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TAKING FREDERICKSBURG TO NEW HEIGHTS Stafford artist updates 19th-century bird's-eye view

February 3, 2006 12:50 am

A hundred fifty years ago, Baltimore printmaker Edward Sachse used an observer's eye and artist's imagination to capture the Fredericksburg cityscape.

His 1856 three-color lithograph, hand-tinted and sold by subscription to the civically proud, captured a peaceful image of a community about to be shocked by the Civil War. Sachse later updated his bird's-eye view in a somber black-and-gold printing. That work, dated November 1862, shows burned bridges and soldiers in the Stafford County foreground.

Stafford artist Dale Glasgow has rejuvenated the idea once again. He'll unveil his contemporary "Bird's Eye View of Fredericksburg, Virginia" Sunday at Gari Melchers' Belmont, where a reception and signing will be held from 4 to 6 p.m.

Glasgow, who left the security of an artist's job at USA Today to forge a successful commercial art business of his own, embraced the idea of updating the bird's-eye view in the early 2000s. The dot-com boom had waned, and the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, further dried up his commercial art workload.

Glasgow, who works from a studio and farmhouse office in Hartwood, chose to view the dearth of business as an opportunity.

He decided to combine an interest in history with a longtime interest in creating fine arts pieces that would satisfy both his creative interests and his practical need to support a family.

He and his wife, Sharon, have five daughters. Heather Young, 23, is married and works as an artist. Jennifer, 20, is an artist as well. At home are Hannah, 17; Rachael, 15; and Ellie, 10. Then there are the animals--three sheep, a goat, a cat and a border collie named Sparky to keep everyone in line.

Glasgow embarked on the bird's-eye view project three years ago. And in the romantic tradition of the masters, he suffered for his art.

He hired a pilot to fly him and daughters Ellie and Rachael on a picture-taking mission over Fredericksburg. It wasn't long before Glasgow got that uneasy, queasy feeling and lost his lunch. Twice. The group landed, switched planes and went back up.

That was in February 2003, just before the Embrey Dam was breached in a step toward its eventual removal.

Because the dam was in the photos he and his daughters shot, Glasgow included it in the bird's-eye view. But as he worked in 2003, 2004 and 2005, he made slight modifications to account for how things would look by the artwork's 2006 release. He showed Cowan Boulevard completed and open for traffic, an event that didn't happen till late last summer. He showed the modern house on Sophia Street by the river completed, even though it was still under construction when he began the project.

The city itself is shown far more densely built up than the Fredericksburg of 1856 or 1862. Glasgow rendered 5,500 buildings with agonizing accuracy. After the plane flyover, he spent weeks gridding the city, driving and walking the streets, sketching the buildings and noting colors.

"I very diligently looked at every street in all of Fredericksburg, and looked at every house," Glasgow said.

That on-the-ground scrutiny was necessary, he said, because in some cases trees obscured the views from the air.

But Glasgow knew people would look at the work and try to find spaces with personal meaning. In the finished product, he said, "People can find where they work, where they live and where they play."

The technique was time- and labor-intensive. Glasgow first drew the city on watercolor paper in pencil, then went over the pencil in ink. For color he used fine brushes and gouache paints. The detail was so minute he had to wear magnifying glasses to work.

There were moments, he acknowledged, when he wondered why he'd gotten himself into this. "In the middle of the whole project it felt like this is too much," he said.

But his original vision kept him going. "This is one of those passion things," he said. He remembers thinking, "I got on this journey, and I've got to do it. I've got to finish."

As painstaking as the city-side detail is, Glasgow took artistic license on the Stafford County foreground. He softened the expanse of green beside the river, removing a townhouse development and other modern buildings to highlight historic Chatham and Ferry Farm. In a small imaginative detail, he painted his family picnicking on a rock in the lower right corner.

And he fixed something that had bugged him in the original Sachse views, a perspective distortion that placed Falmouth farther upriver than it really is.

Other details of the 2006 work show how the area has changed in 150 years. Glasgow included Central Park and the Blue & Gray Parkway, with its Rappahannock bridge. He also suggests the considerable development west of the city.

And unlike the earlier renderings, Glasgow's work stretches toward a horizon that includes the Blue Ridge.

Glasgow emulated Sachse's 1856 design in which detailed paintings of landmark buildings are inset along the bottom of the work. He depicts the Fredericksburg Visitor Center, Belmont, Kenmore, Chatham, City Hall, the Courthouse, the James Monroe Law Office and three churches-Fredericksburg Baptist, the Presbyterian Church of Fredericksburg and Saint George's Episcopal.

Glasgow plans to offer stochastic lithographs of his bird's-eye view for sale and is reissuing the two Sachse views restored to their original condition. He will sell prints of the individual inset vignettes and offer giclee editions of his bird's-eye view; those are high-quality prints on canvas that he considers among the best reproductions possible.

Though Glasgow continues with his commercial work, he said creating his own bird's-eye view is some of the most satisfying art he's ever done.

"This is more gratifying," he said, "because it gives people a piece of history."

To reach LAURA MOYER: 540/374-5417
Email: lmoyer@freelancestar.com