"Holy Mountain III"

1945

Pippin’s painting reveals the horrors of war and racial violence.

Horace Pippin is known for his depictions of domestic life and the terrors of war. After returning from World War I, he started making pyrographic (wood-burning) art and painting on canvas. Pippin’s first painting took three years to complete and one hundred coats of paint.

He often painted the same scene several times, painstakingly changing small details. Holy Mountain III is one in a series of four paintings that each show an idyllic landscape in the foreground and images of war and terror in the background. In the painting, a lynched body hangs from a tree while soldiers battle in the distance.