impression the Old South leaves on the reader who did not personally experience this time, and to the methods Page used to "draw" his picture. It includes references to paintings from the ante-bellum period that deal with the life of blacks in the Old South as this is one of the major subjects of Page's stories.

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II. The American South in Painting (1788-1860) 2

The American "Old South", although as a region with regard to culture distinctively different from the northern and western parts of the country, was in itself not a truly homogeneous area in that respect from which only a single tradition in painting emerged. Thus, when speaking of the painterly art of the South in general, it has to be considered that, despite fairly easy transportation along the great waterways and a great number of itinerant and visiting painters, institutional development, popular taste, living conditions etc. differed in varying degrees between the states or regions of the South, which was not without influence on painterly traditions.

The economy of most of the Southern states was based on agriculture, mainly cotton, which did not encourage the foundation of many larger settlement areas that were necessary to secure a painter's income. Artistic activity between 1788 and 1860 was therefore chiefly concentrated on the state capitals and the few other urban centers. New Orleans, for example, which in the 19 ^th century was the largest and also the most affluent city of the South, very much dominated the cultural landscape of Louisiana, and Charleston was the center of almost all artistic activity in South Carolina. In the latter state, many of the wealthy plantation owners kept town houses in addition to their mansions in the country. They formed communities in the cities that were interested in art and could at the same time afford it. Similar financial conditions encouraged painters to pursue their trade in New Orleans, where the big port with all its activities supported the wealth of its inhabitants. In Alabama and Mississippi, however, the great plantation owners lived almost exclusively on their country estates. There were only few railroads in Alabama, and Mississippi's chief port Biloxi was no match in size or turnover for those of Louisiana or South Carolina. There was not enough money to support resident and itinerant portraitists and hence artistic activity was scarce in these states.

According to William H. Gerdts, the art produced in the South, especially by southern natives, has not yet been thoroughly researched. The contemporary art magazines, most of which were published in New York, often ignored that part of the country except for occasionally presenting the unspoiled southern landscapes as waiting for their beauty being preserved on canvas by the northern artist. The London-born T. Addison Richardson, who lived in New York and had spent some time in the South, published several magazines, e.g.

² This section based almost exclusively on material from Poesch (1983) and Gerdts (1990). Individual references to these authors

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in 1842 Georgia Illustrated, articles in magazines, like in Harper's New Monthly Magazine in May 1853, and in 1857 the travel guide Appleton's Handbook of American Travel. He tried to raise interest in southern subjects and to encourage northern artists, especially landscape painters, to visit the area. Few art magazines concentrated exclusively on art from the South; only little is known about many southern artists from that period and a great number of paintings were destroyed by fires and during the Civil War.

2.1 The Early Republican Period

The American public appears to have had no great interest in the classical (European) heritage in painting, i.e. mythology and history. For example, John Vanderlyn's Ariadne Asleep on the Island of Naxos (1812) was, despite its popularity in Europe, not successful in puritan America. The nudity of Ariadne might have prevented many Americans from recognizing that the painting was not merely a portrait but that it was "standing for [...] venerable old master traditions, fashionable salon sophistication, licentious male desire and female victimization of an ultimately edifying nature" ³ and that its "subject, style and theme coincide in such a way as to be keenly relevant to some of the most pressing issues of the artist's time". 4

In the South, portraiture was the genre that almost completely dominated the painterly arena during the early republican period. The artistic aspect of a painting was probably a luxury unaffordable to most people, and art for art's sake did not correspond with the rather practical taste of many Southerners ⁵ . Demand for portraits, however, which recorded the realistic likeness and the memory of persons and sometimes also places, e.g. Jones Falls at Baltimore Street Bridge (ca. 1800) ⁶ by Francis Guy, was great enough for many artists (and also artisans) to specialize in that field in urban centers throughout the U.S. Portraiture included pictures of official persons like national heroes and statesmen as well as of private people. The difference between official and private portraiture was therefore only in the sitters, artists usually worked in both areas. Some of the latter specialized in miniature painting, a tradition that had begun in the 16 ^th century. The roots of painting figures smaller than in nature, however, go back still further, and the term "miniature" is an 18 ^th -century invention. One of the most famous American miniaturists

except for direct citations are omitted to avoid excessive footnoting.

³ Lubin (1994), p. 18.

⁴ ibid., p. 1.

⁵ Lucie-Smith (1994), p. 13.

⁶ Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore. Copy in Poesh (1983), p. 177.

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working in the South between 1790 and 1810 - the "Golden Age of American Miniature"was Edward Green Malbone (1777-1807). His two works Miniature of Colonel Thomas Pinckney, Jr. (1802) and Miniature of Mrs. Thomas Pinckney, Jr. (1801) ⁷ demonstrate the role miniatures played at that time. The depicted couple was not married until 1803; the picture of the loved one was most likely carried around during their engagement period. It was a very private art form. Sometimes small miniatures were also worn as jewelry, as the portrait of Mrs. Marquis Calmes (1806) ⁸ by Jacob Frymire (1765/74-1822) shows. By the 1830's miniatures had increased in size from one or two inches to three and more, and their shape was altered from oval to rectangular. In portraits from Charleston, where miniature painting was the most distinctive ante-bellum painting, the entire development of the American miniature can be studied. This genre, largely influenced by French painters, was becoming fashionable in Charleston in the 1790's. Interest had declined, however, by 1840 as in the rest of the country, partly because of the increasing popularity of photography. At that time, photographs were still intended to serve merely as portraits without distinctive artistic ambitions; photography developed into an art form only at the beginning of the 20 ^th century. In many southern states with notable artistic activity, miniature paintings were quite popular, though not in all of them. In Huntsville and Mobile, Alabama's major cities, and in New Orleans these small-sized portraits did not find the reception they enjoyed elsewhere in the South. Artists who worked there could not specialize entirely on miniatures but also painted regular-sized portraits like Louis-Antoine Collas (1775-1856), a French miniaturist who worked in New Orleans between 1822 and 1831. The major artistic achievement in New Orleans was the establishment of an independent portrait tradition, in part due to a strong French influence and because of its German and Swiss traditions. Louisiana became a state of the US only in 1812. Some of the few pictures that have been painted there before the Louisiana purchase in 1803 are from Don José Salazar de Mendoza - a portraitist of Mexican origin who lived in Louisiana from about 1782 until his death in 1802. He and his daughter usually portrayed members of prominent families at a time when Louisiana was still under Spanish rule. After 1803, many painters from other areas came to New Orleans and worked there as resident or itinerant portraitists. From about 1825 Louisiana, especially New Orleans, was regularly visited by northern portrait painters, e.g. Matthew Harris Jouett (1787-1827), John James Audubon (1785-1851) or John Vanderlyn (1776-1852). Some of those artists, including a

⁷ Carolina Art Association/Gibbes Art Gallery, Charleston. Copies in Poesh (1983), p. 161.

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number from the northern states of the South like Kentucky, came only for the season between November and June. They then took some of the "southern flavor" ⁹ back to their home states, which may be a reason for finding New Orleans' artistic influence as far up north.

Although some of the official portraits occasionally included characteristics of the history painting, demand for the latter genre was generally very low. It needed to be stipulated by those painters who had specialized in that field, e.g. by publicly exhibiting their works to attract patrons and collectors. Patronage was scarce for American artists in general since most collectors preferred a copy of an old master painting to an American original. In part due to this lack of funds, only few history painters of note worked in the South. Those who did had to improve their income through portrait painting, the sale of engravings of popular paintings and of reproductions of their earlier works. Americans showed even less interest in landscapes, genre paintings and still lives than in history paintings. Nevertheless, a landscape tradition emerged with works of Ralph Earl (1751-1801), John Vanderlyn (1775-1852), John Trumbull (1756-1843) or Francis Guy (1760-1820) that would become stronger during the mid-19th century. In the early republican years, only few artists could live from painting landscapes; the genre was often pursued only for private pleasure. The painter Joshua Shaw and the engraver John Hill published in 1819 and 1820 ¹⁰ their Picturesque Views of American Scenery in Philadelphia. ¹¹ With this journal they presented the beauty of the southern landscape to a wide audience, thereby raising interest in art of and about the South and promoting the development of a stronger American landscape tradition in the following decades.

2.2 From the Jacksonian Era until the Civil War

During the early 19 ^th century, interest in painting seems to have grown further as well as the willingness to offer patronage to resident artists. The number of native resident artists in Louisiana increased in the 1830s and 40s compared to earlier decades. At the same time fewer well-known artists visited the area and those who still came, many of them from France or Americans with French training, stayed for longer periods. Additionally, interest in painting had become more diverse. It was no longer appreciated only for its practical

⁸ Chicago Historical Society. Copy in Poesh (1983), p. 160.

⁹ Gerdts (1990), p. 155.

¹⁰ According to Gerdts the journal was published from 1819-21. The authors disagree slightly on several occasions on dates, titles (e.g

Sebron's Steamboats in New Orleans) and content (e.g. William J. Hubard's self portrait with Mann S. Valentine) of pictures. As far

as necessary footnotes mark such contradictions in the following.

¹¹ Poesch (1983), p. 182.

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purpose, as in portraits, or merely for its artistic qualities. Subject matter, stories told by the picture, the effects of a painting on the feelings and thoughts of the viewer became important as well, which led to the rise of the landscape and an increasing interest in the genre painting during the Jacksonian era.

Genre painting had until then been considered a minor art form, associated with lower levels of taste, although the same painterly skills were required as for other genres. Genre paintings did not interpret traditional themes like historic battles or heroes. They told stories from the experience of the artist and showed scenes from ordinary day to day life, e.g. Kitchen Ball at White Sulphur Springs ¹² (1838) by Christian Mayr (1805?-1851). Some artists, such as Francis Blackwell Mayer (1827-1899), used those scenes to present their philosophical ideas about (rather than merely images of) everyday life. Examples are his two paintings from 1858 Independence and Labor and Leisure. ¹³ The audience for this type of painting (mainly those people who were rendered in the pictures) was not wealthy enough to afford originals. Improvements in technology, however, allowed their reproduction in color lithography, the mass production of prints and a wider use of illustrations in periodicals, which made paintings available to a greater number of people and led to the growing popularity of the genre and also the landscape painting in the 1830s, 40s, and 50s.

Despite the increasing interest in views of places, landscape paintings were never produced on as large a scale as portraits. No single native artist or group of artists emerged as painters of the southern countryside or mountains during 1830-60s. Although artists from various parts of the country explored the wild scenery and had their landscapes published, for example in the above mentioned Picturesque Views of American Scenery, painters working in the South had to face more obstacles than in the North: The Alleghenies were not as easy to access for travelers and artists as the mountains in the North; the few existing roads were often in bad condition and accommodation was scarce. The urban centers, for many painters the main source of income (from portrait painting or sale of engravings), were in too far a distance from the wilderness for most artists. Although the countryside could probably have been described as picturesque in general, Virginia, for example, had only few spectacular natural attractions besides the great stone Natural Bridge. This natural formation was painted very often by artists from other regions

¹² North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh. Copy in Poesh (1983), p. 292.

¹³ National Museum of American Art, Washington, D.C. and Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. Copies in Poesh (1983), p.

298f.

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but not by a notable native painter. Maybe a lack of patronage prevented the development of a significant landscape tradition until after the Civil War as, for example, in Louisiana. There the few landscapes painted during the first half of the 19 ^th century were usually city views, e.g. A View of New Orleans Taken from the Plantation of Marigny (1803) ¹⁴ by J.L. Bouqueta de Woiseri, or Large Steamboats at the Sugar Levee in New Orleans (1853) ¹⁵ by Hippolyte Victor Valentin Sebron (1801-1879). Those two painters were of French origin; French artists were the most significant landscape painters during that period in the American South. The latter was also known and famous for his diorama paintings. Together with his teacher L.J.M. Dauguerre he was the principal diorama painter working and exhibiting in New Orleans around mid-century. Dioramas are partly three-dimensional pictures of landscapes; the background is painted in a way that allows for effects with light from behind, and sometimes three-dimensional objects occupy the foreground of the stagelike setting. The aim was the creation of an almost perfect illusion of the real, a combination of theater and painterly art. The diorama-technique was based on the popular panoramic city views of that period. Those circular paintings surrounded the viewer, making him/her feel inside the picture and "experience" the painted scenery. The exhibition halls were kept in semi-darkness to take the viewer the sense of space and distance and to increase the light effects. Later the paintings were fastened on reels that allowed for movements, making the picture seem even more real. An example of such a moving panorama is James G. Benton's and Charles L. Smith's "Independence Hall", Washington on the Brazos (1852). ¹⁶ Panoramas were also popular in the middle of the 19 ^th century in Mississippi where they showed mainly large city views of St. Louis and picturesque sites of the Mississippi river, e.g. by John James Audubon. In states like Alabama, Tennessee and Kentucky that lacked those obvious attractions as the Mississippi river or large, urban settlements, the interest in landscape painting emerged a few years later. It was just in its beginning in the 1850s when the Civil War interrupted the artistic development there that would become stronger again only during the latter part of the century. With the growing interest in a more varied range of subjects, demand for portraiture started to fall towards the middle of the 19 ^th century. Up to then portrait painting had been the most stable form of income for most artists, and even photography had not competed with painting for customers on a larger scale in the early decades of the century. All larger

¹⁴ Chicago Historical Society. Copy in Poesh (1983), p. 180.

¹⁵ Tulane University, New Orleans. Copy in Poesh (1983), p. 288. Gerdts records the title as Giant Steamboats at the Levee in

New Orleans.

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and some of the smaller cities had had their local resident portraitists, and well-known artists had visited the South during the cold season in the North, e.g. Thomas Sully (1783-1872). With the diminishing interest in this genre, however, fewer artists of note specialized in that area. Portraits produced by the less talented painters resembled almost the exact likeness of the sitter without including the character or certain artistic features. Sometimes a camera was used for portrait painting which further contributed to the similarity of painted portrait and photograph. Improvements in photography, which permitted variations of pose, expression and finish, consequently led to a sharp decline in portrait painting as a profession after the Civil War.

¹⁶ Republic National Bank, Dallas, Texas. Copy in Poesh (1983), p. 289.

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III. Painting and Writing

The term picturesque writing is wide enough to cover various techniques of drawing a picture with words. Besides, for example, giving a detailed description of an object, the author can also work with comparisons, or he/she may use words that generate certain associations in the reader's mind that result in the picture the writer wanted to create. The counterpart of picturesque writing in painting is not as easily named. Descriptive painting does not include e.g. narrative painting, although both adjectives refer to writing. While probably every painting that belongs to the category of realism is in a way descriptive, not every one is at the same time telling a story. The difficulties in terminology point out the differences between both art forms; they also demonstrate that a qualitative comparison, i.e. which method is "better", cannot not lead to sound results. When the artist's objective is the creation of pictures in the reader's or viewer's mind, only those outcomes can be safely compared because they have a common frame of reference. On the other hand, for obvious reasons those pictures will always be subjective - and so are the evaluations of the following paintings and records.

In this chapter, two records each of a southern landscape and an event typical for the American South of that time are compared with regard to the methods used in drawing the respective pictures and to the effects those techniques have on the viewer. The aim is to point out the contrast between the narrative painting by Eyre Crowe and the descriptive painting by David Johnson and the differences between a word picture and a painted one of the same object.

3.1. Slave Market in Richmond, Virginia

Eyre Crowe (1824-1910), an English artist who visited America between 1852 and 1853 as secretary of the novelist William Makepiece Thackeray, observed a slave auction in Richmond, Va. in March 1853. Based on sketches and probably diary entries (as cited below) from that visit, he recorded the scene in his painting Slave Market in Richmond, Virginia (1853). 17

"On rough benches were sitting, huddled close together, neatly dressed in grey, young negro

girls with white collars fastened by scarlet bows, and in white aprons. The form of a woman

clasping her infant, ever touching, seemed no more so here. There was a muscular field-

labourer sitting apart; a rusty old stove filled up another space. Having rapidly sketched these

features I had not time to put my outline away before the whole group of buyers and dealers

were in the compartment. I thought the best plan was to go on unconcernedly; but, perceiving

¹⁷ Private Collection. Copy in Poesh (1983), p. 293.

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me so engaged, no one would bid. The auctioneers, who had mounted the table, came down and

asked me whether, 'if I had a business store, and someone came in and interrupted my trading, I

should like it.' This was unanswerable; I got up with the intention of leaving quietly, but, feeling

this would savour of flight, I turned round to the now evidently angry crowd of dealers, and

said, 'You may turn me away, but I can recollect all I have seen.' I lingered in a neighboring

vacated store, to give myself the attitude of leisurely retreat, and I left this stifling atmosphere

of human traffic." 18

According to Jessie Poesch the painting is "a fair-minded depiction, for the artist recorded what he saw." ¹⁹ The black figures, who could be a family, take up the center of the picture. Their prominence is further underlined by the glaring white aprons the women are wearing in contrast to the rather neutral colors Crowe had used for the auctioneers. The latter remain minor figures in the background; despite them being the decision makers at this place, their discussions about price and quality appearing to be of no interest at all to the slaves who are waiting calmly and with dignity for the inevitable. The painter's sympathies seem clearly on the side of the slaves: Their bodies and faces are painted finer and in more detail than those of the figures in the back and they are shown as individuals rather than stereotyped slaves while the images of the auctioneers hardly represent distinctive characters.

The written record describes the outside appearance of the slaves together in one breath with that of the room and the interior in a rather neutral fashion. The quality of the furniture is described in contrast to the slaves' countenance, though, which sets them apart again. The main emphasis, however, is here placed on the characterization of the auctioneers whose social inferiority is described through their actions and behavior towards the artist observing their trade rather than through their appearance, which is rarely a reliable indicator of a person's character. Since Crowe had decided not to be part of the painting himself, he had to use painterly techniques such as size, color and arrangement to depict the traders as inferior figures and thereby showing his discontent with their actions. The text makes clear that the problem for the European visitor does not lie with those individual blacks he has seen there but with slavery, "human traffic", in general. While the painting, focusing on the blacks, "shows" the artist only as uninvolved (but not indifferent!) observer, the text narrates a personal experience with the author and the auctioneers as the acting persons and the slaves as part of the setting. The painting does not show the concern of the bidders about being observed by an outsider. The word picture, however, tells already of the conflicts between supporters and opponents of slavery that

¹⁸ Cited in: Poesch (1983), p. 292 f.

¹⁹ Poesch (1983), p. 293.

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would finally lead to its abolition. In this respect the painting is indeed a portrait of the every-day procedures of that time by an outside commentator with sympathy for the central figures. Crowe's written notes, though, go beyond the portrait and the expression of sympathy and concentrate on those who are actively and passively responsible for continued slavery.

3.2. Natural Bridge, Virginia

Thomas Jefferson had bought the natural formation, referred to as Natural Bridge, Va. in paintings and verbal descriptions, and the surrounding land in 1774 from the British Crown since he was, on his own account, impressed most deeply by its sight:

"It is impossible for the emotions, arising from the sublime, to be felt what they are here: so

beautiful an arch, so light, and springing as it were up to heaven, the rapture of the spectator is

really indescribable." 20

In 1834 or 1835 a traveling minister described his impressions of the bridge from two positions; about the view from a slight distance above he wrote:

"Observe these hills, gathering all around you in their surpassing excellence. Now look at the

bridge itself, springing from this bed of verdant loveliness, distinct, one, complete! ... Look at

that masonry. It is not most like the perfection of art; and yet what art could never reach? Look

at that colouring. Does it not appear like the painter's highest skill, and yet unspeakably

transcend it?" ²¹ ... and from below:

"Oh, it is sublime - so strong, and yet so elegant - springing from earth and bathing its head in

heaven! But it is the sublime not allied to the terrific, as at Niagara; it is the sublime associated

with the pleasing. I sat, and gazed in wonder and astonishment. That afternoon was the shortest

I ever remembered." 22

The American landscapist David Johnson (1827-1908) painted, besides many others, his Natural Bridge, Virginia in 1860. ²³ Unlike the minister he had to decide for one position and thereby already choose the aspect of the bridge's impressiveness he wanted to record. Johnson shows the bridge embedded in its environment, carefully rendering it in great detail as part of the entire landscape, of nature, rather than the culmination of the latter's creation. His painting is clearly lacking the sublime both Jefferson and the minister felt. As a landscape painter of the Hudson River group, Johnson might have had a different approach to the natural scenery. Being convinced of nature's beauty already - in small and in large - he is showing the bridge in its natural dimensions - as it is part of all that surrounds it - instead of measuring it against the human perspective from below.

²⁰ Cited in: Poesch (1983), p. 285.

²¹ ibid.

²² Cited in: Poesch (1983), p. 285.

²³ Reynold House, Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Copy in Poesh (1983), p. 286.

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The oral pictures of the bridge do not include single features, details, factual descriptions, but concentrate on the feelings it aroused in the viewer. Both narrators use adjectives of grandness: sublime, strong, elegant, perfect, beautiful; seeing in it a connection between heaven and earth - at the same time indescribable and impossible to accomplish by man. Unlike Crowe who used different methods in his two pictures to describe, for example, the figures with similar results, Johnson on the one hand and Jefferson and the minister on the other describe their object of admiration from a wholly different perspective, in different ways (apart from the obvious one: brush vs. pen) and with differing effects. The perception of an object or a situation appears to depend on the viewer's personal relation to it. The landscape painter has probably seen more natural miracles during his work than the minister, and rather than describing an extraordinary impression he is taking a record, a portrait of a landscape. Colorful wording, metaphors, such as "springing from earth and bathing its head in heaven", that arouse common associations seem to be suited better than realistic likenesses to illustrate emotions and individual perception. This variation of descriptive writing builds on the reader's previous encountering of the sublime in nature - the minister refers to the falls of the Niagara. The picture created in this way might vary more than a detailed and precise description from reader to reader because their experiences most likely differ. While the viewer has no difficulties seeing in Crowe's descriptions one and the same situation, it takes some time and effort to see Johnson's bridge as "the perfection of art", "light", "elegant", "sublime", "springing from its bed of verdant loveliness" "up to heaven".

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IV. Literature: Thomas Nelson Page

Thomas Nelson Page is one of the local color authors, who pictured the ante-bellum South in their stories and novels. Local color literature had developed shortly after the Civil War. It provided for those whose life was changed by the consequences of the war a portrait and nostalgic memory of the past. At the same time it was to satisfy the American readers' curiosity about the distant places of their vast country, strange customs and dialects they could not experience themselves. The South was not the only area of interest to the American public; equally popular were, for example, Bret Harte's stories about the California Gold Rush and Mark Twain's about life at the Mississippi. Thomas N. Page concentrated on his home state Virginia. Born in 1853, Pages own experiences of the "Old South" were that of a young boy. Towards the end of his childhood, he was simultaneously confronted with the loss of the established political and social order of the South and with the loss of the social stability his aristocratic family had enjoyed as part of that order. ²⁴ Consequently, many of his stories are told from a child's point of view and therefore reflect life in the South as seen by a child. He was also using blacks as narrators. As some of his later writings show, Page perceived blacks as inferior, their position in his society being that of the servant. ²⁵ The point of view of a black might have served the same purpose as that of a child: It permits a deviation from the historical reality, the painting of a romantic portrait of a glorious past. A well informed and educated narrator would have had to show the South more realistically. The popularity of Page's stories in the North as well in the South, however, was directly related to their noncompliance with historical facts, since his "daydreams were more desirable than the nightmares of war and Reconstruction." ²⁶ Page's stories might not bring the modern reader closer to the historical truth. They allow him/her, however, to "experience" a part of the author's memories and pictures of a bygone culture and to understand the sentiments connected with the past. In David Kirby's words: "Page's sustained and widely accepted attempt to substitute his own version of reality for the facts[,] addresses psychological dimensions of history that more objective writings ignore." 27

²⁴ Seidel (1984), p. 281.

²⁵ ibid., p. 286 f.

²⁶ Kirby (1982), p. 398.

²⁷ Kirby (1982), p. 402.

16

Page has written a great number of stories and novels; the collection In Ole Virginia, however, is regarded as the best of his works. On his own account in the introduction to the plantation edition, he wanted to draw a portrait "of a civilization which [...] has [...] wellnigh perished from the earth." ²⁸ He did not create the characters of his stories but merely portrayed them. "His stories of the old Southern life have been taken as a reasonably fair picture of that life," ²⁹ he continues in his introduction. The descriptions of the countryside, the buildings, the language and even of some of the characters are very precise. He is nevertheless writing from his memory (he was eight years old when the Civil War started), and his pictures of life in the South are only in so far realistic as they show what he had believed to see and not what had actually happened. 30

The stories from In Ole Virginia do not bear the characteristics of a short story. Besides being fairly long, open or unexpected endings are missing. The stories themselves appear to have been of minor importance to Page when he portrayed the landscape and drew the characters, the latter becoming ideal versions of reality, "noble beyond belief" ³¹ .

4.1 No Haid Pawn: Content and Structure

No Haid Pawn differs from the other stories comprised in In Ole Virginia, as it is the only one where the author is at the same time the main character. He personally describes a place and narrates an experience, while he had previously listened to stories told by someone else or was not part of them at all. The narration is very rich in details concerning the countryside, setting, customs and manners; it also contains various examples of picturesque writing.

No Haid Pawn is a story of the South because its gothic elements place it in the southern tradition; ³² assuming that Page did not believe in ghosts, he might have used these elements here as metaphors. In the other stories of In Ole Virginia, he at least attempted to draw a realistic picture. He included No Haid Pawn in a collection of stories which "taken together [...] present a more complete picture of the life they undertake to portray." ³³ His views he wanted to give on certain subjects here might have been too strong to be presented directly. There are several clues to this interpretation. The story consists of three

²⁸ Page (1912), p. vii f.

²⁹ ibid. p. viii.

³⁰ For the difference between Konzeptionsrealismus and Perzeptionsrealismus see: Lucie-Smith (1994), p. 10.

³¹ Kirby (1982), p. 398.

³² Seidel (1984), p. 285.

³³ Page (1912), p. x.

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sections that are separated by content as well as style: The first part ^{(p. 199-210)34} describes the setting, narrates the history of No Haid Pawn plantation, and provides background information to people's attitudes towards ghosts. Part two ^{(p. 210-213)} gives an account of the author's attitude concerning the abolitionist movement and seems to have nothing to do with the rest of the story. Only part three ^{(p. 213-227)} contains the actual ghost story, the narrator's experience at No Haid Pawn plantation. No Haid Pawn is therefore not merely a gothic story, or pure entertainment, because for this purpose at least the middle part could have been omitted. This assumption is further supported by missing conflict or tension within the story and by the apparent lack of danger to the main character in the final episode. He still remains an outside observer. Several other interpretations are possible, e.g. No Haid Pawn simply portrays the landscape and superstition of the southerners, and it allows a tiny glance on their attitude towards abolition. The idea of the story being a metaphor, though, seems plausible, too. Why would there otherwise be a section as separate with regard to content as the middle one? In the other stories, the addressed problems (e.g. the North-South conflict in Meh Lady) are part of the actual plot but no appendices.

Page addresses in the first part of No Haid Pawn several issues that demonstrate virtues of the "Old South", e.g. the legal system ^{(p. 207 f.)} . Around those points he develops his ghostly setting, only partially integrating them. They differ stylistically from the rest of the story by being stated straightforwardly in a rather neutral fashion. This sets them apart from the flow of the narration, which is otherwise told from a defined perspective, e.g. "I knew every foot" ^{(p. 199)} or "it was currently believed by the entire portion of the population." ^{(p. 201)} The straightforwardness of the major issues stands also in contrast to Page's technique of hinting an explanation or an incident without fully satisfying the reader's curiosity. For example, he gives an explanation for the origin of the plantation's name, ^{(p. 203)} saying at the same time that there exists another one (implying some terrible story) but he does not mention it (yet). Equally, the "horrible coincidence," ^{(p. 208)} which led to the hanging of the latest owner of the plantation, is related only in subordinate clauses later on. The main idea of the narration seems to be summarized at the end of the middle section: No idea can be given at this date of the excitement occasioned in a quiet neighborhood in old

times by the discovery of the mere presence of such characters as Abolitionists. It was as if the

foundations of the whole social fabric were undermined. It was the sudden darkening of a

shadow that always hung in the horizon. The slaves were in a large majority, and had they risen,

though the final issue could not be doubted, the lives of every white on the plantations must

have paid the forfeit. Whatever the right or wrong of slavery might have been, its existence ³⁴ Page numbers refer to the 1912 edition of In Ole Virginia. See bibliography for full reference.

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demanded that no outside interference with it should be tolerated. So much was certain; self-preservation required this. (p. 212 f.)

The structure of the entire story roughly resembles the structure of the above quoted passage: No Haid Pawn plantation could represent one of those abolitionist cells Page is referring to earlier. The owners were "aliens" ^{(p. 200)} and fostered no personal relations with the locals, which was not the latter's fault, because they were "open-hearted and open-doored enough to overcome anything but the most persistent unneighborliness." ^{(p. 204)} (This could mean that in Page's perception the South signaled cooperation while the northerners wanted everything their own way: "Instead of following the custom of those who were native..." ^{(p. 204)} ) "The place was cut off from the rest of the country as if a sea had divided it," ^{(p. 200)} and it was perceived as "ghostly." ^{(p. 199)} Runaway slaves rather got caught than to go there (i.e. that is what they were supposed to do). Page's perception of abolitionists is personified in the latest owner of the plantation, a man of "gigantic stature and superhuman strength, [who] possessed appetites and vices in proportion to his size." ^{(p. 207)} No Haid Pawn plantation aroused as much excitement among the locals as the Abolitionists did, "we were afraid even to talk about it." ^{(p. 199)} Their crime - interfering with internal southern affairs - is paralleled by the crime committed by the late owner of the plantation. It is punished in the story - the man is hanged. The tale ends with the drowning of No Haid Pawn, "by some process not wholly consistent with the laws of physics," ^{(p. 205)} demonstrating wishful thinking on the part of Page and his fellow countrymen that the "Old South" could be restored.

4.2 Pictures of the South in No Haid Pawn

In all of Page's stories in In Ole Virginia, blacks play an important role. They belong to all of his pictures of the South because they were the foundation on which the southern society of plantation owners was based. Although in No Haid Pawn the narrator is the author himself, part one is interspersed with sentences from the blacks' point of view. While the author is restricting his own descriptions to facts, superstitions and myths concerning No Haid Pawn plantation are marked as being part of the "negroes' traditions." ^{(p. 205)} The first section of the story shows the intellectual separation of black and white adults. At the beginning, the narrator is a child, believing in ghosts just as the blacks do. This also supports the aforementioned claim that the child's or black's perspective allows for a deviation from the factual reality. As a grown up, however, he takes after his parents and gets "rid of some portion [...] of the superstition of [his] boyhood." ^{(p. 213)} This does not

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conflict with the third part of the story, when the author is narrating his own ghostly experiences. The style differs from the beginning in so far as it is written like a factual description; phrases like "the negroes declared," ^{(p. 200)} "it was believed," ^{(p. 201)} "the tradition was handed down" ^{(p. 205)} etc. are missing. The third section does not serve as a portrait of southern customs - that has already been established in part one. It is rather a tale on the basis of that portrait, partly entertaining in the gothic tradition, and partly underlining Page's idea of the restorability of the "Old South."

The picture of black plantation life Page is drawing in the first part of his story tells the reader further that the plantation owners' children were brought up by slaves rather than their parents: "We were brought up to believe in ghosts. Our fathers and mothers laughed at us, and endeavored to reason us out of such a superstition." ^{(p.201 f.)} He hints that blacks, although having converted to Christianity, continue their own religious traditions. This notion was also taken up by John Antrobus (1837-1907) in his painting Plantation Burial (1860). ³⁵ It shows black slaves engaged in rituals in connection with a funeral deep in the southern woods. The owners sit quietly in a distance, simply observing the scene. Their presence makes clear, though, that the burial can take place in the black's traditional fashion only because they allow it. Page had tried to show that blacks lead an easy and good life as slaves; for example, in Marse Chan the old slave Sam says: "Dem was good ole times, marster - de bes' Sam ever see! Dey wuz, in fac'! Niggers didn't hed

nothin' 't all to do - jes' hed to 'ten' to de feedin' an' cleanin' de hosses an' doin' what de marster

tell 'em to do. ... Dyar warn' no trouble nor nothin."

This appears to be rather the slave owner's view put into the mouth of the slave for justification. In the same way does Antrobus' painting show black life from the white point of view, implying that they are humans of lower rank ("He was the only negro I ever knew who was without [...] reverence." ^{(p. 211)} ), incapable of handling personal freedom.("Even runaway slaves who occasionally left their homes [...] by a desire for a vain counterfeit of freedom…." ^{(p. 201)} ) Thomas Waterman Wood (1823-1903) has depicted the life of slaves more realistically. In his painting A Southern Cornfield, Nashville, Tennessee (1861), ³⁶ he is showing them working in a field. The work is hard and the corn, taller than man, is surrounding them on all sides, standing for never ending strain and curtailed freedom. The description of an individual slave in section two of No Haid Pawn underlines Page's abhorrence of abolitionists. He pictures the only slave who was "caught" by them, by giving him only negative characteristics (He "was as fearless as he was brutal." ^{(p. 211)} ). He

³⁵ Historic New Orleans Collection. Copy in Poesh (1983), p. 294.

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further indicates his believe in the right of southerners to decide for themselves what was good or bad with regard to slavery: "Ours was a conservative population, in which every man minded his own business and let his neighbor's alone." ^{(p. 212)} Another strong picture of the South arises from the descriptions of the landscape, the "mas'shes" and swamps, and of the building, which probably resembled a typical plantation owner's mansion, except that in this story it was a "haunted house" ^{(p. 219)} . The final part of the story is especially rich in detailed, factual descriptions of No Haid Pawn plantation. Occasionally adjectives like gaunt, uncanny, ghastly are used to create the right atmosphere for a ghost story. They do not originate, however, from the "current" appearance of the place but from the narrator's memory of stories and events connected with it.

³⁶ T.W.Wood Art Gallery, Montpelier, Verrmont. Copy in Gerdts (1990), painting No. 2.129.

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V. Conclusion

The pictures of the South presented in this paper were drawn from different points of view. While Page's stories had been written in the late 19 ^th century, looking back at the time before the war, the paintings were created by contemporaries, at a time when the "Old South" was still well-established.

The problem of slavery is addressed only on a few occasions ³⁷ and mostly by northern painters who have had still another perspective. Apparently, the North-South conflict over slavery became eminent, and was dealt with by artists, only towards the middle of the century. From the paintings, the modern viewer can therefore learn mainly about southern cities and landscape; he/she can study architecture, customs, dress, family size, social relations, etc., as the artists tried to show in their portraits everything as realistically as possible. The genre paintings could be seen as a link between the paintings of and the stories about the South. They present individual concepts, viewpoints; they are not merely portraits but carry at the same time a message. In the stories of Thomas Nelson Page, his ideas of southern virtues are embedded in portraits of the South as he knew it. By leaving aside the question of realism, it is possible to understand the sentiments connected with the "Old South" and Page's wish of restoring this lost society.

³⁷ This conclusion is drawn from the works by Poesch (1983) and Gerdts (1990) that contain only a very small percentage of paintings

depicting blacks.

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VI. Bibliography

6.1 Theory

Holländer, Hans: Literatur, Malerei und Graphik. Wechselwirkungen, Funktionen und

Konkurrenzen, in: Literatur Intermedial, (ed.) Peter V. Zima; Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche

Buchgesellschaft (1995).

Pinkerneil, Beate: Selbstreproduktion als Verfahren. Zur Methodologie und Problematik

der sogenannten 'Wechselseitigen Erhellung der Künste' in: Zur Kritik Literaturwissen-schaftlicher Methodologie, (eds.) Viktor Zmegac and Zdenko Škreb; Frankfurt (Main):

Athenäum (1973).

6.2 Painting

Brown, Milton W. et.al.: American Art; 7 ^th ed., New York: Henry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers (1988).

Gerdts, William H: Art Across America. Two Centuries of Regional Painting. 1710-1920;

New York: Abbeville Press (1990).

Lubin, David M.: Picturing a Nation; New Haven and London: Yale University Press

(1994).

Lucie-Smith, Edward: Amerikanischer Realismus; Leipzig: E.A. Seemann-Verlag (1994).

Novak, Barbara: American Painting in the Nineteenth Century; 2nd ed., New York: Harper

& Row (1979).

Poesch, Jessie J.: The Art of the Old South: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture and the

Products of Craftsmen. 1650-1860; New York: Knopf (1983).

6.3 Literature

Page, Thomas Nelson: In Ole Virginia in: The Novels, Stories, Sketches and Poems of

Thomas Nelson Page; New York: Charles Scribner's Sons (1912), reprint 1992; Vol. 1.

Kirby, David: Thomas Nelson Page, in: Dictionary of Literary Biography: American

Realists and Naturalists, Bobby Ellen Kimbel, William E. Grant (eds.); Detroit: Bruccoli

Clark (1982), Vol. 12.

Seidel, Kathryn I.: Thomas Nelson Page, in: Dictionary of Literary Biography: American

Short Story Writers 1880-1910, Donald Pizer, Earl N. Habert (eds.); Detroit: Bruccoli

Clark (1984), Vol. 78.

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