In “Fry’s Patriotic Story of the Capitol,” a booklet published in 1912, the author refers repeatedly to Brumidi in such an intimate way as to lead the reader to believe that Smith D. Fry must have known Brumidi personally and must have loved the artist genuinely. Since Mr. Fry graduated from law school the year the artist died it is not impossible that the two were personally acquainted. In the following Fry quotation there is evidence to support this view and the human touch to the biographical sketch may have come direct from the artist himself. Mr. Fry wrote,
“When about forty years of age, Brumidi threw away his brush and his great career, declaring that he would never paint another stroke until he had found liberty. Because of an indignity suffered by a member of his family he became a revolutionary soldier and fought in vain for liberty. When almost fifty years old he was banished from Italy and came to America. Here he found liberty and became an intensely patriotic citizen.”
Mr. Fry then gives a direct quotation from the artist himself. This is unique, being the only direct quotation from Brumidi passed on in this manner. Said Mr. Fry, “When Brumidi’s merit was disclosed (in America) fame and fortune sought him. Thousands of dollars were his for the taking. He refused all allurements in these words, ‘I have no longer any desire for fame or fortune. My one ambition and my daily prayer is that I may live long enough to make beautiful the Capitol of the one country on earth in which there is liberty.’”
Charles E. Fairman, art curator of the Capitol for thirty-two years, compiled during that time valuable records on the “Art and Artists of the Capitol of the United States of America.” Mr. Fairman was born in 1854 about the time Brumidi began his decorations of the Capitol Building. Although Mr. Fairman did not begin his own work at the Capitol Building until 1911 it is entirely possible that as a young man he had occasion to watch Brumidi at work. While Mr. Fairman maintains an impersonal attitude in his treatment of Brumidi, his record is invaluable as proof of the authenticity of certain Brumidi frescoes and paintings.
The whole colossal piece of research so carefully assembled by Mr. Fairman and printed in 1927 contained the best summary of documentary material available on Constantino Brumidi. Since Mr. Fairman’s book covered all art and artists in any manner having connection with the Capitol Building the parts devoted to Brumidi and his murals occupy a not too prominent division of the book. However, Mr. Fairman’s combined references to Constantino Brumidi are of great service to one making a more extended study of the Capitol muralist.
The Daily Evening Telegraph of Philadelphia announced Brumidi’s death in its issue of February 19, 1880. On the following day this same paper carried a lengthy article purporting to be an evaluation of the Brumidi frescoes. So scathing and crude was the criticism by this anonymous writer, even before the old artist had been buried, that one senses instinctively that this same type of critical carping had no doubt been stalking Brumidi from other sources during a period of years. The following quotation is a glaring example of this unjust criticism:
“...Of Brumidi, the frescoer of the Capitol at Washington, whose death was announced yesterday, it may be said, ‘He was most industrious.’ If hard work always represents a value given and received, the industrious Brumidi could be put down as having fairly earned the large sums which must have been paid him out of the public treasury. But, if the quality of his work is considered, we doubt whether those who are at all competent to judge with regard to the matter will differ among themselves as to the fact that his employment for a long term of years, in the face of repeated and emphatic protests from people who knew what good decoration was, was most scandalous.
“...He was permitted to paint on the interior of the dome a composition which, both in design and execution, is about as abominable as anything of that kind well could be. Now that he is dead and out of the way, let us hope that something like a serious effort will be made to have his place filled by an artist who is an artist, and who has some claims to consideration other than that of being skilled in the fresco process.”
On that same day, Friday, February 20, 1880, another reporter, this time for the Washington Post in the Capital City, told of the death and life of Brumidi with a show of sympathetic appreciation. A portion of this article follows: