American Pantheon: Sculptural and Artistic Decoration of the United States Capitol
by Donald R. Kennon contributions by Thomas P. Somma
Ohio University Press, 2002 Paper: 978-0-8214-1443-9 | Cloth: 978-0-8214-1442-2 Library of Congress Classification NA4411.A59 2004 Dewey Decimal Classification 725.1109753
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | TOC
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Like the ancient Roman Pantheon, the U.S. Capitol was designed by its political and aesthetic arbiters to memorialize the virtues, events, and persons most representative of the nation's ideals—an attempt to raise a particular version of the nation's founding to the level of myth.
American Pantheon examines the influences upon not only those virtues and persons selected for inclusion in the American pantheon, but also those excluded. Two chapters address the exclusion of slavery and African Americans from the art in the Capitol, a silence made all the more deafening by the major contributions of slaves and free black workers to the construction of the building. Two other authors consider the subject of women emerging as artists, subjects, patrons, and proponents of art in the Capitol, a development that began to emerge only in the second half of the nineteenth century.
The Rotunda, the Capitol's principal ceremonial space, was designed in part as an art museum of American history—at least the authorized version of it. It is explored in several of the essays, including discussions of the influence of the early-nineteenth-century Italian sculptors who provided the first sculptural reliefs for the room and the contributions of the mid-nineteenth-century Italian American artist Constantino Brumidi, to the mix of allegory, mythology, and history that permeates the space and indeed the Capitol itself.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Donald R. Kennon is the former chief historian and vice president of the United States Capitol Historical Society. He is editor of the Ohio University Press series Perspectives on the History of Congress, 1789–1801.
Thomas P. Somma was the director of the Mary Washington University Galleries at Mary Washington University in Fredericksburg, Virginia. He is the author of The Apotheosis of Democracy, 1908–1916: The Pediment for the House Wing of the United States Capitol.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
Preface 000
Pantheon on the Potomac: The Architectural Evolution of the Capitol Rotunda
William C. Allen 000
The Italian Influence on American Political Iconography: The United States Capitol as Lure and
Disseminator
Pamela Potter-Hennessey 000
A New World Pantheon: Italian Sculptural Contributions in the Capitol Rotunda
Pamela Potter-Hennessey 000
Virtue and Virtual Reality in John Trumbull's "Pantheon"
Irma B. Jaffe 000
"Lost in America": David d'Angers's Bronze Statue of Thomas Jefferson, 1832/1833
Thomas P. Somma 000
The Problem with Public Art: Henry Kirke Brown's Thinking Negro (1855) from His Pedimental
Design for the United States Capitol
Thomas P. Somma 000
Masking Slavery in and on the United States Capitol Rotunda
Vivien Green Fryd 000
Vinnie Ream's Lincoln (1871): The Sexual Politics of a Sculptor's Studio
Kirk Savage 000
Mythology, Allegory, and History: Brumidi's Frescoes for the New Dome
Barbara A. Wolanin 000
Constantino Brumidi as Decorator and History Painter: An Iconographic Analysis of Two Rooms
in the United States Capitol
Francis V. O'Connor 000
Gender and Public Space: Women and Art in the United States Capitol, 1860/2001
Teresa B. Lachin 000
The United States Capitol Rotunda and the Decoration of the State Capitols, 1870/1930
Francis V. O'Connor 000
Contributors 000
Index 000
Library of Congress Subject Headings for this publication: United States Capitol (Washington, D, C, )Public art Washington (D, C, )United States In art, Pantheon (Rome, Italy) Influence, Washington (D, C, ) Buildings, structures, etc
American Pantheon: Sculptural and Artistic Decoration of the United States Capitol
by Donald R. Kennon contributions by Thomas P. Somma
Ohio University Press, 2002 Paper: 978-0-8214-1443-9 Cloth: 978-0-8214-1442-2
Like the ancient Roman Pantheon, the U.S. Capitol was designed by its political and aesthetic arbiters to memorialize the virtues, events, and persons most representative of the nation's ideals—an attempt to raise a particular version of the nation's founding to the level of myth.
American Pantheon examines the influences upon not only those virtues and persons selected for inclusion in the American pantheon, but also those excluded. Two chapters address the exclusion of slavery and African Americans from the art in the Capitol, a silence made all the more deafening by the major contributions of slaves and free black workers to the construction of the building. Two other authors consider the subject of women emerging as artists, subjects, patrons, and proponents of art in the Capitol, a development that began to emerge only in the second half of the nineteenth century.
The Rotunda, the Capitol's principal ceremonial space, was designed in part as an art museum of American history—at least the authorized version of it. It is explored in several of the essays, including discussions of the influence of the early-nineteenth-century Italian sculptors who provided the first sculptural reliefs for the room and the contributions of the mid-nineteenth-century Italian American artist Constantino Brumidi, to the mix of allegory, mythology, and history that permeates the space and indeed the Capitol itself.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Donald R. Kennon is the former chief historian and vice president of the United States Capitol Historical Society. He is editor of the Ohio University Press series Perspectives on the History of Congress, 1789–1801.
Thomas P. Somma was the director of the Mary Washington University Galleries at Mary Washington University in Fredericksburg, Virginia. He is the author of The Apotheosis of Democracy, 1908–1916: The Pediment for the House Wing of the United States Capitol.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
Preface 000
Pantheon on the Potomac: The Architectural Evolution of the Capitol Rotunda
William C. Allen 000
The Italian Influence on American Political Iconography: The United States Capitol as Lure and
Disseminator
Pamela Potter-Hennessey 000
A New World Pantheon: Italian Sculptural Contributions in the Capitol Rotunda
Pamela Potter-Hennessey 000
Virtue and Virtual Reality in John Trumbull's "Pantheon"
Irma B. Jaffe 000
"Lost in America": David d'Angers's Bronze Statue of Thomas Jefferson, 1832/1833
Thomas P. Somma 000
The Problem with Public Art: Henry Kirke Brown's Thinking Negro (1855) from His Pedimental
Design for the United States Capitol
Thomas P. Somma 000
Masking Slavery in and on the United States Capitol Rotunda
Vivien Green Fryd 000
Vinnie Ream's Lincoln (1871): The Sexual Politics of a Sculptor's Studio
Kirk Savage 000
Mythology, Allegory, and History: Brumidi's Frescoes for the New Dome
Barbara A. Wolanin 000
Constantino Brumidi as Decorator and History Painter: An Iconographic Analysis of Two Rooms
in the United States Capitol
Francis V. O'Connor 000
Gender and Public Space: Women and Art in the United States Capitol, 1860/2001
Teresa B. Lachin 000
The United States Capitol Rotunda and the Decoration of the State Capitols, 1870/1930
Francis V. O'Connor 000
Contributors 000
Index 000
Library of Congress Subject Headings for this publication: United States Capitol (Washington, D, C, )Public art Washington (D, C, )United States In art, Pantheon (Rome, Italy) Influence, Washington (D, C, ) Buildings, structures, etc