My Friend, the Enemy by Mort Kunstler ~ I always look for subjects to paint that have never been done. With snow scenes, I always try to develop a different color scheme. Both goals are difficult to achieve, but I believe it happened with “My Friend, the Enemy”. The location and the time of day enabled me to paint a different color scheme – and no modern artist of note has painted a scene quite like this one.

“My Friend, the Enemy” is set on Virginia’s Rappahannock River near Fredericksburg following the terribly bloody battle that occurred there a few weeks earlier. As if they were weary of the war’s inhumanity, Southern and Northern soldiers began meeting with each other between the lines. Such fraternization was forbidden on both sides, but the soldiers did so anyway that winter. They met to play cards, exchange gossip and barter Northern coffee for Southern tobacco. The painting is set on the side of the river occupied by General Ambrose Burnsides’ Army of the Potomac. A handful of Confederate solders from General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia have made their way across the river to trade with the Northern troops. The solders are cautions, but trusting – and in the background other soldiers are making exchanges with a rigged-up hollow log that serves as a ferry for their bartered items. - Mort Kunstler