William Sidney Mount: The Power of Music (1847)

(Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, USA)

A painting by the American artist William Sidney Mount (1807-1868). Mount is best known for his genre paintings, usually set in rural America. This piece shows a scene set in rural Long Island before the civil war (1861-1865). an African American laborer is standing outside a barn and is listening intently to a fiddle tune enjoyed by white men inside the barn. Racial divided in real life (and a barn door in this painting) but the power of music units the men. Painting from 1847.