McKendree Robbins Long (American, 1888-1976)
The First Angel Sounds his Trumpet, 1968
Oil on canvas
14 x 49 in
Gift of Milton Bloch
McKendree Robbins Long was born not far from Davidson in Statesville, NC in July of 1888. He completed two years of school at Davidson College before beginning his art education in 1908 at the Art Students League in New York. There, he was awarded an opportunity to study in Europe, and he spent the next few years in London studying painting. In London, Long was baptized for the second time and renewed his Christian faith, which would become a heavy influence on his artwork.
In 1922, back in the States, Long was ordained a minister in the Presbyterian church. He put painting aside to pursue his call to ministry and spent the next forty years preaching as a parish priest and itinerant preacher. His religious views skewed fundamentalist later into his career, by the end of which he had been ordained Baptist. He continued to preach fervently, and, at the onset of the Cold War, became especially interested in the advent of the apocalypse.
The First Angel Sounds his Trumpet, from the gallery collection, depicts a scene described in Revelation 8:7:
“The first angel sounded and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up.”
At a glance, the piece’s vibrant colors could represent a sunset. It’s on closer inspection that the painting proves full of blood, fire, and smoke. From the angel in the corner to the array of colorful birds in the sky to the boaters on the lake, full of fish, to the wildcat and woodland creatures on the grassy banks, this is a landscape full of life. It’s even more dramatic, then, to imagine so much life lost in the chaos that the Biblically literate viewer knows will result from the blowing of the trumpet.
In 2002, the Van Every/Smith Galleries at Davidson premiered a traveling exhibition on the Reverend McKendree Robbins Long called Picture Painter of the Apocalypse, including not only his artwork, but excerpts from his religious writings, as he was a prolific journaler. The Galleries are fortunate enough to have many examples of Long’s work in its collection; they can be accessed here.
-Caroline Webster ’21
Work Cited
McKendree Robbins Long: Picture Painter of the Apocalypse, Traditional Fine Arts Organization, 2011, www.tfaoi.com/aa/4aa/4aa263.htm.