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The woman kisses the sword of her officer, dedicating it to a noble cause.

The symbolism of the gray-blue color scheme must have been obvious to the artist’s postwar audience.

 This canvas recalled the romantic spirit in which many men went off to battle.

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George Cochran Lambdin

The Consecration, 1865

oil on canvas

24 x 18 in.

James E. Roberts Fund

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George Lambdin is best known today for his floral still-life paintings, especially roses grown in his garden. During his life he was most closely associated with sentimental genre paintings, which afforded him great popularity. A Pennsylvania resident his entire life, Lambdin studied in Philadelphia and briefly in Munich, Paris, and Rome. He painted many portraits of Philadelphia women, often with roses included in the scene.  Lambdin was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the son of a successful portrait painter who gave him his early artistic training.  His family moved to Philadelphia when Lambdin was eight years old. When he first began exhibiting at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1848, Lambdin was painting sentimental scenes of the Civil War along with subjects that involved children.  Within these works he included flowers, usually roses.  Later in his career, Lambdin turned to floral still life painting.

Painted during the last year of the Civil War, The Consecration recalls the romantic spirit in which many men went off to battle.  In a comfortable Yankee library, filled with the furnishings and flowers that reflect the artist’s interest in still life painting, a beautiful woman kisses the sword of her officer, dedicating it to a noble cause.  The symbolism of Lambdin’s gray-blue color scheme must have been obvious to his postwar audience.  While the emotions aroused by the Civil War inspired many decidedly sentimental paintings, it was left to newspaper artists and photographs to capture the horror of the war that marked the end of America’s era of innocence.

Reference

Ruth Irwin and George Cochran Lambdin Weidner. George Cochran Lambdin, Pennsylvania: Brandywine River Museum, 1986. ASIN: B000VH814E