Constantino Brumidi

Constantino Brumidi
Author: Barbara A. Wolanin
Publisher:
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2005
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9781410222695

Each year many of the millions of people who visit the United States Capitol are surprised and delighted to discover that the building is not only the home of the Congress but also a museum and gallery of fine art. Among the most remarkable works in the Capitol are the paintings of Constantino Brumidi, who devoted much of the last twenty-five years of his life to decorating the building. Indeed, his contributions to the Capitol are unsurpassed by those of any other artist. This is the first scholarly, in-depth publication on Brumidi. The book is an outgrowth of the mural conservation program. Much of the beauty of Brumidi's work was hidden under grime and overpaint, and some murals were threatened by cracking plaster.

The Art of the Missouri Capitol

The Art of the Missouri Capitol
Author: Bob Priddy
Publisher: University of Missouri
Total Pages: 399
Release: 2011
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9780826219213

After fire destroyed Missouri's capitol in 1911, voters approved a bond issue to construct a new statehouse. The tax to pay the bonds produced a one-million-dollar surplus, leaving a vast amount of money to decorate the new building. A special commission of art-minded Missourians employed some of the nation's leading painters and sculptors to create powerful and often huge pieces of art to adorn Missouri's most important new structure. The art of the Missouri capitol was considered among the finest to adorn any state capitol. But the passage of time has lessened recognition of the pieces and their creators. Most people--even those daily wandering the marble halls--have little knowledge of the significance of the art and the history it portrays. Bob Priddy and Jeffrey Ball return the capitol's decorations to prominence in The Art of the Missouri Capitol: History in Canvas, Bronze, and Stone. The book tells the many stories behind the art: the rigors of its creation, the political roadblocks that endangered the decoration program, and the triumph of the commissioners who devoted more than ten years to the project. The Art of the Missouri Capitol presents the art in 270 images, many by Lloyd Grotjan, mostly of the building's many compelling paintings, murals, and sculptures. Priddy, a journalist who has covered the Missouri legislature for more than three decades, and Ball, an art historian, use a wealth of historical materials to connect the grand design of the capitol decorations with accounts of sometimes temperamental artists and meddling politicians. The authors provide historical and artistic context to explain the many surprising, controversial choices the artists made, and they use Missouri history to explain the tales depicted in the artwork, revealing the events--and inaccuracies--that the paintings bring to life. The authors honor the Missouri capitol's artistic excellence in a way that will appeal to art enthusiasts and history buffs as well as to general readers. The Art of the Missouri Capitol: History in Canvas, Bronze, and Stone is the definitive account of the art's creation, of the men who produced it, and of the Missourians who lived the history that inspired it.

Art & Empire

Art & Empire
Author: Vivien Green Fryd
Publisher:
Total Pages: 292
Release: 2001
Genre: Architecture
ISBN:

The subject matter and iconography of much of the art in the U.S. Capitol forms a remarkably coherent program of the early course of North American empire, from discovery and settlement to the national development and westward expansion that necessitated the subjugation of the indigenous peoples. In Art and Empire, Vivien Green Fryd's revealing cultural and political interpretation of the portraits, reliefs, allegories, and historical paintings commissioned for the U.S. Capitol, the reader is given an enhanced appreciation for the racial and ethnic implications of these works. This latest contribution to the United States Capitol Historical Society's Perspectives on the Art and Architectural History of the United States Capitol series provides an affordable and accessible insight into one of our most visited, viewed, and revered national buildings. Professor Fryd demonstrates how the politics of our history is written in stone and painted on the walls of these hallowed halls.

Minnesota's State Capitol

Minnesota's State Capitol
Author: Neil B. Thompson
Publisher: Minnesota Historical Society Press
Total Pages: 156
Release: 1974
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 9780873510851

The lively story of how private citizens, architects, and public officials formed an unlikely coalition to build Minnesota's statehouse at the turn of the twentieth century.

A Harmony of the Arts

A Harmony of the Arts
Author: Frederick C. Luebke
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
Total Pages: 144
Release: 1990-01-01
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 9780803228870

Since its completion in 1932, the Nebraska State Capitol has been widely recognized as an architectural masterpiece, one that justifiably inspires pride in the citizens of the state and admiration in people everywhere. Rising four hundred feet from a massive two-story base, domed with gold-glazed tile and topped with a bronze statueøof a pioneer sower of grain, it can be seen for miles on the plains. This most striking of statehouses, designed by Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue in 1920 and under construction for a decade, successfully embodies the union of art, architecture, and humanism. A Harmony of the Arts: The Nebraska State Capitol surveys in words and pictures the architectural achievement and the artists responsible for it. Frederick C. Luebke introduces the book with a history of the capitals and capitols of Nebraska. H. Keith Sawyers writes about Goodhue?s architectural vision, which was carried out by other artists after his death. David Murphy examines the contribution of Hartley Burr Alexander, the philosopher and anthropologist who developed the symbological details of Goodhue?s vision and invested the building?s many inscriptions with poetic elegance. Dale L. Gibbs considers Lee Lawrie?s sculpture, remarkably congruent with the general design. Joan Woodside and Betsy Gabb discuss the decorative art of the mosaicist, Hildreth Meiere. Norman Geske and Jon Nelson examine the capitol murals, painted by eight artists over four decades. And Robert C. Ripley allows the reader to see the building in its setting, as landscaped by Ernst Herminghaus. Lavishly illustrated and handsomely produced, A Harmony of the Arts presents the first survey in many years of Nebraska?s magnificent capitol and offers new ways of looking at it.

Glenn Brown's History of the United States Capitol

Glenn Brown's History of the United States Capitol
Author: Glenn Brown
Publisher: Government Printing Office
Total Pages: 674
Release: 2007
Genre: Architecture
ISBN:

Plastics, discusses plastic as a material, the different manufacturing and processing techniques, historical uses, current uses, an explanation of the harmful effects on the environment, and how to reuse and recycle plastics. Additionally, this title features a table of contents, glossary, index, color photographs, diagrams, recycling sidebars, statistics, and recommended websites for further exploration.