North-South Split
Basing its subject on the American Civil War and related events, the composition depicts a scene divided in three sections surrounded by light colored bluish areas of space in which schematic forms outline the face of Abraham Lincoln on one side, and the faces of Robert E Lee and Stonewall Jackson, on the other. Their heads are turned toward the central image showing a female figure diving over a child falling between two fighting figures outfitted one in grey and one in blue reflecting the Confederate and Union armies.
The right side deploys blue-black figures against an orange-yellow ground patterned with crossed hatched shapes that seem to increase in density with the gesture and movement of the brushstrokes. Circular forms of loosened chains around the figures seem to do battle within the organism of the compressed space.
The left side of the picture depicts falling and struggling figures in a setting heavy with symbolic content and allusion to surrounding events.
