Constantino Brumidi, Michelangelo of the United States Capitol

by Myrtle Cheney Murdock

SENATE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA COMMITTEE ROOMS

Two of these Senate Annex rooms, the District of Columbia Committee Rooms, have unusual frescoed ceilings—that of the larger room being equal in workmanship to that of the President’s Room. Since this large Committee Room was originally set apart as a Senate Library the groupings were chosen with that in mind, for there the artist has represented Geography, History, Physics, and Telegraph. In each group is the Brumidi Madonna and the artist’s distinctive cherubs. The walls of this room were never finished but the ceiling colors are as brilliant today as though painted yesterday.

In the files of the Architect of the Capitol is to be found a collection of original Brumidi letters. Among these are two referring to the Library decorations, both written in 1858—one by a draughtsman, Johannes Oertel, to Mr. Brumidi, and one by Mr. Brumidi to Captain Meigs, then superintendent of Capitol construction. The old artist apparently bothered not to answer ridicule and art criticism but a “direct reproach” on the discharge of his duty did not go unchallenged. The two letters follow:

From Mr. Oertel to Mr. Brumidi:

“With much surprise I learned that last Saturday you had commenced to paint the ceiling at the Senate Library. This room, as you are aware, was assigned to me by Capt. Meigs. I had consequently made preparation to begin it, and have spent much time in doing so. The work is now useless, and my labor in vain.

“Common courtesy should have induced you to consult me before beginning yourself. I cannot conceive the propriety of your taking work out of my hands, to which by commission I was fairly entitled. I must regard it as an unjust interference with my rights, which rights I shall endeavor in the future to guard from invasion.”

From Mr. Brumidi to Capt. Meigs:

“On the 26th of April 1858, I received from Mr. Oertel the enclosed letter, which is very remarkable for the injurious sentiments it contains.

“I remember very well our conversation

HISTORY

This Brumidi color lunette in the District of Columbia Committee Room of the Senate, a part of that room’s frescoed ceiling, was given the name “History” by the artist. All paintings in this room were done with the thought of a decorative motif for a Senate Library. The allegory in this lunette might suggest Young America writing her history, confident and undisturbed either by war or time. If this room has a Brumidi signature it has not yet been found.

that you had invited a draughtsman to come to Washington to help me with my cartoons. Some days after, in the beginning of last year (1857), Mr. Oertel presented himself and told me he was the artist intended to assist me with my designs. I inquired of him if he could paint. He answered no, that he was only a draughtsman. In proof of this assertion he showed to me an oil painting of small dimension, representing the head of St. Paul. Such was his only experiment in coloring.

“After this I gave him the measure of six circles on the pilasters in the Navy Room, to make a corresponding number of portraits of celebrated men in the American Navy, intending to paint them myself. After that day I did not again see Mr. Oertel, because he had received orders from you to make the designs for the stained glass in the House of Representatives. In consequence of which order I could not have his services. I have never yet received the designs for the aforesaid portraits, therefore, I made them myself, also the cartoons for my other work, intending to execute them when the weather was favorable.

“Not being able to work in the room of the Committee of War, as it is at present occupied, nor in the ante-chamber of the Senate as there are many workmen employed there, I commenced in the Senate Library not having received any information that the frescoes there were intended for Mr. Oertel nor could I think that an artist who himself has confessed that he had no practice in painting could think of executing pictures in fresco which is undoubtedly the most difficult of all varieties of painting.

“If for about fifteen months Mr. Oertel had been under your immediate orders, I could not again employ him without a new order from you, notwithstanding I have only painted one panel in the Library, and if you desire that Mr. Oertel shall make his first experiment in fresco in the aforesaid room, there still remain three vacant panels.

“In everything concerning the work in the Capitol Extension, it is my duty to receive orders and whatsoever observations may be needed only from you. So that I pray you please to make known to Mr. Oertel that neither he nor any other person has authority to send me such an insolent letter, containing as it does a direct reproach on the discharge of my duty, and I consider he has done me a serious injury.”

Although this Senate Library was begun by Brumidi in 1858 it would seem that only one lunette was finished at that time and that negotiations for its completion were again resumed on August 12, 1866, when Mr. Brumidi wrote the following letter to Architect Clark itemizing the completion costs:

“...The three panels in the ceiling, painted in real fresco representing allegorical subjects, corresponding to the original plan, and to the other already painted by myself, for $1,500 each, making an amount of $4,500—and 500 dollars more for painting all the figures and ornaments in the same ceiling in correspondence with the others, making a total cost of $5,000.

“The enclosed account at the old price of daily wages was presented by me to put under consideration what would have been the cost of the work if it had been completed six years ago. The mentioned persons, Peruchi and Geier were employed expressly one to help me as an artist, and the other to serve me in preparing the cartoons, the colors, and to assist me in my private studio as well as in the Capitol, and they having nothing to do with the plasterer who fixes the mortar in the wall, always furnished by the government.”

Architect Clark’s reply a few days later was short and to the point, “I do not consider there is three times as much to do as has already been done.”

Brumidi painted in the Capitol Building throughout the entire war between the States. In the little ante-room of the Senate District of Columbia Committee Room, originally the office of the Sergeant at Arms of the Senate, is his only effort to picture that conflict. This small room has four allegorical designs painted about its upper walls and one large fresco in the center of the ceiling. This fresco is signed, “C. Brumidi, 1876,” and represents “Columbia Welcoming the South Back into the Union.”

On the east wall is “Secession”—the breaking of the fasces, and the rival products of the North and South; on the south wall is war and strife; on the north wall the implements of war are exchanged for those of peace, while on the west wall the fasces are again united with the words “E Pluribus Unum.”

These two Senate Committee Rooms present a great contrast in brilliancy of color. The somber tone of the smaller room might be due to its date of execution, it having been finished only four years before the artist’s death. The larger room is said to have had a bit of restoration at one time during the two restoration periods that some of the Brumidi frescoes have had in the Capitol.

Charles Ayer Whipple was employed in 1919 to restore some of the Brumidi paintings especially in the basement corridors in the Senate Annex. This artist is recorded to have said at that time, “The Brumidi decorations are second to none in the whole world.” In 1921 Charles E. Moberly also did some restoration of Brumidi paintings but his work was chiefly in the House Committee Room where a fire had marred the side walls, and in the Reception room of the Senate where a bomb explosion in the early days of World War I damaged the walls and ceiling.