The Metropolitan Museum of Art has certainly committed to this whole Civil War Era thing. In addition to “Photography And The Civil War” and a series of related 19th Century lithographs lining the main hallway of the American Wing, the Museum has now added a sprawling two-floor exhibition of oil on canvas that covers the 25-year span between 1852 and 1877. Early paintings focus on antebellum symbolism – dark horizons, gathering clouds, etc. Mid-war paintings assume a much more literal, if-not-immediate stance. Here we see a Confederate Bivouac (pictured above), there an early American sharpshooter; here the blood red horizon of “Our Banner In the Sky,” there the serene optimism of “Aurora Borealis.” Frederic Edwin Church is the star of this exhibition, but by no means is he the solitary attraction. There are also entire corridors dedicated to the work of Sanford Robinson Gifford and Eastman Johnson. With all three Civil War exhibits remaining on display up to and through the first weekend in September, it’s a pretty decent time to plan a mid-summer visit to The Met.

(The Civil War And American Art runs through September 2nd at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, free with suggested donation, 5th Avenue & 82nd Street.)

Five More For The Offing: 

• Recent Paintings by Daniel Adel @ Arcadia Fine Arts (Free, through 6/28, 51 Greene Street)
• Stories From The Other Side by Polexeni Papapetrou @ Jenkins Johnson Gallery (Free, 521 West 26th Street, through 5/22)
• X 10,000 by Jack Goldstein @ The Jewish Museum ($12, through 9/29, 5th Avenue @ 92nd Street)
• Hopper Drawing by Edward Hopper @ The Whitney Museum ($20 general admission, through October 6th, 945 Madison Avenue @ 75th Street)
• Psychedelic Patio by Nacho Rodriguez Bach @ The Dillon Gallery (Free, through 6/30, 555 West 25th Street)