University Place

Art of the Capitol: A Beaux Arts Masterpiece

– Today we are pleased to introduce Daniel Stephans as part of the Wisconsin Historical Museum’s History Sandwiched In lecture series. The opinions expressed today are those of the presenter and are not necessarily those of the Wisconsin Historical Society or the museum’s employees. As a 1971 graduate of Iowa State, Daniel Stephans was first licensed as an architect in 1975. In 1990, Dan joined the state of Wisconsin to work on the renovation and restoration of the Capitol. After 25 years of state service he retired as DOA’s historic preservation officer and the state of Wisconsin’s chief state architect. Dan has served on numerous preservation boards, including the Madison Landmarks Commission and the Taliesin Preservation’s Board of Trustees. In his free time, Dan enjoys taking long motorcycle rides across the country and has ridden nearly 3 million miles. Here today to discuss the art of the Wisconsin State Capitol, please join me in welcoming Dan Stephans. (applause)

– Thank you. We’re going to be flying high at 30,000 feet and very fast. Most of the architect, most of the artists that worked on the Capitol had worked with the architect of the Capitol, George Post, before they came here to Wisconsin. They also knew him through social connections, especially at the Sentry Association of New York City, which was a rather exclusive men’s club. There are nine artists that worked on the Capitol here, and they were George Post’s New York team. Construction of the Capitol was completed in 1917. Renovation and restoration of the building took place and was completed in 2001 and brought the building into the 21st century, gave us another hundred years in that building, at least. The architectural grandeur and the artistry of the previous era was preserved and restored. After the restoration was done in January 2001, the Capitol was designated as a National Historic Landmark. Beaux architecture. In the 19th century in America, there were no architectural schools in America. America’s architects were educated as structural or civil engineers, some of them as surveyors, like Thomas Jefferson. Few of this nation’s architects managed to be educated at cole des Beaux-Arts in Paris.

The style of architecture taught at the school of fine arts in Paris was a neoclassical style of architecture, and that became known as Beaux-Art architecture. The style of instruction that produced Beaux-Art architecture continued without interruption until about 1968. The artwork completes the Capitol. The symbolism of the fine art establishes principle themes and impart meaning to the building as a whole. The building, with its art, embodies the ideals of civic pride, democratic duty, and the functions of good government. Many of the pieces of sculpture, the mosaics, and the murals are thoroughly integrated in the architecture of the building. They could stand alone as art, but they are building components. The nine artists of the Capitol, those whose art is an integral part of the building, will later be identified with a color side bar, and that’s to differentiate them from four artists that I have also included who have statues in the building and on the grounds. They were not part of Post’s Beaux-Art team, but their art is in the Capitol and on the Capitol grounds and merit comment today. George Post was probably one of the most famous architects of his day. He graduated as a civil engineer from New York University and then studied architecture in the office of Richard Morris Hunt, probably the very best- known architect in his day.

Hunt was educated at the cole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. After military service in the Civil War, Post opened his architectural firm in New York City, and two of his sons later joined the firm. Architect Daniel Burnham was the director of works at the Chicago Worlds Columbian Exhibition in 1893, and Post, selected by Burnham, set the architectural style for the great White City. Post designed the Manufactures and Liberal Arts building, which was called the largest structure on Earth. It enclosed thirty-and-a-half acres. In 1906, the Capitol Commission held a competition to design a new building. There was a fire in ’04 that took the second Madison Capitol out. Architect Daniel Burnham of Chicago judged the design competition, and George Post & Sons of New York was given the contract. George Post would not live to see the Capitol completed. His son, James, became the project architect after George died in 1913. James got a diploma from the cole des Beaux-Arts after he graduated from Columbia in 1896. This is a little closer image of Post’s competition rendering. And you can see the original in the south wing in the third floor cross-corridor. It was found in Post’s family garage in New York, and the Post family gave it to the state of Wisconsin. So it’s on display for you to see. Three things changed from the proposal to what was built.

And one of them is Post illuminated a statuary niche on the end of each wing end and built a plain granite wall. And the other was Post had proposed little towers, which are called tourelles, and Dan Burnham thought that those were too large and detracted from the main dome. So Post agreed and we got statuary groups in those locations. Based on, the third item, based on the 1906 competition rendering, Post envisioned a much larger sculptural program for the exterior of the Capitol than was put into place. And there were exterior statues in bronze and granite proposed by Daniel Chester French that were never commissioned. Karl Bitter was an Austrian-born American sculptor who was born and trained in Vienna. He was drafted in the Austrian army. He deserted while on leave and immigrated to the United States. In 1889, he arrived in New York City. He was discovered by Richard Morris Hunt and was never out of work. He was responsible for the entrances on Post’s Manufactures and Liberal Arts building in the Columbian Exhibition in Chicago in 1893. He did some relief sculpture for those entrances. He gave us the four statuary groups, the east pediment, and the west pediment. The four statuary groups symbolized fundamental characteristics of the state and its people. Each of the four groups of statuary consist of three figures.

The major figure in each case is placed in the center and is raised on a base. These stand about 12-foot high, and the two minor figures are seated and they’re about six-foot high. They support whatever it is that the major figure represents, and we’ll go through those. The two minor figures are connected by an eagle with outspread wings. This device, which provides structural stability to the group, is common to each of the four groups. On approaching from Monona Avenue, you see faith. Each head is bowed in obedience to divine and civil law. The northwest group represents prosperity and abundance and is composed of female figures. The center one is standing by a vase which is overflowing with fruit, and each of the others has a cornucopia, which is a symbol of plenty. Group overlooking West Wash represents strength. The center figure holds a short sword and a shield, and the other figures, one of the other figures is represented as being blind. And that’s to represent the idea that physical strength alone isn’t enough, but when directed by knowledge, the value of physical strength is increased. Northeast group represents knowledge. The central figure is contemplating a globe, which represents the Earth.

The other two figures are studying open books and scrolls, studying history to see what was done in the past. The east wing has the office of the governor and the Supreme Court, and law is the subject of the pediment over the entrance of the east wing. The central figure of the group, Liberty, is holding a torch in her right hand to enlighten justice and in her left she has a shield protecting truth. Both Justice and Truth are seated, and the former holds the scales and the latter a mirror, symbols of justice and truth. The west wing houses the Assembly. Here Bitter symbolizes the resources of the state. The horse, ox, sheep, the other animals represent the opportunities Wisconsin offers for stock in dairy industries. Agricultural interests are shown by the growing wheat through which the animals are being led and by the corn being harvested. Forest products are seen in the lumber being carried by another figure as well as walls forming part of the background. There’s a badger on your extreme right, and that’s the emblem of the state. The west wing was supposed to be the first wing done, and that was by the law. And it was not able to be completed, the pediment was not able to be completed because of some grading problems.

So the west wing was going ahead of it. And I said that wrong. The west wing was supposed to be done first. The east wing pediment got done first. When they were working on the west wing, in the east wing pediment the stones were carved in the pediment. The stones were placed in the west pediment to be carved. Those stones, on October 24, 1909, 300 tons of stone fell, killing Daniel Logan, which was one of the setters. He was a foreman. Logan and another setter were placing a four-ton stone when they set it on a stone that had already been set. It cracked and fell 80 feet, taking with it most of the other stones. As a result of that accident, the stones for the pediments of the north, west, and south were shaped and cut on the ground and then hoisted in place later.

Adolph Weinman was a sculptor born in Germany. He studied at the Art Students League in New York with sculptors including Augustus Saint-Gaudens. He later served as an assistant to famous sculptors, including Daniel Chester French. Weinman opened his own studio in 1904. Weinman designed the Mercury dime and the Walking Liberty half dollar. Both of those he designed in 1916, and they were produced up into the mid-’40s. And they have been replicated as, repeated in replications over the years. In 1916 I think they both had a commemorative issue in gold. Weinman gave us the south pediment. In 1905, Richard Lloyd Jones, that would be Frank Lloyd Wright’s cousin, purchased the farm where Lincoln was born. He commissioned Weinman to do a statue of Abraham Lincoln. Many of the contributors financed that statue, including President Lincoln’s only surviving son Robert. A replica of Weinman’s Lincoln statue was unveiled in the middle of Bascom Hill between North and South Halls in 1909. That was 100 years after Lincoln’s birth. Bascom Hill’s Lincoln was moved to its current location after 10 years of standing as “like a mushroom sticking out of the sod.” (laughter)

That was according to a 1917 On Wisconsin magazine article. Weinman chose for the pediment on the south wing, which houses the Senate, powers that should be found in the upper house of the legislature. The center figure in the group symbolizes wisdom. Thought and reflection are attributes of wisdom and Weinman represents thought by a winged skull in the left hand of Wisdom and a mirror in her right. The nose of the central figure was lost to time, the devourer of all things. Her missing nose was restored during the restoration project, and if you look closely, you can see the crack where it was restored. We had excellent stone carvers and cutters who did excellent work in the restoration that was necessary. Attilio Piccirilli was an American sculptor and stone cutter who was born in Italy and educated in Rome. Piccirilli came to the United States in 1888 and worked as a sculptor and a stone carver. As he gained fame, he became invaluable to the sculptors of America because before his family came the sculptors of America had to send their stuff to Italy to get it carved into stone. We did not have stone carvers. Piccirilli’s most famous work is a creation of the Lincoln statue at Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC.

That was originally designed by Daniel Chester French. Piccirilli gave us the north pediment. The north pediment, known as, called Learning the World, is a grouping of figures representing the attributes of civilization. The central figure represents enlightenment providing wisdom. The female figure leaning on a rake symbolizes agriculture. The mother and child symbolize maternity, the home or family, which is a foundation of society and the strength of a nation. Enlightenment, the central figure, is holding a tablet upon which is written the inscription “sapientiae.” That’s Latin for wisdom. The next four works of art are by those who are not part of the original Post team. They are art that’s in the building and on the grounds but not part of the original design. On October 17, 1926, the statue of Hans Christian Heg was unveiled at the King Street corner of the Capitol Square commemorating the most noted Norwegian American to serve in the Civil War. He died in Chickamauga September 19, 1863.

Jean Miner, a Wisconsin sculptor born in Menasha. She grew up in Madison. She completed “Forward” at the Columbian Exhibition in Chicago. “Forward” symbolizes devotion and progress. In 1895, the statue was placed at the east entrance of the second Capitol in Madison. In 1916, the state rededicated “Forward” and moved it to the entrance at Capitol Square at the end of Hamilton Street, where it stayed until 1995. The bronze had suffered a hundred years of outdoor exposure, and the prognosis for preservation of statue outdoors was not favorable. In 1893, women in Wisconsin raised the funds for the creation of “Forward.” A hundred years later, Wisconsin women provided the means to preserve the statue. A replica was made, which is now on the State Street, the west entrance to Capitol Square at the end of State Street. And the original was conserved and placed in the Historical Society headquarters building.

Jean Miner continued to create sculpture until about a week before her death in 1967 at 101 years old. Helen Mears, a Wisconsin sculptor, was born and raised in Oshkosh. By her late teens Mears’ work caught the attention of New York sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, and she studied and worked with him. In 1892, Mires won a commission for the 1893 Columbian Exhibition in Chicago. She executed the statue “Genius of Wisconsin” in clay for the exhibition. After the Columbian Exhibition, the statue was carved in marble by the Piccirilli brothers of New York and displayed in the rotunda of the second Madison Capitol where it survived a fire in 1904. It was moved to the first completed wing of the new Capitol, the west wing, and then placed in the first floor southeast round room as soon as that room was completed. And that’s where you can see her today is in the first floor southeast round room. That’s the “Genius of Wisconsin.” In 1899, Mears opened her studio in New York, and she completed a nine-foot marble statue that is in the statuary hall in the United States Capitol. In December 1910, Mears was given a contract to create a statue to be placed on top of the Wisconsin Capitol. She began designing models, and her models were severely criticized by the Capitol Commission, and she worked to revise, rebuild models, tried to get them approved.

She created a third model that Post did not submit for review when the commission asked for other sculptors to submit their proposals. In June 1911, the commission suspended her contract and gave the contract to Daniel Chester French. Mears consulted with French just prior to his selection about technical matters regarding the enlargement of her third model. The largest collection of Mears’ work is at the Paine Art Center and Arboretum in Oshkosh. Vinnie Ream, a Wisconsin sculptor. She was born in a log cabin in Madison, where, among other things, her family operated a stagecoach stop, one of the first hotels in Madison. Vinnie Ream was the youngest artist and the first woman to receive a commission as an artist for a statue from the United States government. “The West,” a statue by Vinnie Ream, was displayed at the Columbian Exhibition in 1893 in Chicago. Ream died in 1914, and in 1916 her husband donated the sculpture to the state of Wisconsin and moved it to Madison, her birthplace. The white marble statue is on the first floor southwest round room in our Capitol.

Daniel Chester French was an American sculptor who studied in New York and in Florence, Italy. He established his studio in New York City in 1887. By the time the Capitol was under construction, he was recognized as one of the most accomplished artists of his period. French gave us “Wisconsin,” the statue on top of the Capitol. French’s reputation was established with one of his earliest sculptures, the Revolutionary War “Minute Man,” which you can find at the Old North Bridge in Concord, Massachusetts. In 1892, French was called to Chicago to execute two of the most important sculptural works at the Columbian Exhibition: “The Republic” and “The Triumph of Columbus.” “The Republic” was prominently positioned over the waters of the main lagoon at the exhibition, along which the most significant buildings of the fair were placed. Along with Helen Mears’ sculpture and “The Republic,” those two previous sculptures represent important prototypes for “Wisconsin,” which is on top of the Capitol. French is best known for his design of the Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, which was carved by Attilio Piccirilli and is Piccirilli’s most famous work. The statue “Wisconsin” being raised, June 1914. Being placed on top of the Capitol, June 1914.

“Wisconsin.” French built a temporary studio on the cliffs of the Hudson River where some 200 feet above the valley floor he worked and modeled his figure so that he might judge its proportion and attitude from appropriate distance below. “Wisconsin” is 15 feet, four inches high, and weighs over three tons. The right hand points forward to express the meaning of the motto of the state, and the left hand holds globes surrounded by an eagle. There are those who when she went up suggested that it was Mrs. Rennebohm looking for the next drugstore site. (laughter)

On the crest of her helmet is a badger, the emblem of the state of Wisconsin. And this is a view you won’t get from the sidewalk. It’s not recommended you fly your drone over here. This is a no-fly zone. So– Kenyon Cox was trained at the cole des Beaux-Arts in the 1870s, following which he worked as a book illustrator and as a teacher at the Art Students League in New York. His first large-scale mural project was for George Post’s Manufactures and Liberal Arts building in the 1893 Columbian Exhibition. His reputation greatly increased after working at the exhibition, and he installed a number of murals and public buildings including Minnesota and Iowa capitols. Cox gave us the rotunda mosaics and the Senate murals. The pendentive, if you don’t know, since a technical term, but there’s no better word for it, it’s that transition between a round dome and a square building. On August 23, 1911, the Capitol Commission directed George Post to begin a search for the artist to do the paintings, the murals, that were scheduled and designed to be done in the pendentives.

And he was told they won’t cost any more than $16,000. So Kenyon Cox said, “I’ll put glass mosaics there for $20,000.” He got the job. Cox supervised the assembly of the mosaics in New York, and the first panel arrived in Madison in June of 1913. The other panels followed that summer and fall. The rotunda wasn’t ready. They were put in a storage, and on May 14, 1914, Cox began supervising their installation. They’re about 12-foot high and average about 24 feet wide, and each is made up of 100,000 pieces of glass. Cox considered these mosaics his best work. Legislation is represented by a powerful old man with a long beard reminiscent of Moses, the first lawgiver. Government, the executive power, is a man in his prime holding a staff in his right hand, in his left rests a great sword, sheathed, only to be drawn in case of necessity. Justice is represented in the judicial function of weighing one cause against another. She looks forward while with either hand she tests the weights of the scales and the balance let down from heaven.

With her right hand, Liberty guards the ballot box, while in her left she points upward as if to say, “Under a representative form of government, the voice of the people is the voice of God.” After they were completed, Lew Porter, secretary of the building commission, wrote Cox that he thought that the mosaics were not only beautiful but the best artwork in the building. Lew Porter wrote: “They are head and shoulders above everything we have in the Capitol or will have, and everyone is much pleased with them.” Edwin Blashfield was an American artist who specialized in mural painting. He advocated for public art. In 1867, he traveled to Paris where he studied and exhibited his artwork. In 1892, he received a call to go to Chicago and do the painting for the dome in Post’s Manufactures and Liberal Arts building at the 1893 Columbian Exhibition. That work resulted in him getting national recognition. Blashfield gave us the rotunda oculus mural and the Assembly mural. Blashfield completed the mural in the Assembly chamber, which was the first art of the Capitol completed as the west wing was being completed in the largest room in the Capitol, the Assembly chamber.

He just completed that when Post recommended him for the mural in the eye of the dome. In 1911, his reputation is one of America’s foremost painters of historical subjects was well established. He was well known for careful attention to costumes and furnishings and the integration of symbolic figures. The mural is considered Blashfield’s best work. Blashfield worked on the mural through 1912 and 1913 in New York, and in August of 1914 Porter wrote Blashfield requesting that he proceed with installation quickly because the scaffolding required represented a fire hazard and it was in the rotunda and it was impeding the work being done in the rotunda area. So the circular painting, which is composed of five canvases, was put into place 200 feet above the rotunda floor in September 1914. The painting is 34 feet in diameter, and each of the figures is approximately 13 feet high. The mural’s in perfect harmony with the surrounding architecture. The opening, which looks like a picture frame, is the handrail on a balcony that looks down into the rotunda floor 200 feet below. It is smaller than the 34-foot mural.

It’s about 27-foot so that at any angle from the floor you see the mural, you don’t see past it. The subject is the resources of Wisconsin. And Wisconsin is symbolized by the lady in the center. She’s sitting on clouds and is wrapped in an American flag. She holds the coat of arms of Wisconsin in one hand and a scepter of wheat in the other. Around her, below her, the ladies are holding up the state’s products: lead, copper, tobacco, fruit, and a freshwater pearl. You can see Blashfield’s original sketches for this mural in the south wing on the third floor cross-corridor. It hangs next to the rendering that Post did in ’06. Behind the president’s platform in the Senate chamber, there are three murals by Kenyon Cox. The three panels at to be taken as one picture, symbolizing the opening of the Panama Canal. In the center, Atlantic typified by a figure of Neptune places a ring on the finger of a goddess with a steering oar representing the Pacific. Below, two children support a shield with a coat of arms of the United States. And the side panels, Peace and Commerce welcome the nations of the world to the ceremony. To the right, behind Atlantic, Peace welcomes France, Germany, and Great Britain.

In the opposite panel, Commerce beckons Japan and China, behind whom is a figure symbolizing the Semitic races. Seated in a boat is a figure representing Polynesia. The first ship passed through the Panama Canal August 15, 1914. So the mural was being done, commemorating the opening which had not yet happened. Cox was a little apprehensive about proposing this historic mural in that it was current events, but it was very well received and Wisconsin has the news and now the history of the Panama Canal. In the center panel, America blesses the union of the Atlantic and Pacific. In the Assembly chamber, we find “Wisconsin: Past, Present, and Future” by Edwin Blashfield. This was the first mural done in the building. As I said, in the largest room in the building. The setting is pine forests with an effect of late afternoon sunlight. A female figure, symbolizing Wisconsin, is seated on a rock among figures which are intended to suggest the past. Around her, with aquatic plants flying around their heads and bodies, a woman standing and seated symbolizing Lake Superior, Lake Michigan, and the Mississippi River. The side and behind the Mississippi River figure we see early French explorers of Wisconsin.

Further to your right is one of Wisconsin’s color guards of ’61. To the extreme right are two Indians who shade their eyes from the light, suggesting things of the past, and to the extreme left is the future who shelters her lamp of progress with her hand and listens to the figure of conservation forest who tells her to take care of her trees. What I was going to say is where the soldiers are from regiments of ’61, when the mural was done and Blashfield was asked to describe it, he wrote: “Since the painting was placed on the “wall, a badger has crept in and made himself at home.” When Post saw the finished mural, he saw that it lacked a badger and instructed Blashfield to put a badger in. (laughter) So a soldier sitting on the rock was painted out, the badger was painted in, and today the nature of oil paintings allows you to see a ghost of a soldier coming back. Charles Turner was an American artist and muralist, and he was born in Baltimore and studied art in Europe under French masters. He was once chairman of the School Committee at the Art Students League, and he was president of the National Society of Mural Painters. Turner was assistant director of decorations at the 1893 Columbian Exhibition in Chicago, under fellow muralist Francis Millet. Turner gave us the murals in the north hearing room. Now, the north hearing room was the Railroad Commission.

The Railroad Commission was responsible for all transportation and insurance. So they had a very large responsibility, and they have a very large marble room. The north hearing room has cove ceilings, and in the coves Turner painted murals representing methods of transportation in Wisconsin from the earliest times to 1917, using a color scheme that is coordinated with the marble walls. The first panel, opposite the door, represents a party of Indians on horseback. The subject is adapted from a photograph taken in Yellowstone National Park. The second panel, to the right, represents a trading station on the shore of a lake. Canoe is the means of transportation during that period. The third panel represents the colonial period in which the stagecoach was used before railroads were introduced. The fourth panel, a 1917 harbor is shown with a steamship, a train, an automobile, and an airplane.

Again, some current events as well as news for today. Hugo Ballin was an American artist, muralist, author, and film director who was born in New York City and studied at the Art Students League of New York and in Venice, Italy. In 1917, he began working for Goldwyn Pictures in New Jersey. He moved to Los Angeles in 1921 and produced silent films for his own production company. When Hollywood started making talkies, Ballin went back to his first career as a classically-trained muralist, and he became one of the foremost muralists in the Los Angeles area. His silent films include “Jane Eyre,” done in 1921, and “Vanity Fair,” done in 1923. Ballin gave us 26 murals in the governor’s conference room. The governor’s conference room was designed in the Venetian renaissance style and is inspired by the council chambers in the Doge’s Palace in Venice. Ballin ceiling murals are allegorical, suggesting the positive attributes of Wisconsin and human endeavor generally. The murals on the walls depict various scenes from Wisconsin history. The circular mural on the ceiling in the governor’s conference room, it’s nine feet in diameter. It represents Wisconsin surrounded by her attributes. She has an open book in her right hand, and you can see the words justice, charity, invention, religion, pioneering and art.

These are the subjects of the other ceiling panels, which are in the shapes of Ts and Ls around that central circular mural. You’ll find three mottos on the ceiling: “The will of the people is the law of the land,” happens to be the title of Tommy Thompson’s book too; “The progress of the state is born “in Temperance, Justice and Prudence;” and “Tempus Edax Rerum.” I think that’s Latin. That means “Time, the devourer of all things.” Charity, under the arbor of plenty, is dispensing kindness. The child is feeding the dog, symbolic of dependency. And on the stone seat, you’ll see an open moneybag. Art is the only mural in the governor’s conference room that was fully restored, and when I used the word restored, it was repainted. When we went after those works of art, the art itself, the media was more delicate than the polyurethane that covered them that was put on in the 1960s. So we backed off and saved it for a later day when technology may be able to do a better job of restoration. The painting on the left as you enter, on the west wall, is Jean Nicolet meeting Wisconsin Indians in 1634. He expected to meet Chinese people. His discharge of his two pistols got him the name of Thunder Beaver.

The painting on the right as you enter, on the west wall, illustrates the surrender of the Ho-Chunk warrior Red Bird, ending the Winnebago War of 1827. There were three Indians involved in that conflict, and they were thrown into prison. Red Bird died, the other two were sentenced to be hung but they were pardoned by the President John Quincy Adams. The woman in the center of the mural on the south wall represents unity, the spirit of the Civil War. She’s holding the beginning and end dates of the war, 1861 and 1865. The woman to the left is Cordelia Harvey. She’s the widow of our governor, Louis Harvey. During the war, Governor Harvey asked Lincoln to establish military hospitals in the north. He died in 1862, but Mrs. Harvey continued his efforts and established three hospitals in Wisconsin. The left space between the windows on the east wall, we see Increase Lapham, a Wisconsin scientist who founded the US Weather Bureau, known today as the National Weather Service. He was the first to predict the weather, and his mission was to give a storm warning system. In the two corners of the east wall, you find two of Wisconsin’s previous Capitols: a two-story frame building in Belmont that hosted the 1836 session of the legislature that decided to have Madison be the capital of the territory, and the dome sandstone structure that was being dismantled as Ballin was painting his murals.

In the old Capitol, the Supreme Court hearing room was adorned with portraits of retired justices. The members of the court felt strongly that this custom should be continued in the new Capitol. I would have put the Supreme Court hearing room out of harmony with the other principle rooms, all of which had murals scheduled for them, and they were done at that point in time. So Francis Millet was the decorations director of the Columbian Exhibition in Chicago in 1893, and he was hired to do the murals in the hearing room. And he worked really hard to convince the justices to accept the historic murals. And his sketches for the murals were lost with the sinking of the Titanic. When the Titanic went down, it also took with it some doubled bookmatch marble that was to replace some rejected marble in the Supreme Court hearing room, which, if you go in there, you can find it. It’s the only panel that’s not double bookmatched. And if you don’t know what that means, that’s splitting it twice so that it looks like a mirror image in two directions.

Albert Herter was an American painting, illustrator, muralist, and interior designer who was born in New York City and studied at the Art Students League and then in Paris. Herter was hired to do the historic murals of the Supreme Court hearing room. Second choice, but he did a great job. The first mural in the Supreme Court hearing room is above the justices on the east wall. And it the scene of the American, it represents American law, and it’s the signing of the Constitution. You’ve got George Washington sitting behind the table there. You’ve got James Madison with a cloak on his arm. He’s talking with Alexander Hamilton. You can see Thomas Jefferson standing back by Washington, talking to another delegate with his back turned to you. And the group of men in the foreground, on the left you’ll see Ben Franklin. Keep in mind that in 1787 when this was going on, Jefferson was the minister to France, and he wasn’t there. He was in France. And if you look hard at this, you see the paintings behind Washington. Those are all the presidents yet to be. (laughter)

So there’s some artistic license. The mural on the north wall is the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215 demonstrating English law. You see the boy with the dog on the left? That’s Christian and that’s Herter’s son. He went on to be the US Secretary of State under Dwight D Eisenhower. The mural on the west wall, above the door, illustrates Roman law and is taken from an episode in the life of Caesar Augustus. And the south wall, we have a little history of Wisconsin when it was a Michigan territory. This is the murder trial of Chief Oshkosh in 1830. Chief Oshkosh proved that he had followed Native American law, and he won the case. And that set precedents for the spirit of the law, not the letter of the law. (applause)