Constantino Brumidi, Michelangelo of the United States Capitol

by Myrtle Cheney Murdock

GROUND FLOOR CORRIDORS SENATE EXTENSION

The Senate Appropriations Committee Rooms earlier referred to are entered from the West Corridor on the ground floor of the Senate Extension. Above the door leading into these Committee Rooms is the Brumidi fresco of Bellona, the Roman goddess of War, with her stacked guns, flag-draped cannon and silent drum and trumpets at her feet. This West Corridor with vaulted ceiling is elaborately decorated in 15th Century style, thought to have been inspired by the Loggia of Raphael in the Vatican at Rome, that portion of the Vatican at one time said to have been restored by Brumidi. In the Capitol’s West Corridor are studies of birds, butterflies and children. Among the humming birds, cardinals, bluejays, and robins are 13 exquisite landscapes and inimitable medallion profiles of John Hancock, Francis Hopkinson, Robert Livingston, Roger Sherman, John Jay, Charles Thompson, Charles Carroll and Robert Morris. In a special ceiling design are the twelve signs of the zodiac in fields of Pompeian blue.

Senator Voorhees made the following appreciative reference to Brumidi’s West Corridor designs:

“The poetry of the artist, if I may so express it, had also its field of display. To one who recalls the great forests of the West before they were swept away, the birds and the specimens of American animals with which he has adorned a portion of this Capitol must be a source of unceasing enjoyment. The birds especially are all there, from the humming-bird at an open flower to the bald eagle with his fiery eye and angry feathers. I have been told that the aged artist loved these birds as a father loves his children and that he often lingered in their midst as if a strong tie bound him to them.”

The North Corridor is equally as colorful as the West Corridor. Here we find painted on the walls, parrots and quail, lizards and chipmunks, squirrels and mice in their own habitat and color, midst every kind of flower and fruit imaginable. Children dance about the trailing arbutus, lilies of the valley, morning glories, columbine, bleeding hearts and peonies. Panels adorned with clusters and baskets of fruit—purple grapes, pineapples, peaches, plums, currants and cherries help to frame medallion profiles of Daniel Morgan, Jonathan Trumbull, Horatio Gates, Israel Putnam, Thomas Mifflin, Silas Deane, Richard Montgomery, Joseph Warren, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin.

In this corridor also are two large frescoes above other Committee room doors. “The Cession of Louisiana,” picturing Livingston, Monroe and Barbe-Marbois in the act of negotiating the Louisiana purchase, is at the west end of this corridor. At the east end of this corridor is “The Signing of the First Treaty of Peace with Great Britain in 1782” in which likenesses of Richard Oswald, John Adams, Henry Laurens, John Jay and Benjamin Franklin are portrayed.

A voucher, signed by Brumidi, and dated November 11, 1874, has been found referring to this treaty picture:

“For painting in Fresco over the entrance of the room of the Committee of Foreign Affairs, the picture of the Signing of the First Treaty with Great Britain—$600.”

On the upper walls of the Patent Corridor at the extreme east end of the North Corridor are large frescoes of Fulton and his invention on the Hudson, Fitch working on a steamboat model, and Franklin in his laboratory, while the ceiling displays many small designs of patents important to the American people. Roses of all colors, conventionalized or in tall graceful vases, predominate in this corridor decoration. Brumidi is reported to have said that his “Palisades of the Hudson” in the Robert Fulton fresco were not strong enough in perspective and that he hoped some day to have time to strengthen that portion of his painting.

A Brumidi voucher dated November 28, 1873, helps to verify the fact that the Fulton painting is a fresco:

“For painting in fresco the picture of Robert Fulton in the Senate wing, in the passage in front of the room of the Committee on Patents—$500.”

The Main Corridor on the ground floor of the Senate Extension is said to follow the Byzantine style of decoration with subdued backgrounds that display to perfection 14 more oval-shaped landscapes of marvelous depth and beauty. At the extreme north end of the corridor are the profile portraits of Andrew Jackson and Henry Clay, large frescoes of Justice Story and Chancellor Kent and a bust of Chancellor Livingstone executed in imitation sculpture.

THREE GRACES

Four such groups of Graces in varying attitudes and color combinations are used by Brumidi as corner motives on the frescoed ceiling of the District of Columbia Committee Room of the Senate. So delicately beautiful are the pastel shades in the maidens’ drapery that the studies of graces are equally as popular as the lunettes which they separate. Again, all frames and intricate moldings are painted on a smooth ceiling surface. The working sketch for these Graces is reproduced in black and white on page 79.

Two vouchers signed by Brumidi and dated August 24, 1874, fix the date, price and style of painting in the north end of this main corridor:

“For painting bust in light and shade of Chancellor Livingston at north end of basement story—$100.”

“For painting in fresco the portraits of Justice Story and Chancellor Kent at north end of basement story—$400.”

There is also a South Corridor on this ground floor of the Senate Extension done in the same subdued Byzantine style with eight large studies of animals in oval frames painted in oil on the walls and eight other ovals of the same size displaying in each the United States shield.

Two facts concerning Brumidi disturb us at this point in some such way as Smith D. Fry evidently was disturbed back in 1912 when he wrote his “Story of the Capitol.” Mr. Fry apparently satisfied his own wonder in these words:

“Many people inquire how it was possible for Brumidi to accomplish such an enormous amount of art work. The great designer and decorator prepared his colors according to methods known only to himself. They were mixed or triturated by employees under Brumidi’s direction. Leslie and others covered the walls with backgrounds, under Brumidi’s direction. Other near artists made outlines, according to directions of the tireless worker. But all of the artistic work was finished by the hand of the matchless Brumidi himself. That the name of Brumidi and the story of his wonderful work have not been known to the American people is not due to lack of appreciation but to the fact that there has been no one with time and acquaintance with his work to tell the people about it.”