Washington Crossing the Delaware (1851 paintings)

Emanuel Leutze's 1851 version, Gallery 760 Pictures in textbooks do not prepare you for the size. The canvas is roughly 12 feet tall and 21 feet wide, so Washington and his crew loom over the room like a movie screen, set in a reproduction of the painting's original grand frame. Stand back first for the sweep of the ice-choked river and the flag, then step close and pick out the faces of the soldiers at the oars. It is patriotic theater painted 75 years after the crossing, which makes it a great conversation about how a nation tells its own story.