To See a New Nation depicts Jean-Antoine Houdon's statue of George Washington, installed in the Virginia State Capitol. At Washington’s feet lies the severed head of the Apollo Belvedere, a neoclassical ideal, used in 19th-century racial science to visualize white supremacy.

The painting collapses enlightenment ideology, neoclassical aesthetics, and American myth into a single fractured image. During the Civil War, Washington’s image was claimed by both Union and Confederate causes, each side projecting its ideals onto the Founding Father’s image. This contested symbolism reveals how images have been used not just to commemorate virtue, but to legitimize violence and power.