The Gettysburg Cyclorama: North America's Largest Oil Painting May Be Closer Than You Think

North America's largest oil painting?  It's not in an art museum; it's not in a huge city.  It's the Gettysburg Cyclorama, on display at Gettysburg National Military Park.  If you are unfamiliar, a cyclorama is a giant painting you kind of enter--connected canvas hang all around you in a circle, and you view it from a center platform.  In another era, they traveled the country on display.  Recently lovingly restored across five years and housed in a special round barn-like building designed for it, the Gettysburg Cyclorama is shown as it was long ago, making for quite the immersive experience. You'll understand why veterans who saw the cyclorama were said to weep with its authenticity when you visit.

To see the cyclorama, go to the Gettysburg National Military Park's Visitor Center.  You'll pay a reasonable fee ($15 for most adults, $10 for many others--or avoid the fee by joining Friends of Gettysburg) and see a nicely-done film, much of which is voiced by Morgan Freeman, discussing the complexity of the US Civil War.  Then, there's an escalator ride to the cyclorama viewing platform where you will have ample time to hear about the painting and view it.  You can move around on the platform, too, and non-flash photography is allowed.  The painting is 42 feet high and 377 feet in circumference--take your time.  Impressively, the display is as it was long ago, and scenery at the "bottom" of the painting gives everything a truly 3-D feel.  Ask the docents questions--obviously, the presentation doesn't include everything about the painting.  Be sure to find Lincoln, painted in the battle scene (no, he wasn't really there), and the artist himself among the soldiers.

If you go, your entry to the cyclorama also gets you in to the Visitor Center's museum, a focused telling of the story of the US Civil War, truly an epic in American history.  It serves as a detailed introduction to the war if you are not a professional historian, and if you visited the "old" Visitor Center that closed before 2008, this one will be much more modern than you remember.  If you are a first-time visitor to Gettysburg, the cyclorama itself will help you understand how the story of the Battle of Gettysburg was told at the time, an essential part of understanding the US Civil War in American memory.  You'll find the best parking and less crowded viewing very early in the day or in the off season, basically January-March.