Circling the Facts
The decision of New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu and his City Council to remove the statue of General Robert E. Lee and rename Lee Circle is troubling on a number of levels. Erasing evidence of New Orleans’s Confederate sympathy in the Civil War is a betrayal of truth, tantamount to saying it never existed. That slavery is heinous and indefensible is irrefutable fact, but is removing proof of its presence a responsible way of addressing it? I certainly support relegating the rebel flag to museums, but this self-aggrandizing political bandwagon is as shameful as it is ill-conceived. The rewriting of history has proven to be dangerous and irresponsible time and again, especially when it sets precedents. Landrieu’s actions have already spawned criticism of the...
Read MoreThe Lovely Bones
Arguably the most famous and iconic plantation ruin in the South, twenty-three pillars are all that remain of Windsor, a home so grandiose in its heyday that Mississippi steamboat captains used it as a landmark. It’s haunting under any circumstances, more so when glimpsed through a dense morning fog, emerging as a series of vertical phantoms which slowly morph into great columns supporting only thin air. The evocative stone skeleton holds a preponderant sense of time lost and forgotten and, with minimal surrender, conjures images of what was. Indeed, no one knew what Windsor actually looked like until an accidental discovery late in the last century. Located below Port Gibson, Mississippi, Windsor was begun in 1859 and finished two years later. On a...
Read MoreThe French Connection
In 1884, Virginie Amélie Gautreau, a Parisian socialite celebrated for her eccentric beauty and rumored liaisons, agreed to pose for rising star artist, John Singer Sargent. What they assumed would be a collaboration advancing both their social positions had, alas, the opposite effect. When the painting was unveiled at the Paris Salon, entitled Portrait de Mme ***, the public, who had no trouble identifying the subject, was appalled by Virginie’s revealing gown with its right strap falling casually off her shoulder, her corpse-like skin and provocative pose. It was also savaged by critics crying that no well-born lady would dress in such an unconventional manner. Desperate to save the moment, Sargent painted the strap back in place and renamed the painting Madam...
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