The Latest: Diary provides new insight on Cyclorama painters

ATLANTA – The Latest on moving the Atlanta Cyclorama "Battle of Atlanta" painting (all times local):

7:50 a.m.

A 140-year-old diary written in German is providing new insights about how painters visited Atlanta to make sketches and then returned to Milwaukee to create the Atlanta Cyclorama.

Crews Thursday plan to move the Cyclorama across town to a new site at the Atlanta History Center.

A German translator is working to decipher the diary written by one of the painters, Friedrich Wilhelm Heine. The work is providing many new details about how it was created at the American Panorama Co. in Milwaukee in the 1880s.

In summaries provided to The Associated Press, Heine describes working to complete the Atlanta artwork on time, despite a painful foot condition he suffered. He also recounts how a 25-foot scaffold was built over Atlanta railroad tracks to create sketches, and how one painter was afraid to climb it.

___

4:20 a.m.

A colossal panoramic painting depicting the Battle of Atlanta from the American Civil War is moving from the building where it's been displayed for nearly a century.

Historians say 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.

The move is to begin Thursday and take two days.

History Center spokesman Howard Pousner says the process will slow to a crawl if weather or anything else endangers the 15,000-square-foot painting.

The painting, created by German artists at the American Panorama Co. in Milwaukee in the 1880s, is one of only two of its kind on display in the nation. The other is at Gettysburg National Military Park in Pennsylvania.