Julian Scott

A Break: Playing Cards, 1881

oil on canvas

27 x 22 in.

James E. Roberts Fund and Martha Delzell Memorial Fund

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Julian Scott’s artistic career grew out of his service in the Civil War.  In 1861, at age 15, he enlisted as a musician in the Third Vermont Regiment, and his bravery in action earned him the first Congressional Medal of Honor ever awarded.  While recuperating from an injury, Scott took up sketching vignettes of army camp life.  After the war he received formal training at the National Academy of Design, and in the 1870s and 1880s his military genre scenes became extremely popular.  Scott later turned to Western American themes especially those relating to Native Americans.  The 1890 census, Report on Indians Taxed and Untaxed is dominated by Scott’s carefully detailed illustrations.

Although it was completed in 1881, A Break: Playing Cards probably derived from a Civil War experience.  Like Winslow Homer and George Lambdin, Scott chose a tranquil everyday event in preference to a heated battle scene. He has crafted a stable, balanced composition, arranging the elements of flag, drum, and rifles with meticulous precision.  Scott was also most attentive to details of military uniform: two soldiers wear the standard blue, while the seated figures are probably state militia volunteers, who wore their own uniforms.  The seated soldier at right may be a Green Mountain Brigade volunteer from Scott’s native Vermont.  The card player in the red hat is in the Zouave costume derived from the elite battalion of the French army of that name.

Reference

Robert J. Titterton. Julian Scott: Artist of the Civil War and Native America, Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Company, 1997. ISBN-13: 978-0786402724