By Nicholas Stratouly, Editorial Assistant -

“Drawing is a form of commu­nication,” is a line on the wall at the entrance to “First Hand: Civil War Era Drawings from the Becker Col­lection” at the McMullen Museum of Art. The quotation represents the crux of the collection: a series of drawings meant to capture the trage­dies and tribulations of war and com­municate such feelings to the public through art.

Boston College Assistant Professor of Fine Arts Sheila Gallagher, whose great-great-grandfather was Joseph Becker himself, provided many of the drawings for the exhibition.

The story of the collection is an intriguing one. During the Ameri­can Civil War, “Special Artists” were commissioned by newspapers in the Union to chronicle the war in picto­rial form. From 1861 to 1865, these drawings were printed in Harper’s Weekly, New York Illustrated News, and Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper. By the end of the war, these drawings had been transformed into over 2000 engrav­ings, some altered or omitted to shift public opinion.

Joseph Becker – for whom the collection is named – was one of the chief artists for Leslie’s Illustrated News­paper, and a member of their staff from 1859 to 1900. As art director af­ter the war, he saved the would-be-dis­carded drawings, allowing for future generations to witness the tragedy of the Civil War through illustration.

Becker was joined by many other Special Artists who worked in abso­lutely treacherous conditions – with bullets flying and bodies collapsing all around them – that were still able to provide a lens of the Civil War. Art­ists like Henri Lovie, E.F. Mullen and Edwin Forbes, among others, shifted from regiment to regiment and battle to battle to capture both crucial mo­ments and lesser-known battles.

Some of the most striking works include Joseph Crane’s “Open­ing of the Ball: First Gun Fired by a Rebel Tug at Five O’Clock,” in which Crane compares a ship battle to a dance ball. In Becker’s “Battle in the Woods at Vaughn Road,” the harsh conditions felt by the artist are characterized by the indistinguishable nature of zig-zags. A contrast of ink wash with charcoal is featured in W.T. Crane’s “Siege of Charleston: Gen­eral View of the Bombardment of Battery Gregg and Fort Wagner,” to bring out the nature of assault. These three works are simply a précis of the way the collection is able to portray the war.

The Special Artists also used their works to reflect society and culture during the Civil War era, and influ­ence public opinion on a number of issues, from race, to gender, and war crimes. “Negro Worship in the South: Taking Up the Collection” sheds light on African-American society, as Beck­er portrays a group of worshippers as dignified and noble, even drawing a baby to communicate innocence and peace. In “An Army ‘Washerwoman’ During the Siege of Petersburg,” one of the most intriguing pieces in the collection, Becker contradicts gender norms by illustrating what appears to be a man washing the clothes, with a second person sitting alongside him whose gender is indistinguishable. Becker’s choice to sketch this scene shows the astute nature of both him and the other Special Artists.

Other pieces portray Thanksgiv­ing dinner, soldiers playing ten pins, a scene of festivity on the Fourth of July, and a soldier celebration that erupted upon hearing of the fall of Richmond. These non-war depictions of leisure and merriment in contrast to images of combat helped to both boost and alter public sentiment.

The Becker Collection is truly an exhibit worth seeing, and serves to dis­play a side of America during a time that can only be read about in books or learned in history classes. The col­lection matches an image – and an artist – to the atrocities of the Civil War, yet also presents simple scenes of camaraderie and happiness that would not be expected in a time of such great conflict and tragedy.

“First Hand: Civil War Era Draw­ing from the Becker Collection” continues through Dec. 13 at the McMullen Mu­seum of Art, Devlin Hall 108; (617) 552-8587, bc.edu/artmuseum.