Sketchy Job Interview
/tiles/non-collection/b/brumidi_sketch_2010_123_000.xml
Collection of the U.S. House of Representatives
About this object
Brumidi’s first ideas for decorating the Capitol were these two designs for either end of a barrel-vaulted room. They set him on the path to his life’s great work.
When Constantino Brumidi first arrived at the United States
Capitol in the winter of 1854-1855, he promptly made this sketch. The sketch was
essentially his job application to paint the Capitol’s frescos. Brumidi outlined
what would ultimately become his masterpiece, the decoration of the entire Capitol
interior. And this little painting is where it all began.
Montgomery Meigs was a cynical interviewer when Brumidi, a
refugee from political turmoil in Italy, came looking for work. Meigs led the construction
of the Capitol’s huge new wings and dome, and he wanted to decorate in a style
that was nothing like America’s existing public buildings. Despite what budget
hawks in Congress thought, those plain structures, he said, “starve in simple
whitewash.” Meigs' ambitions outstripped
the abilities of local artists, so he was skeptical and then pleased
when he met “the lively old man with a very red nose,” who turned out to be a
gifted painter. Brumidi, in turn, was probably just as pleased when Meigs set
him a design challenge to prove he was the best painter for the job: “Cincinnatus
Called from the Plow,” George Washington’s favorite subject from history.
Brumidi knew just how he would tell the ancient Roman tale of civic virtue. He had
painted the very same subject back in Rome.
/tiles/non-collection/b/brumidi_sketch_top_2010_123_000.xml
Collection of the U.S. House of Representatives
About this object
Brumidi portrayed Cincinnatus at the moment of decision. He took up the sword and just two weeks later had whipped the threatening invaders, resigned his dictatorship and returned to farming. The painting symbolized Washington’s own willingness to give up his position as Commander-in-Chief of the army after the American Revolution.
Before a month passed, the hopeful artist presented his sketched-out design, now in the House Collection. One look and Meigs was convinced. Cincinnatus
got the full hero treatment. He stands at the center of the design and the
center of the action, poised between his plow and the Roman Senate’s pleas for
him to take the reins of power. Farming’s prominence made the composition even more
appropriate for the spot Meigs had in mind, the east end of the Committee on
Agriculture’s new barrel-vaulted hearing room.
The sketch was so successful that Meigs told Brumidi to
start right away, in that very room, ultimately destined for the Agriculture
Committee, “which had only a rough coat of brown plaster.” Meigs continued to
use the room as an office, and invited lawmakers to watch the artist at work.
It was a wise move. Skeptical statesmen dropped by almost every day. Meigs was
“relieved from much anxiety by finding that our Legislators visited and admired
the picture and were much interested in its progress.”
/tiles/non-collection/b/brumidi_sketch_bottom_2010_123_000.xml
Collection of the U.S. House of Representatives
About this object
Brumidi continued to explore the fruits of agriculture in his design for the room’s west end. Relaxing by a riverbank, a goddess of the harvest leans on her spade. Native-American figures offer her tobacco and wheat, the fruit of the nation’s plenty.
Brumidi worked hard and fast, completing the Cincinnatus
fresco in just a month, through weather so cold the paint and plaster froze.
His mettle proven, Meigs hired him to cover all four walls with frescoes, and
the ceiling, too. By the time the painter got to the western end of the room,
the design changed from the allegory of America’s bounty that Brumidi had
sketched. It became a history painting to match Cincinnatus. The new plan mirrored
the Roman story with a bit of Revolutionary War history—Israel Putnam called
from his plow in 1775 to command the troops at the Battle of Bunker Hill.
/tiles/non-collection/b/brumidi_stereoview_2015_019_000.xml
Collection of the U.S. House of Representatives
About this object
In a faded stereoview, Brumidi's work is just visible above the Agriculture Committee room's cornice. Today the room is part of the Minority Whip’s offices.
The paintings for Meigs’ office, which did become the Agriculture
Committee’s room, were just the beginning for Brumidi. He continued painting
the corridors, the ceremonial rooms, and most famously the
Capitol’s Rotunda.
The building today sparkles with more than 25 years’ worth of paintings wrought by
Brumidi, all springing from this sketch, a small but very successful job
application.
Sources: William C. Allen, History
of the United States Capitol. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office,
2001. Montgomery Meigs, Capitol Builder:
The Shorthand Journals of Montgomery C. Meigs, 1853-1859, 1861. Washington,
DC: Government Printing Office, 2000. Barbara Wolanin, Constantino Brumidi: Artist of the Capitol. Washington, DC:
Government Printing Office, 1998.