- Type: Classroom Activity
- Collection: African American Art, American Art
- Culture/Region: America
- Subject Area: African American, History and Social Science, Visual Arts
- Grade Level: k-5
Object and Artist Information
This painting is by American artist Eastman Johnson (1824–1906), who began his career in the printing business. He apprenticed with Boston lithographer John H. Bufford from 1840 to 1842 and mastered the medium. In 1845 Johnson moved to Washington, D.C., where he created portraits of well-known people in chalk, crayon, and charcoal. He went to Europe in 1848 and studied academic painting in Düsseldorf, Germany, seventeenth-century Dutch art in The Hague (Holland), and French art in Paris. Johnson returned to America in 1855 and became widely acclaimed for his genre paintings, or scenes of everyday life. During the Civil War, many of his paintings focused on African American subject matter, particularly slavery, the critical issue of the time. Traveling with the Union army, he recorded events and battles he witnessed.
Johnson completed A Ride for Liberty—The Fugitive Slaves in 1862, a year after the Civil War began. It depicts an enslaved African American family—father, mother, young boy, infant—fleeing on horseback. In contrast to some of Johnson’s earlier representations of black Americans as being resigned to their servitude, here the father is forceful and clearly taking charge of his family’s own fate. As the title notes, this enslaved family is attempting a daring escape to the Union army lines. On the back of the painting, Johnson wrote: “A veritable [true] incident/in the Civil War seen by/myself at Centerville/on this morning of/McClellan’s advance towards Manassas March 2, 1862/Eastman Johnson.” The painting and inscription serve as a primary source of an historical event. Johnson painted three versions of A Ride for Liberty, but only two are known—this one and another in the Brooklyn Museum’s collection. Apparently, they were never exhibited during Johnson’s lifetime, perhaps due to the charged subject matter.
Concept
By using this painting as a primary source of history, students can explore issues such as slavery and the Civil War.
Map
Using a map of the United States, identify the state of Virginia.
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