The Big Picture: Civil War Cyclorama back in action at Atlanta History Center

Rhett Butler might not have given a damn about Scarlett, but he fought valiantly for the Rebels, pledging his allegiance to the Confederacy, renegade captain that he was. Of course, the South lost…and Rhett wasn’t real. But look closely enough and you can spy his famous face among the fallen soldiers in the Battle of Atlanta on that fateful summer day in 1864. Oh and one more thing, he ditched the gray coat for Yankee blue, I do declare.

Part of the Civil War diorama in the Atlanta Cyclorama, the Rhett Butler soldier is one of many amusing stories rooted in the city’s iconic attraction, which made its grand debut at the Atlanta History Center earlier this year, after welcoming guests at Grant Park for almost a century. Thanks to a $35.8 million fundraising campaign, the epic painting of the Battle of Atlanta has been fully restored to its former glory – and then some.

That’s no small feat for such a mammoth piece. Tipping the scales at 10,000 pounds, the hand-painted work is huge, soaring 49 feet in height and spanning 371 feet in length. For the record, that’s longer than a football field. Covering 18,179 square feet, it was proclaimed the largest oil painting in the world when it was unveiled in 1886. Today it’s one of only two cycloramas in the country – a local gem and a historic treasure.

The Atlanta Cyclorama is now showcased in a state-of-the-art rotunda, designed in the round to create the 360-degree, three-dimensional illusion of the cylindrical work. Visitors walk through a tunnel and go up an escalator to reach a 15-foot-tall stationary viewing platform. Here, smack in the middle of the Civil War battlefield, they can witness the monumental blitz, inching around the overlook to take in the full panoramic sweep.

Encompassing a wide swath – marked by the city skyline, Kennesaw Mountain and Stone Mountain – the scene depicts fierce fighting just east of Atlanta (in present-day Inman Park) at about 4:45 p.m. on July 22, 1864, during General Sherman’s Atlanta campaign.

Jutting out in the foreground to dramatic effect, a dioramic landscape amps up the action, with 128 soldiers staking claim on the hilly red clay terrain, strewn with railroad tracks, trenches, cannons, covered wagons and casualties. It’s custom made to fit in perspective with the scale of the painting, so while the figures loom lifelike, they’re surprisingly only 18 to 42 inches tall – each restored back to mint condition.

That includes the Rhett soldier. Legend has it that when Clark Gable was in town for the premiere of “Gone With the Wind” in December of 1939, Mayor William B. Hartsfield took him and co-star Vivien Leigh on a tour of the Atlanta Cyclorama. Afterward, Gable was asked what he thought about it, and he replied that he liked it except for one thing: “I’m not in it.” Hartsfield later had Gable’s smiling face painted on the body of a dead Yankee!

The viewing time block features a 12-minute introductory film that’s dynamically projected across the painting at 180 degree. Guests are free to roam around the platform and then head downstairs for a closer look at the diorama before exiting. There’s also an interesting exhibit on how the painting was created and restored.

HISTORY REVISITED

The magnificently restored work anchors the History Center’s new “Cyclorama: The Big Picture” exhibit, bolstered by two levels of rare objects and images that help put everything in context. And while guests can indeed experience this spectacle just as it was meant to be seen 133 years ago, the Cyclorama has become far more than a traveling attraction, evolving into a significant artifact with a tale of its own.

Painted 22 years after the Battle of Atlanta, the artwork depicted a heroic Union victory to appeal to Northern audiences. When the painting relocated to Atlanta, it was slightly modified and advertised as “the only Confederate victory ever painted” to cater to its Southern constituency. The 1864 Battle of Atlanta was not a Confederate victory, and changes made in 1892 – such as repainting Confederate captives so they appeared to be Union soldiers captured by Confederates – were repainted in the 1930s, returning the figures to their original appearance.

“No other object can so vividly tell the story of how attitudes toward the Civil War have been shaped and reshaped over the past 150 years,” said AHC senior military historian Gordon Jones. “It is the largest single artifact in existence to demonstrate the power of the use and misuse of historical memory.”

Once seen as a proud symbol of the capital of the New South rising from the ashes, the Atlanta Cyclorama has also been criticized as an anachronism meant to glorify the “Lost Cause” of the Confederacy. Perceptions of history, and the painting itself, have depended on the eye of the beholder, as audiences viewed it in different times and places. The History Center’s “Big Picture” presentation illuminates the truths and myths of the Civil War and changing interpretations of the Cyclorama.

“History is messy. And it has a lot to teach us – if we let it,” said Sheffield Hale, AHC president and CEO. “We are challenging visitors to explore their own perceptions and misperceptions of history. Facts are facts, but the way we view the past varies widely.”

IN THE BEGINNING

A European innovation of the 19th century, cycloramic murals were created as a form of entertainment – the IMAX of their time – with the building-sized paintings hung circularly for viewing from the inside for an immersive experience.

The Battle of Atlantawas painted by 17 German and Austrian artists, recruited by the American Panorama Company in Milwaukee. The artists traveled to Atlanta for field study in 1885, using a site just inside Union lines at the Georgia Railroad, running eastward from the city, as a point of reference. They studied the terrain and sketched layouts from a 25-foot tower and house rooftops. Most of the technical advice came from veterans.

The painting took five months to complete, debuting in Minneapolis in 1886. Some of the cyclorama advertising broadsides used “Logan’s Great Ride” as a slogan, as “celebrity” war hero and political leader John “Blackjack” Logan was prominently portrayed in the painting. (He’s the one galloping heroically to the front lines with an outstretched arm holding up his hat.)

The altered version was unveiled in Atlanta on Feb. 22, 1892. In the mid 1930s, a more extensive diorama was added with soldiers. The Cyclorama remained open at its Grant Park location until 2015, following the city’s announcement in 2014 that it would be moved to the Atlanta History Center, as part of a 75-year lease agreement for the relocation, restoration and conservation of both the painting and The Texaslocomotive (famous in the Andrews’ Raid of 1862).

LABOR OF LOVE

Seeded by a legacy gift of $10 million from Atlantans Lloyd and Mary Ann Whitaker, the History Center embarked on a major fundraising campaign for the project. In 2015, construction began on the 25,000-square-foot building to house the Cyclorama, following the addition of a new gallery for The Texas. Meanwhile, restoration work was underway on the painting.

In 2017, the behemoth piece was transported to the History Center. It was a painstakingly delicate and manually laborious process that involved 45-foot-tall custom-built steel spools to roll up the painting (which had been separated at the two main seams), cranes to lift and lower the two 5,000-pound sections through the rooftops of both the old building and the new one; and two flatbed trucks to get it from Grant Park to Buckhead.

Two more years of extensive work followed, including retensioning the painting to its correct hyperbolic shape, cleaning and repairing the Belgian linen surface, recreating three missing sections (totaling 3,143 square feet) and revamping the 120-foot dioramic landscape. The new Cyclorama reopened on Feb. 22 – exactly 127 years since it first opened in the city – bringing history full circle.

“CYCLORAMA: THE BIG PICTURE” IS INCLUDED IN ATLANTA HISTORY CENTER’S GENERAL ADMISSION TICKET, WHICH INCLUDES FULL ACCESS TO THE 33-ACRE DESTINATION. DUE TO CAPACITY AND THE AUDIO/VISUAL PRESENTATION ON THE PAINTING’S VIEWING PLATFORM, TIMED TICKETS ARE REQUIRED FOR THE CYCLORAMA. ATLANTAHISTORYCENTER.COM

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