"Washington's Crossing' as it really was

At one time every school student was aware of the 19th-Century rendering of Washington Crossing the Delaware by the German artist Emanuel Leutze. It showed Washington standing proudly erect in a small rowboat, surrounded by a dozen or so followers, most of them energetically trying to pole their way across the ice-clogged Delaware. But one man— directly behind Washington— clutches a furled American flag.

It's very stirring stuff. In fact, it became an icon of American history.

Now Mort Künstler, a Long Island artist who specializes in historical scenes, has created a new, more accurate rendition of Washington's crossing. Künstler's painting is a very different affair— that is, it's historically accurate.

It jettisons that rocky rowboat for a big solid-looking 60-foot flatboat ferry. And rather than a scant dozen or so companions, Washington now stands at the head of perhaps 50 or 60 men.

Also, he's not exactly standing; he's leaning against the wheel of a cannon— yes, we apparently brought one of those along too, to really liven up Christmas for those Hessians— and there's no flag, because "Old Glory" hadn't yet come into existence on that cold December night in 1776.

To my mind, both paintings work, but they work in very different ways, and they demonstrate the two uses of history. Künstler's painting is a factual work. It shows, to the best of current historical knowledge, what the crossing may have looked like— only two men poling, the tow rope doing most of the work; Washington getting a face full of cold winter rain, the men huddled about him, one fellow peering forward anxiously, on the lookout for some Trenton shoreline.

But Leutze depicts the ideal crossing— the crossing-in-the-mind, if you will— where Washington stands tall, the flag frames him and we keep worrying that someone will shift and capsize that damn rowboat. One is history-as-fact, the other is history-as-emotion.

History-as-emotion is a lovely thing— the stuff of epic poems, rousing ballads, heroic paintings, political blather and (usually inaccurate) motion pictures. But it's as dangerous as a Great White. When we get drunk on how we dream things happened, we forget how they really happened and mistakes are made— usually at great cost.

History-as-fact, on the other hand, is a dry slap in the face. Its message is always, "Wake up, stop dreaming." There's nothing especially heroic in Künstler's painting— just a bunch of cold, wet guys, hunkered down, waiting to do a bit of killing-and-being-killed on Christmas night.

History-as-fact tells us that nothing comes without cost, and the truth can be downright ugly and depressing. This is why we tend to prefer the sugarcoated icons of history-as-emotion.

So now there are two competing versions of a proven historical event. Which one will the public embrace?♦


To read a response, click here.