ATLANTA (AP) – A colossal panoramic painting depicting the Battle of Atlanta from the American Civil War will be lifted by cranes from the building where it has been housed for nearly a century and then trucked to its new location.
Moving the 6-ton Cyclorama – one of the nation’s largest paintings – from Grant Park to the Atlanta History Center across town marks a major milestone in its restoration, historians said.
The move is expected to begin Thursday and take two days. Those in charge say they’re using extreme caution to ensure the 15,000-square-foot painting is not damaged.
“If there’s anything that endangers the painting, we will slow down to a crawl,” said Howard Pousner, a spokesman at the Atlanta History Center.
The painting’s vivid scenes of charging soldiers, rearing horses, battle flags and broken bodies stretches the length of a football field, from the back of one end zone to the other one, when it is fully unfurled and on display.