Civil War Painting Comes Full Circle

Gettysburg Cyclorama Gets $11 Million Restoration

A dog howls over a soldier on the battlefield at Gettysburg. It is one of many haunting images on the huge Civil War painting being restored and hung in Pennsylvania. (Photos By Katherine Frey -- The Washington Post)

It's hard to take your eyes off the black dog.

He is sitting beside the body of a dead soldier, probably his master, howling in grief. All around are scenes of the Civil War's famous Battle of Gettysburg -- a wounded man being carried on a stretcher, horses galloping, battle smoke drifting across the landscape.

But there's something especially sad about the grieving dog sitting there amid the madness of warfare.

And that's just one tiny section in the gigantic Gettysburg Cyclorama, a century-old oil painting of the 1863 battle in southern Pennsylvania. The painting has been restored and is being hung in a new building designed especially to display the unusual work of art.

The cyclorama requires its own building because it forms a complete circle and is one of the biggest paintings in the country. It's four stories tall, about 10 feet longer than a football field, and took more than a dozen people to complete.

Pickett's Charge Lives On

Painted by French artist Paul Philippoteaux and his team in 1883-84, the dramatic work shows Pickett's Charge, the main Confederate attack on Union forces on the last day of the battle, July 3, 1863.

Gettysburg was the turning point of the Civil War. The defeat of the Confederate army there was the beginning of the end for the Southern states' rebellion.

The cyclorama is 14 separate panels, each weighing 950 pounds! As of today, four of them have been hung in the new National Park Service Visitor Center at Gettysburg National Military Park. The old cyclorama building, where the painting had been displayed since the 1960s, is to be torn down.

A group of art experts under Great Falls art conservator David L. Olin has been working for four years to clean, repair and strengthen the cyclorama. It's a big job that is costing $11.2 million, in part because the painting is so old and was in pretty bad shape.

The painting won't go back on public display for another year, although the new visitor center, which resembles a big red barn, is scheduled to open in the spring.