Constantino Brumidi, Michelangelo of the United States Capitol

by Myrtle Cheney Murdock

Even during the years that Brumidi created the beauty of the President’s Room cruel words were hurled against his art. In 1858 a convention of self-styled American artists assembled and drew up an estimate of their own worth which they titled: “Memorial of the Artists of the United States.” This petition of grievance presented to the Congress of the United States carried the names of 127 individuals, chiefly from New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore with only eight from the Capital City. Among the signatures were found the names of Rembrandt Peale, W. D. Washington and Johannes A. Oertel, the latter being the draughtsman who

SINGING CHERUBS

These three cherubs occupy a position beneath the portrait of William Brewster on the ceiling of the President’s Room comparable to that of the cherub detail beneath the portrait of Benjamin Franklin on the same ceiling. Since Brewster, as the religious leader of the Pilgrims and elder of the Plymouth colony, typifies “Religion” in Brumidi’s over all design in the President’s Room, the singing cherubs with their director, violinist, dove attendant, and music script must be singing hosannas of peace and devotion. (Cherubs in chapter tailpieces are from this ceiling.)

challenged Brumidi’s right, in 1858, to paint the ceiling fresco in the District of Columbia Committee Room of the Senate.

It is illuminating to know that 88 of the 127 names listed as artists in the above Memorial do not even appear in the National Encyclopedia of American Biography while among those that do appear, less than a dozen are recognized today as artists of note.

The Artists’ Memorial began with these words, “Your memorialists appear before your honorable bodies to solicit for American art that consideration and encouragement to which they conceive it to be entitled at the hands of the general government.” Then the Memorial asked that Congress “establish an Art Commission composed of those designated by the united voice of American artists as competent to the office, who shall be accepted as the exponents of the authority and influence of American art, 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 our National buildings.”

The House of Representatives referred the Artists’ Memorial to a select committee of five. This Committee brought out Report No. 198, March 3, 1859. That Report not only sanctioned the establishment of the suggested Art Commission to protect the “embellishment of National buildings” but it voiced criticism by the Congressmen making up the select Committee of five. Brumidi’s name was not mentioned in the Report but there is no mistaking the artist to whom they referred. Said the Committee in this Report:

“A plain coat or two of whitewash is better, in the opinion of this committee, for a temporary finish than the tawdry and exuberant ornamentation with which many of the rooms and passages are being crowded.... An eagle and the National flag may be discovered occasionally amidst the confusion of scroll work and mythological figures presented to the eye; but the presence of conventional gods and goddesses, with meaningless scrolls and arabesques, albeit they may be wrapped in the red, white and blue, will never suggest to the American, as he wanders among the halls and committee rooms, any idea to touch his heart or to inspire his patriotism.... Should he seek an explanation from those who are manufacturing the cumbrous levities which everywhere appear through the building he will be eminently fortunate should he find among them one who speaks the English language.”