I’m sure most of us look at paintings of historical events done before photography was invented and think “Well, it’s probably romanticized a little, but it must be fairly close to the way the event took place. After all, the artist must have done some research.”
You know the famous painting of George Washington crossing the Delaware River on Christmas Day in 1776 before the Battle of Trenton? The rowboat was an unlikely craft, and the river probably didn’t have clumps of ice as depicted in the original by Emanuel Leutze but rather sheets of the stuff; that’s the way the river actually freezes. In a new painting by Mort Künstler, Washington is leaning on a cannon on a ferry platform rather than standing in that rowboat (who’d stand up in a rowboat in a nor’easter?), and there are a lot more people on board.
While the original painting is iconic, the new one is no slouch either. Have a look.