A young girl stands on a promontory, her hair streaming in the wind. The path before her ends, so she must either retrace her steps or try to find a different way forward. Johnson called this painting The Girl I
Left Behind Me, invoking an Irish ballad that was popular with both the Union and Confederate armies during the Civil War. In doing so, the artist opens the possibility that this young girl is doing more than waiting
for the return of her husband. Her wedding ring, glinting in the light, speaks of commitment to her union, but is Johnson referring to her personal life or to the nation? The split-rail fence below her divides the
landscape, and the fog surrounding her suggests a world fraught with ambivalence. She appears to wait for a sign of what will come next.
The Civil War defined America and forever changed American art. American
artists of this era could not depict the conflict using the conventions of European history painting, which glamorized the hero on the battlefield. Instead, America’s finest painters captured the transformative
impact of the war. Through landscapes and genre paintings, these artists gave voice to the nation’s highest ideals and deepest concerns — illustrating a time that has been described as the second American Revolution.
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