John Brown’s fabled kiss of the African American child on his way to the gallows is perhaps the most prominent facet of his life, yet many historians believe that the legend was largely fabrication. As Eby notes, the legend arose from a second-hand newspaper report, and was then publicized through poetry (particularly Wittier’s) and images. Because the stories had so little fact to begin with, a large portion of their content is artistic embellishment, making these renderings particularly revealing about their creators’ views of Brown, Southerners, and African Americans.
In all of the given images, Brown is portrayed in a positive light as a hero. In all but one of the images he is shown near a heavy door, usually ajar, reflecting his goal of breaking barriers and his emergence from behind the walls of injustice to take his place bravely at the gallows. He is pictured above the slave pair, as if (even in abolitionist eyes) he was elevated above them, either by race or by the goodness of his deeds. This stance also enhances his goodness by showing him deigning, as a white, to physically ‘stoop to their level’ in order to show kindness. In some images, such as “John Brown—The Martyr,” his elevated stance is also protective, upright, and noble, while “The Last Moments of John Brown” shows him in motion almost as if stumbling, as if the kiss was an impulsive move of kindness. This view is more humanizing, but less idealizing than the other, stronger portrayals. In Noble’s painting, Brown is looked upon by an adoring wounded man and a white woman, fixing him as a general hero of disadvantaged and luckless people, not exclusively slaves, thus allowing his image to reach a wider audience. He is further ennobled by “John Brown,” wherein he stands in front of a billowing flag against tyranny. Additionally, Sic Semper Tyrranis is the state motto of Virginia; the association tied Brown to the state and therefore to patriotism. He is often shown with a long white beard, almost god-like, and the letters curving against the white flag form a vague halo around his head.
The images also reflect the artists’ views of African Americans and Southerners. “John Brown—The Martyr” gives the most idealized, very European portrayal of slaves, who resemble the Madonna and Child, thus furthering the abolitionist cause by alluding that divine love exists among slaves. The woman’s position also resembles the lamenting white women of Renaissance paintings or even the paintings of George Washington’s death. The woman is given Anglicized features and draped Grecian clothes, both of which indicate that she is genteel and civilized. These features indicate that she is worthy of Brown’s affections compared to the Southern soldiers and their distorted, unattractive features. The negative view of Southerners is also evident in “Brown of Ossawatomie,” wherein the figures are dehumanized and represented merely as a mass of weapons (as were the mexicans in Disney’s Crockett movie), highlighting their violent nature (in ironic contrast to Brown’s tied, stooped form and rarely visinle hands, which minimize his violent acts). The soldiers are also far more dressed up than Brown in “John Brown” and “John Brown—The Martyr,” revealing them to be pretentious, bureaucratic, and set in outdated traditions. Brown, in contrast, is dressed as the everyman thrust into the hero role, just as the artists hoped that the image’s viewers would be upon being inspired to the same heights.