DEATH OF A GREAT ARTIST
“Constantino Brumidi, the artist, died yesterday morning at his residence, 921 G Street, at 6:30 o’clock. For months past he has been failing, but until within two weeks has been able to work every day in his studio, and was dressed and sat up each day until the one preceding his death. For a fortnight he has been failing rapidly. The last twenty-four hours before his death he was unconscious, but at the last moment he recognized those around him. The funeral will be attended from the house on Saturday. Mr. Brumidi leaves no family in this city except an adopted son, who bears his name and has adopted his father’s profession.
“Almost until the last hour he continued his work on the frescoes in the dome of the Capitol, though compelled to sit instead of standing, his hand and eye were as true and strong as ever, and the work from that point on shows no loss in spirit or excellence of execution. For months the little scaffold that clings to the wall in mid air under the dome of the Capitol has been deserted, and curious strangers, looking at the neglected cartoons hanging over the railings have been told that Brumidi would never come back to finish his frescoes. It was the dream of his life that he should come back. He wanted with his own hand to lead that historic procession round the dome till the encircling frieze should be complete. Of late, as growing infirmities have pressed upon him, he has gradually abandoned the hope and occupied himself in enlarging his original cartoons to working size, so that any artist might complete the work by simply following copy.—He lies in the pleasant parlor studio of his house, in death as in life, with his work about him. Half-finished designs are sketched on the walls, and busts and statuettes fill the corners; canvas and palette are on the easel.”
In the Senate of the United States on February 24, 1880, four days after the burial of Brumidi, two speeches were made in reference to the artist, one by Senator Voorhees of Indiana, and another by Senator Morrill of Vermont. Senator Voorhees eulogized Brumidi in this manner:
“May I not be pardoned some brief mention of the wonderful genius, so long, so gently, and so beautifully associated with this Capitol? He died poor, without money enough to bury his worn-out body, but how rich the inheritance he has left to the present and succeeding ages! During more than a quarter of a century he hovered along these walls from the basement to the Dome, leaving creations of imperishable beauty wherever his touch has been. Wherever he paused by a panel, or was seen suspended to a ceiling, there soon appeared the brilliant conceptions of his fertile and cultivated mind. We can form no correct idea of the extent, the variety, and the perfection of his taste and skill as an artist without sometimes forgetting our pressing cares, as we look in detail over his field of labor.”
Senator Morrill spoke of the artist in these words of friendship and understanding:
“Covering as he has done so much space with his fresco paintings—so difficult and so durable—it is wonderful that so great a part should be fairly excellent and so little that
BRUMIDI STAIRWAY
So long has the name Brumidi been associated with the lovely cherubs about the Capitol Building that even this bronze staircase has come to be called a “Brumidi Stairway.” Two such Brumidi stairways lead from the House Chamber and two from the Senate Chamber. Hazelton wrote in 1897, “Brumidi made the attractive designs of the eagle, deer, and cherubs for all the railings upon paper; they were modeled by Baudin and cast in Philadelphia.” Mr. Baudin wrote from Philadelphia to Captain Meigs in 1857, “...I am waiting for the drawings for the stair rail....”
competent critics esteem otherwise. If he has not attempted the ambitious role of the old masters on the walls and ceilings of churches, it may be at least said that his hand has rarely touched anything which it has not decorated. Even after that accident by which his life hung many minutes fearfully imperiled under the Dome of the Capitol, his latest work there, unfinished though it be, shows that his hand had not lost its cunning, and his acquaintance with American history and skill in its portrayal has, perhaps, never been more happily displayed.
“Those who have, without any special intimacy, barely seen this poor and quiet old man as he slowly passed and repassed to his daily tasks or who have but for a moment listened to his speech in broken English, and never heard his glib tongue when he met those with whom he could converse in his native language, will hardly comprehend his merits as a severe student in the art to which he had devoted his whole life, still less will they be inclined to credit the rapid and correct drawing of which he was undoubtedly a master; but the evidences of his rare genius and of swift work are too conspicuous to be denied. We have only to look around to behold them all.
“Brumidi was a diligent reader of Dante, of Gibbon, of Bancroft, and many other works from which he derived his historical and classical aid and his great desire was that he might live to complete his last great work. So long had he devoted his heart and strength to this Capitol that his love and reverence for it was not surpassed by even that of Michael Angelo for St. Peter’s.”
Brumidi Art in the United States Capitol
BRUMIDI’S art in the Capitol Building is not all accessible to the casual visitor. The large mural already mentioned which the old master executed on the wall of the House of Representatives Chamber can be viewed by visitors only from the galleries of the House, unless some special dispensation takes the visitor to the Floor of the House of Representatives for a close-up study. The beautiful frescoes on the walls and ceilings of six committee rooms, one in the House extension and five in the Senate extension, can be seen only by special permission or by attendance at certain committee hearings.