Lithographers document the American Civil War with great skill

Lithographers document the American Civil War with great skill

Early photographers such as Matthew Brady and Alexander Gardner may have provided authentic pictorial records of what it was like during the American Civil War, but it was the full-color lithographs mass-produced by the print artists Louis Kurz and Alexander Allison after the end of the war that most captured the imagination and memories of the American public.

This series of drawings depicts several important moments of the war. In the 80s of the 19th century, the two had been printing such drawings at the printing house in Chicago. This caricature of the war during the Civil War was well received throughout the country. These works were snapped up by veterans and civilians alike, and they were collectively immersed in nostalgia for the various scenes of the war at that time.
Color lithography was a revolutionary printing advance in the 19th century. When printing, attention is paid to the color rendering of the image. Although printers have long been able to mass-produce monochrome lithographs with carbon black ink, this new technology, combined with the application of different colors, makes it possible to print not one printing plate, but to alternate multiple printing plates in succession.
Color lithography enabled industrial-age printers to produce thousands, if not millions, of full-color reproductions of various paintings. The advancement of technology has frightened collectors who have diligently pursued art, while ordinary people have been very happy, and new technologies have made it easier for them to collect original paintings, who have no way to collect original paintings.
Kutz, an Austrian immigrant and war veteran, released the first painting in the Civil War series in 1884, which depicts the Battle of Gettysburg. This work made him a great commercial success. Over the next few years, he and Ellison produced a large number of 35 more paintings depicting the war. Later, he produced and sold paintings depicting the Spanish-American War of 1898 and the conflict between Japan and Russia in 1904-1905.
To this day, Kutz and Ellison's Civil War prints have changed hands among collectors countless times. These paintings are also often used as the covers of books depicting the Civil War.