The greatest work which he still desires to do is to put the present front on the rear of the Capitol facing the city, and to draw forth the old freestone fronts and rebuild it with marble, making a grand central portico parallel with the magnificent marble wings of the Senate and House extension. To rebuild the central front will cost two millions of dollars. The face of the Capitol will never be worthy of itself till this is accomplished. The grand outward defect of the Capitol is the slightness and insignificance of the central portico compared with the superlative Corinthian fronts of the wings. Between their outreaching marble steps, beside their majestic monoliths the central columns shrink to feebleness and give the impression that the great dome is sinking down upon them to crush them out of sight. There is something soaring in the proportions of the dome. Its summit seems to spring into the empyrean. Its proud goddess poised in mid-air, caught in their swift embrace, seems to sail with the fleeting clouds. Nevertheless its tremendous base set upon that squatting roof threatens it with perpetual annihilation.
From the very beginning the Capitol has suffered as a National Building from the conflicting and foreign tastes of its decorators. Literally begun in the woods by a nation in its infancy, it not only borrowed its face from the buildings of antiquity, but it was built by men, strangers in thought and spirit to the genius of a new Republic, and the unwrought and unimbodied poetry of its virgin soil. Its earlier decorators, all Italians, overlaid its walls with their florid colors and foreign symbols; within the American Capitol, they have set the Loggia of Raphael, the voluptuous ante-rooms of Pompeii, and the Baths of Titus. The American plants, birds and animals, representing prodigal nature at home, though exquisitely painted are buried in twilight passages, while mythological bar-maids, misnamed goddesses, dance in the most conspicuous and preposterous places. The Capitol has already survived this era of false decorative art.
Congress in 1859 authorized a Commission of distinguished American artists, comprising Messrs. Brown, Lumsden and Kensett, to study, the decorations of the Capitol and report upon their abuses. Their suggestions are beginning to be followed, and yet so carelessly, that after the lapse of fourteen years they need reiteration. The Artist Committee recommended an Art Commission, composed of those designated by the united voice of America. Artists as competent to the office who shall be the channels for the distribution of all appropriations to be made by Congress for art purposes, and who shall secure to artists an intelligent and unbiased adjudication upon the designs they may present for the embellishment of the national buildings. When one remembers some of the Congressional Committees who have decided on decorations for the Capitol even within the last ten years, it is enough to make one cry aloud for a Commission designated by artists, whose art-culture shall at least be sufficient to tell a decent picture from a daub, a noble statue from a pretense and a sham.
In conclusion the Commission of Artists said:—
“The erection of a great National Capitol seldom occurs but once in the life of a nation. The opportunity such an event affords is an important one for the expression of patriotic elevation, and the perpetuation, through the arts of painting and sculpture, of that which is high and noble and held in reverence by the people; and it becomes them as patriots to see to it that no taint of falsity is suffered to be transmitted to the future upon the escutcheon of our national honor in its artistic record. A theme so noble and worthy should interest the heart of the whole country, and whether patriot, statesman or artist, one impulse should govern the whole in dedicating these buildings and grounds to the national honor.”
CHAPTER IX.
INSIDE THE CAPITOL.
A Visit to the Capitol—The Lower Hall—Its Cool Tranquillity—Artistic Treasures—The President’s and Vice-President’s Rooms—The Marble Room—The Senate Chamber—“Men I have Known”—Hamlin—Foote—Foster—Wade—Colfax—Wilson—The Rotunda—Great Historical Paintings—The Old Hall of Representatives—The New Hall—The Speaker’s Room—Native Art—“The Star of Empire”—A National Picture.
Come with me. This is your Capitol. It is like passing from one world into another, to leave behind the bright June day for the cool, dim halls of the lower Capitol. No matter how fiercely the sun burns in the heavens, his fire never penetrates the twilight of this grand hall, whose eight hundred feet measure the length of the Capitol from end to end.
Here, in Egyptian Colonnades, rise the mighty shafts of stone which bear upon their tops the mightier mass of marble, and which seem strong enough to support the world. In the summer solstice they cast long, cool shadows, full of repose and silence. The gas-lights flickering on the walls, send long golden rays through the dimness to light us on. We have struck below the jar and tumult of life. The struggles of a nation may be going on above our heads, yet so vast and visionary are these vistas opening before us, so deep the calm which surrounds us, we seem far away from the world that we have left, in this new world which we have found. Every time I descend into these lower regions I get lost. In wandering on to find our way out, we are sure to make numerous discoveries of unimagined beauty. Here are doors after doors in almost innumerable succession, opening into departments of commerce, agriculture, etc., whose every panel holds exquisite gems of illustrative painting. Birds, flowers, fruits, landscapes, in rarest fresco and color, here reveal themselves to us through the dim light.
It would take months to study and to learn these pictures which artists have taken years to paint. They make a department of art in themselves, yet thousands who think that they know the Capitol well are not aware of their existence. At the East Senate entrance, look at these polished pillars of Tennessee marble, their chocolate surface all flecked with white, surrounding a staircase meet for kings. They are my delight. Look at these foliated capitals, flowering in leaves of acanthus and tobacco. Look up to this ceiling of stained glass, its royal roses opening wide their crimson hearts above you; these too are my delight. I am not one of those who can sneer at the Capitol. Its faults, like the faults of a friend are sacred. I know them, but wish to name them not, save to the one who only can remedy. It bears blots upon its fair face, but these can be washed away. It wears ornaments vulgar and vain, these can be stripped off and thrown out. Below them, beyond them all, abides the Capitol. The surface blemish vexes, the pretentious splendor offends. These are not the Capitol. We look deeper, we look higher, to find beauty, to see sublimity, to see the Capitol, august and imperishable!