Edwin Dickinson - Shiloh

In the summer of 1932 Dickinson took a break from painting Woodland Scene and began a painting of a Civil War subject, Shiloh, 1932–33; revised 1940, 1963, the title already decided upon (but not the dimensions, which were later reduced from 50 × 40 inches to 36 × 32 inches). The painting originally contained two figures, the artist, sporting a beard grown for the occasion) and Bruce McCain, who was shown beneath a blanket except for his head and shoes, but the head (and a shoe, if McCain's memory is accurate) disappeared, evidently when the painting's size was reduced (although the top is the only original edge). As in The Fossil Hunters, the blanket was introduced at least in part for the formal play of its folds and has nothing to do with the subject, an especially bloody battle. The painting is the first indication of Dickinson's interest in the Civil War, a subject that his brother Howard had a great interest in, as did Edwin thereafter. Dickinson posed for his head lying on his back and looking at an overhead mirror. But the body was painted from a lay figure dressed in the uniform.

Adler observed that "to paint oneself as dead means to identify with the dead," and compared Dickinson's head in Shiloh to that of Count Orgaz in El Greco's painting. The visual resemblance is not strong, but in 1949 Dickinson told Elaine de Kooning, "When I saw the Burial of Count Orgaz, I knew where my aspirations lay." Consequently, it is entirely plausible that he may have thought of that painting in planning a picture dealing directly with death. Ward suggests that Dickinson very likely identified with the death of his brother, whose body he discovered when looking out his apartment window, or that of Herbert Groesbeck, with whom he had tried to enlist in World War I. He notes that the painting indicates no interest in the specifics of the historical battle. Although perhaps inspired by photographs of dead Civil War soldiers that his brother may have shown him, Dickinson transformed his subject into highly personal statement about death.