If you haven’t watched the Cars and Freedom ad, by all means do so now. Joseph Fouché applies his dry wit with this comment:
That was completely historically inaccurate. George Washington was a much younger man when he was driving Dodge Chargers against the British.
Well played, Fouché. Well played.
That comment, of course, is normally applied to the 1851 painting of Washington Crossing the Delaware, by Emmanuel Leutze:
We are accustomed to seeing General Washington as a wise older gentleman, very similar to the paintings done of him as President. At the time of the Crossing, George Washington was only about 44 years of age. He was still fairly young looking — at least not graying — according to the other likenesses of him done in the mid to late 1770′s by contemporary artists. The gentleman in Leutze’s painting shows us an older man than Washington was instead of the middle-aged man who would have been present at the crossing.
The crossing was also at night, in bad weather, in a Durham boat with high sides and no seats — so everyone would be standing safely inside the boat. Oh, and it’s doubtful they would have had the Betsy Ross flag at that point.
Even as a boy Washington had a mature look — see this painting.
That’s why art is important as a statement of the times. The artist’s liberty and interpretation of the event is much more memorable than what I imagine the actual event to have looked like.
There is a black man sitting down facing Washington with an oar, and I wonder if he was there, as well as the others.
David Hackett Fischers’ brilliant book Washington’s Crossing discusses the painting in detail. For example, each of the men in the boat represents one of the thirteen original colonies and bears that state’s characteristics.
Interesting. I shall look that up. Thank you.