A manual on the origin and development of Washington

by H. Paul Caemmerer

In the work of the Commission of Fine Arts we see the splendid results achieved through the collaboration of architects, sculptors, painters, and landscape architects. The Commission exists primarily to serve the Congress and its committees, the President, and the heads of the Government Departments. There are exceptional cases when the Commission of Fine Arts is called upon to advise with reference to fine arts projects submitted by individuals. The Commission aims to maintain standards of taste. The members themselves are prominent in their respective professions and are “well-qualified judges of the fine arts.”

Prior to the establishment of the Commission of Fine Arts it was the practice of Congress when legislation was enacted providing for a public building, a monument, or other work of art to authorize the appointment of a committee to advise it concerning the specific fine arts project. Such a committee was as a rule composed of laymen, unqualified to give advice on matters of art. Thereupon money was appropriated to meet the expenses of a jury of award, in addition to those of the committee; and when the project was completed, the committee disbanded, leaving Congress without a recognized body to whom matters pertaining to the fine arts could be referred, and requiring a repetition of the appointment of a new committee for procuring some new work of art desired by Congress. It was just such a situation as this that existed in 1910 when Senator Root was a member of the Committee on the Library. In a letter addressed to the Chairman of the Commission of Fine Arts at the twenty-fifth anniversary of its establishment in May 1935, Senator Root stated:

Sometime about the early spring of 1910 some Senator had introduced in the Senate a resolution providing for the purchase by the Government of a number of paintings that nobody wanted to buy and under the rule that resolution was referred to the Committee on the Library. The responsibility for protecting the Government against a waste of money was thus thrown upon the Committee.

A little discussion developed the fact that all the members of the Committee had an uncomfortable feeling that the pictures were probably worthless and no such purchase ought to be made but that no member of the Committee felt any such confidence in his own knowledge and judgment about such things as to feel like making a report to the Senate based on his opinion, and maintaining that opinion on the floor. We all felt that the Committee ought to have some way of getting an expert opinion to guide it in making its report.

In the discussion we recalled Theodore Roosevelt’s appointment of a Fine Arts Council, which fell to the ground because it had no legal standing, and we recalled also the advantage received from the report of park development of the informal commission selected by the McMillan Committee, and we finally determined to ask Congress to provide for the appointment of a fine arts commission which would meet the need that our Committee was then experiencing and a similar need which was liable to occur in a multitude of cases under which Government officers had to pass on questions of art without being really competent to perform such a duty. * * * I drafted a very brief statute * * * and a little informal explanation of the need which the Committee felt for expert assistance in the performing of its duties carried the bill through.

And so, without creation of any power of legal compulsion, there was brought to the service of the Government the authority of competent opinion upon questions of art arising in the course of administration, and widespread and habitual deference to such an opinion has saved the Government and the community from God knows how many atrocities.

From the time of its establishment, the Commission has been consulted about every detail of the progress of the Plan of Washington, and also about many works of art for which the Government makes appropriations. This includes also works of art which our Government, as a result of congressional enactment, presents to the governments and the peoples of other countries to express our friendship and good will, or erects for the use of our diplomatic corps abroad, or to perpetuate the memory of our soldiers’ deeds of daring and courage. Good examples are the statue of Leif Ericsson to Iceland, the statue of Henry Clay to Venezuela, the American Embassy Building in Japan, and the World War Memorials in Europe.

In creating the National Capital Park and Planning Commission by act of April 30, 1926, Congress provided that purchases of lands made thereunder shall have the advice of the Commission of Fine Arts. During the years all proposed purchases have been approved. The two Commissions have acted harmoniously in the work of developing the District of Columbia according to carefully devised plans for parks, playgrounds, and highways.

The first project that came before the Commission of Fine Arts, in 1910, was the Lincoln Memorial. The memorial during a period of 12 years had the continual attention of this Commission, and since its dedication on May 30, 1922, it has been recognized as one of the great memorials of the world. In the past 15 years the row of beautiful white marble buildings near the Lincoln Memorial have been built, as also the new Department buildings on Constitution Avenue. These are a part of the great public buildings program that is in progress in the National Capital.