Literary Evening: Washington Crossing the Delaware and the stories we’ve told since - in art, in poetry, and first hand

So much to be discussed!

In 1819, portrait painter Thomas Sully completed The Passage of the Delaware, the earliest known representation of the crossing. Unlike many later artists, Sully depicted the moment before George Washington began his passage: the general sits astride his white horse on the Pennsylvania side of the river, looking over his shoulder to observe his troops as they begin to cross. Calm and resolute, the central figure of Washington dwarfs the men under his command. In Sully’s composition, Washington remains isolated from the action, leading from above.

The most famous painting, on display at the Met, is Emanuel Leutze's 1851 epic painting Washington Crossing the Delaware, which honors a critical turning point in the American colonists’ war against Great Britain. It was a great success in Leutze’s native Germany—given the country’s own revolutionary fervor of the period—as well as in the United States, where it quickly became an iconic image, frequently recast by later artists.

David Shulman's "Washington Crossing the Delaware," a sonnet, written in 1936, is a 14-line rhyming poem where every line is an anagram of the title itself, making it a unique linguistic puzzle inspired by the historical event.

A hard, howling, tossing water scene.

Strong tide was washing hero clean.

"How cold!" Weather stings as in anger.

O Silent night shows war ace danger!

The cold waters swashing on in rage.

Redcoats warn slow his hint engage.

When star general's action wish'd "Go!"

He saw his ragged continentals row.

Ah, he stands – sailor crew went going.

And so this general watches rowing.

He hastens – winter again grows cold.

A wet crew gain Hessian stronghold.

George can't lose war with's hands in;

He's astern – so go alight, crew, and win!

In 1953, after reading Tolstoy's War and Peace, Larry Rivers decided that he wanted to paint, “the most controversial painting of our time.” His painting Washington Crossing the Delaware is owned by MOMA although not on display.

Poet Frank O'Hara responded to Larry River's painting with poetry:

Now that our hero has come back to us

in his white pants and we know his nose

trembling like a flag under fire,

we see the calm cold river is supporting

our forces, the beautiful history.

To be more revolutionary than a nun

is our desire, to be secular and intimate

as, when sighting a redcoat, you smile

and pull the trigger. Anxieties

and animosities, flaming and feeding

on theoretical considerations and

the jealous spiritualities of the abstract

the robot? they're smoke, billows above

the physical event. They have burned up.

See how free we are! as a nation of persons.

Dear father of our country, so alive

you must have lied incessantly to be

immediate, here are your bones crossed

on my breast like a rusty flintlock,

a pirate's flag, bravely specific

and ever so light in the misty glare

of a crossing by water in winter to a shore

other than that the bridge reaches for.

Don't shoot until, the white of freedom glinting

on your gun barrel, you see the general fear.

Between 1954 and 1956 Jacob Lawrence produced thirty pictures about the American Revolution and the Constitution, westward migration, and the Industrial Revolution that he collectively entitled Struggle…From the History of the American People. Those images, plus thirty others, never executed, were intended for a publication that was never realized. Washington Crossing the Delaware, the tenth panel of the series, depicts war-weary soldiers of Washington's army huddled under blankets in three small rowboats in December 1776.

A slightly different take on the event, Robert Colescott’s 1975 painting George Washington Carver Crossing the Delaware: Page from an American History Textbook is a monumental painting first exhibited in the Whitney’s 1978 traveling exhibition Art About Art.

Mort Künstler, a painter based in Long Island, who is known for his historical images, created his own version of Washington crossing the Delaware River which is said to adhere more closely to the facts. The painting was commissioned by Congressman Thomas Suozzi and completed in 2011. See 2011 article from NY Times. https://archive.nytimes.com/cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/23/a-famous-painting-meets-its-more-factual-match/