There is a famous saying that basically says there will always be two sides to one story.  Historically when there is conflict between different sides the winning side is the group that dictates how people will view the result of the conflict.  Just like during the civil war there were two sides, the Union and the Confederacy.  Artists would paint pictures of the battles and depending on which side they identified with, it would change the way painters saw and painted the battles. We can see how the painters felt about conflict through the formal elements in their painting(s).  Revolutionary and Civil war artist, Don Troiani, was born in New York City in 1949; making it that he saw those wars through the eyes of a northerner.  Troiani used space and color often in his paintings to help the viewer see his painting’s message.  In the painting “Mahoney’s Counterattack” an original oil painting by Don Troiani, he uses formal elements to paint the battle as the North armies being mightier and stronger than the South armies.  

One of the formal elements used in this painting is attracting the eye of the viewer using color.  “The color red is one of three primary colors and is thought to be the color to provoke the most response among humans.”(The color)  This means that the color red is going to draw the eye of humans because of the way the red brings emotion out in the human mind.  The color of the American flag is bright red and bright blue which is intentionally used to draw the viewer’s eyes to those locations on the painting bringing you to look at the blue Union uniforms and analyze the importance of the union army to Don Troiani, the painter.  The bright red color on the confederate flag is used to bring the viewers eye to that side of the painting.  The side of the painting focuses mainly on the Confederate army and will show you how the painter saw the Confederate army.  Having the man in front of the Confederate army wear a uniform that seems brighter than the other confederates uniforms is Troiani’s way of trying to show the man’s importance to the painting; it is made to make the viewer see him as a man of power and assume that he is a general or military leader.  These are three examples of color that are used to direct the viewer’s eyes through the painting.  The color blue is used by Troiani on the union uniforms to contrast with the grey confederate uniforms that shows them to be more civilized than the rebels on the other side.  These uses of color are examples of how the painter used the element to show the superiority of the northerner side of the war.  

Another type formal element that has apparent use in this painting is the element of size.  This element is used with the size of the flags for both the Union and Confederacy.  The size of the Union flag is larger than the confederate flag because Troiani was born in the north and he would have sided with the Union in the war.  The confederate flag was painted smaller by Troiani because he was showing he sided with the north for the civil war because he was from New York.  The different sizes of the armies is a way this element is used by the painter to show which side he may agree with from the Civil War.  He painted the union soldiers larger than the confederate soldiers because he wants to show the importance of the union army to the painting so the viewer can see how much larger the union army was, and how much more pathetic the confederate army was.  The individual soldiers are bigger and they are the main focus of the painting.  The viewer can see this because the union soldiers are painted in more detail than the confederate soldiers.  The union soldiers have visible facial expressions while the confederate soldiers have a tan blur with dots for faces. 

The final formal element that was identified to show that the painter, Troiani, sided with the northern armies as opposed to the confederate rebel armies was the element of space/shape.  The union army has more space on the canvas than the confederate army to show that the union army was superior to rebels.  The space on the canvas is used to show the painter, being born in the north, sided with the northern army.  The union army is given more space on the canvas not only because of its greater importance but also so it could be seen to surround the confederate army.  The confederate army is arranged in a circular shape so that the space around them could make them seem surrounded by the union.  The shape of the union army makes them appear more organized than the Confederate army.  The confederate troops are arranged in a chaotic format to make their shape appear less formal. 

Don Troiani tells the northern side of the Civil War through the use of formal elements such as, the use of the element of color, the use of size of objects, and the use of space in the painting.  We can use this example to determine that there are different sides to the same story because the way the artist shows the dominance of the south through the use of formal elements and motifs in the panting.  The use of the color red will bring the attention of the viewer to where the painter wants.  The way Troiani used space to show the dominance of the northern army over the rebels in the painting.  The way that the element of size was given to the important objects in the painting was crucial to the persuasiveness Troiani’s argument of northern supremacy.  The idea that the northern army was better and more just than the south is an idea held by many people over the United States because the winning side of a story is the side that dictates how future generations look at historical events.
