Myrtle Cheney Murdock

“ The Dome of the Capitol Building of the United States actually symbolized to Constantino Brumidi “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” In return for that liberty and security this Italian refugee dedicated himself in service to his adopted country. He spent the last twenty-five years of his life “making beautiful the Capitol of the one country on earth in which there is Liberty.” His crowning effort was the huge canopy in color—4,664 square feet of concave fresco—covering the inside of the Dome of the Capitol of the country he had learned to love. ”

“ He had prayed to live long enough to paint this frieze, but when the signal finally came from Capitol authorities to begin this last cherished fresco he was an old man of seventy-two. Brumidi had lost his physical strength but not his will to work toward the completion of his dream.
The young wife he had married at the height of his American financial success had long since gone with a younger man; his lonely years and his poverty weighed heavily upon him; criticism and ridicule had undoubtedly taken their toll but the old artist persistently stayed with that last assignment. ”

“ If he has not attempted the ambitious role of the old masters on the walls and ceilings of churches, it may be at least said that his hand has rarely touched anything which it has not decorated. Even after that accident by which his life hung many minutes fearfully imperiled under the Dome of the Capitol, his latest work there, unfinished though it be, shows that his hand had not lost its cunning, and his acquaintance with American history and skill in its portrayal has, perhaps, never been more happily displayed. ”

“ I confess that my national feelings were a little wounded when I saw vituperated to some extent in Washington an artist much esteemed in Rome. Music and the fine arts are all that remain of our former greatness, and we are naturally jealous of this glory. Besides, I am convinced that Signor Brumidi is a good artist and an excellent fresco painter. He has studied long in Rome, even from his boyhood, and visited for instruction all the most important schools of art in Italy. Baron Camucini was his master in painting, and the great Thorwaldsen taught him sculpture. ”

“ Thus, the decoration is truly a part of the architecture and, being inseparable from it, is far more satisfactory than canvases from the most able painters to be attached to wall or ceiling.
In the face of the current challenge to the American way of life our painters should be given space in our Federal and State buildings for decorations reaffirming the faith that made our Nation great. More artists at present should be engaged in depicting the virtues of our system of government in the interest of the development of appreciative citizenship upon which it so justly depends. ”

“ Michelangelo had never practiced fresco painting when Bramante procured him the commission to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel with a view to ruin his reputation. Michelangelo called from Florence his former schoolmate, Granacci, and other fresco painters, to teach him the art. He was much perplexed at the beginning but afterward declared it the best style of painting. I believe that your best painters, by exerting themselves and gaining experience, might have succeeded in doing the work accomplished by Brumidi, but it would have required a long time and an enormous expenditure. ”

“ Curtis,
“If you go into these committee rooms, and these galleries, of which we have heard so much, and take any honorable and fair-minded artist with you, he will himself do justice to the specimens of art that will be before him, and admit its distinguished worth. What, sir, can be more beautiful than the fresco work in the room of the Agricultural Committee?”
Hanging on the side of a bookcase today, in this House Committee Room, where Brumidi began his Capitol decorations, is a framed bit of verse put on display evidently by an admirer of the artist. ”

“ On February 24, 1880, Senator Voorhees of Indiana referred to the Brumidi decorations of these two rooms in these words:
“Almost every committee-room announces to the eye by historical or allegorical paintings in fresco the duties to which it is dedicated. Who ever passed through the room of the Committee on Military Affairs without feeling that the very genius of heroism had left there its immortal inspirations? Who would mistake in after ages the use to which the room for the Committee on Naval Affairs had been devoted? ”

“ Vital research, extending over a period of years, necessarily touches many people. At the culmination of any valued study an author suddenly finds himself indebted to countless individuals. Fashioning a mosaic from the life of Constantino Brumidi in spite of many missing pieces has been no exception. ”

“ Fresco painting represents in art what improvisation is in poetry. The artist must execute his work upon a fresh wall, tracing the outlines by a steel point and using mineral colors which are instantly absorbed and do not show their effect until the wall dries. The artist, therefore, must work with great rapidity and has no opportunity for corrections. It does not require a greater capacity than the ordinary painting with oil or water colors on a dry wall, but the artist must have a peculiar disposition, and this the Italian possesses to a greater degree than others. ”

“ In the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo used color glazes with such economy that the panels and single figures of his great ceiling decorations truly appear as water color paintings. Brumidi depended upon a heavier use of pigment and built up his lights opaquely.
If the day’s allotted portion is not satisfactorily finished while the wall is still absorbent, it must be removed and worked again. As the moisture leaves, the mortar sets and the wall hardens, its colors becoming lighter and more sparkling as the white lime and crystalline sand shine through. ”

“ In these groups we find Minerva, Goddess of Arts and Sciences, as the center of her allegorical group; Ceres, of Agriculture; Mercury, messenger of the Gods, symbolizing Commerce; Vulcan, the God of Mechanics; Neptune, God of the Marine, and Armed Liberty with shield and sword, symbolizing War.
S. D. Wyeth says, “The fresco of Brumidi (on the canopy of the Dome) arrests the gaze as though the sky had opened and it were permitted to look into the beyond.” ”

“ 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.... ”

“ While the above facts concerning Brumidi were much the same in the few available references in the Library of Congress, stories of Brumidi’s life in America and of his services to the United States seemed to vary with the enthusiasm or bias of the narrator. Certain conflicting statements centered about the merit and authenticity of his paintings; the genuineness of his American patriotism; the amount of money paid him for the paintings in the Capitol Building; the loyalty of the artist’s family; the appreciation of the American people; and the poverty of the artist at the time of his death. ”

“ Today, due to the rapidly declining private fortunes of the industrialist-connoisseur class, the artist is facing a vacuity in art patronage. Establish in its place a small but steadily sustained federal program of mural painting, and a revival is possible here in the United States not unlike that experienced in England when the social satire of Hogarth’s brush was followed under royal patronage by one of the most productive and prosperous periods of British painting. ”

“ The Brumidi working sketches found in Washington during recent years are in a wonderfully fine state of preservation, whether they have come directly from the hand of Lola Germon or from Laurence Brumidi’s storage cache found in 1919, or from other sources. Most of the canvases have in no manner been restored or retouched but the colors are soft and true and pleasing. Those art lovers who fear that certain Capitol decorations may have suffered by “restorations” have but to compare the Capitol fresco with its working sketch to be reassured. ”

“ Those who have, without any special intimacy, barely seen this poor and quiet old man as he slowly passed and repassed to his daily tasks or who have but for a moment listened to his speech in broken English, and never heard his glib tongue when he met those with whom he could converse in his native language, will hardly comprehend his merits as a severe student in the art to which he had devoted his whole life, still less will they be inclined to credit the rapid and correct drawing of which he was undoubtedly a master ”

“ I can only record for you authenticated Brumidi facts as they have unfolded themselves to me during the fourteen years I have been inspired by the artist’s frescoes—all the time waiting for a poet or an artist to tell this story.
However, I do know that great service and sacrifice in our Democracy often are not rewarded until long years have slipped away. I know, too, that unjust criticism and ridicule can so befog the patriotic works of a good man that even half a century is often not long enough for those works to emerge with all their significant meaning. ”

“ Visitors to the Capitol who admire the beautiful decorative work to be seen in the rotunda and in the corridors, especially on the Senate end of the building, will find additional interest in the work of the artist when they learn the source of his inspiration for many of the female figures that appear in the designs.
“The aged artist, Brumidi, whose brush did most of the most beautiful of the decorative work of the Capitol, married in Washington, D. C., Miss Lola Germon, a young lady well known for her beauty, which has been perpetuated in many of the paintings executed by her husband. ”

“ Contrasted with Brumidi’s paintings, these mark the difference between the easel picture, a loosely related, detachable embellishment, and mural decoration designed in scale and color especially to enhance architecture.
The easel picture, the favored form of painting in the United States, is a symbol not only of the American artist’s independence of expression and freedom of enterprise but also of his dependence upon his own resources and private patronage. Easily transported, it is adaptable for exhibit in distant galleries, for sale to successive owners, and is more easily reproduced. ”

“ In the 19th century it was largely the means of living for the professional fine artist. George Catlin found admission charges to his exhibits remunerative. Others turned to engravings of their subjects for profit. In the 20th century the framed picture has become the delight of the amateur. American enjoyment of freedom of thought and action is lived in the solitude of private studios. Yet too rarely do these common privileges and fortunate blessings become the subject matter of the canvases. ”

“ Senator Voorhees made the following appreciative reference to Brumidi’s West Corridor designs:
“The poetry of the artist, if I may so express it, had also its field of display. To one who recalls the great forests of the West before they were swept away, the birds and the specimens of American animals with which he has adorned a portion of this Capitol must be a source of unceasing enjoyment. The birds especially are all there, from the humming-bird at an open flower to the bald eagle with his fiery eye and angry feathers. ”

“ This process of painting directly on the wall is called “fresco secco” if the wall is allowed to harden and become almost dry and the pigment bound to it by means of a glue size, casein or egg yolk. This is much inferior to the true or “buono fresco” employed by Brumidi in the dome which is painting on freshly laid plaster with pigment suspended in pure water. Because the mortar sets in six or eight hours the painting must be done in sections no larger than can be completed at one time. In true fresco a finished study is generally required. ”

“ This penetrating study of the life and works of Constantino Brumidi by Dr. Murdock should arouse in public-spirited readers a desire to honor the fresco artist for his accomplishment, an understanding of which is of fundamental importance in a movement to further a strong national program of mural art of an inspiring type. It is appropriate that this history be addressed to laymen by one alert to the problems of the hour and sensitive to the need of general public awareness of the power of painting. ”

“ Each new effort to finish the Rotunda Frieze is a testimony to the artist, Brumidi, and to his inimitable work. Should an artist well schooled in the Italian fresco process not be found to finish the frieze it is the author’s thought that the problem might be solved by adorning the blank portion of the Rotunda belt with a memorial inscription to Constantino Brumidi. ”

“ The laying of the Atlantic cable, with its great significance, has been painted by Brumidi into two Capitol frescoes. “Telegraph” is Brumidi’s own title for this lunette painted as a part of the ceiling fresco in the District of Columbia Committee Room of the Senate. The beauty, freedom, and plenty of America extending a welcome across the seas, as here portrayed, was always in the heart of the artist. The working sketch for this lunette was among the Brumidi paintings stored in a Washington bank vault for forty years. ”

“ It is easy to invent a popular criticism and find fault; but I would like to see some of these gentlemen who are so conversant with matters of taste and art as to speak with the assurance of masters, bring forward some design, some specimen from their superior genius that they would themselves insert in place of that which they see around them. ”

“ Among the twenty-seven oil paintings of various sizes belonging to the estate of Brumidi, of which I am the Executor and Committeeman for his son, Laurence S. Brumidi, who is now in St. Elizabeth’s Asylum for the insane, there is one worthy of consideration, and that is the original oil painting of the Rotunda of the Capitol which I have in storage and is in excellent condition. This miniature is in oil, about 35 inches in diameter from which, no doubt, he copied his wonderful Rotunda painting. It is quite an education and shows the process of making a great picture. ”

“ The austerity of religious belief dominating many new world settlements, infused as they were with the spirit of the Reformation, afforded meager encouragement to its development. American artists, following Benjamin West to England, leaned heavily upon British custom and precedent. West’s pupils—Charles Willson Peale, Gilbert Stuart and Joseph Wright—became makers of likenesses, and liberty-loving John Trumbull pursued historical painting to produce four of the eight great framed pictures of the Rotunda of the Capitol. ”