Inside the Capitol: The Painting of Washington Under the Rotunda | BRIdge from the Past
What does the painting inside the U.S. Capitol Dome tell us about the concepts of law and liberty? In this episode of BRIdge from the Past, Mary explores the famous painting inside of the U.S. Capitol Dome. Called the ‘Apotheosis of Washington,’ this painting was designed in 1854 and is chock full of American imagery and symbolism to examine. What does the symbolism found in the eye of the Capitol showcase to you?
0:00 Hi everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Bridge from the Past. This series is all about using images as a starting point to think about important topics in American history and civics. I’m your host Mary and today we’re taking a look inside the US Capitol building’s iconic dome. If the capital is a central symbol of the ideas of law and liberty,
0:22 what can we learn from about these ideas from the fresco inside the dome? Let’s jump in and see. Once again, we’re thinking about what we can learn about law and liberty from looking at the inside of the Capitol dome. So here is the painting or the fresco, which is a specific type of painting inside the Capitol dome.
0:45 So you can pretend we’re standing inside the Capitol gazing up 180ft and this is what we see. The fresco was created by the artist Constantino Brumidi and it is called The Apotheosis of Washington. And this was done in 1865. And again, it’s in the eye or the oculus, if you want to sound fancy, the central part of the capital zone.
1:08 So whenever you have an image to look at, you just want to take some time and make some observations. If you’re using your handout, you can pause here and jot down some ideas or things that you see. Some things that I noticed right here is that it looks like Washington is right here. I’m guessing this is George Washington. And I know there’s a lot of people
1:29 and they’re all wearing what looks like flowing sort of toga like robes. I see this person has on a helmet and a spear like they’re a warrior from Sparta or ancient Greece. So there’s a lot of people, and I think that’s Washington, but I’m not really sure. So I might have a question about who these people are and what this is supposed to be.
1:52 I see six people around the bottom here under George Washington. There is a person to the left and the right of Washington. One looks like she has a sword, one has some sort of horn. And then if I count all these people around him here, there’s 13 of them in a circle around George Washington. So there’s a lot of people.
2:14 It looks like they’re in the sky. I can see a rainbow, I can see clouds, so I’m not sure where they’re supposed to be and I don’t know, there’s a lot going on here. So I have a lot of questions and let’s see if we can take a closer look and figure out what all of this is supposed to be. So once again, we’re inside the Capitol dome.
2:34 So we’re standing here looking up into the eye or the oculus of the dome and we see this painting. So it’s kind of hard to get a sense of the scale from looking at the picture, but it’s up 180ft and the picture is over 4600 square ft. So it’s a really big picture. It’s got some really big ideas here. And here are going to zoom in on here he is, George Washington himself.
2:58 So the title is The Apotheosis of Washington. And that’s a big word that means to glorify something as an ideal or to elevate to the status of a god. So Washington is being elevated almost to this god like status. So that kind of makes sense that he’s in the sky, he’s in the clouds. You can see this rainbow bridge.
3:19 So if you’re familiar with Scandinavian mythology or the Thor movies, you’ll know that the gods cross the rainbow bridge to get into their palace. So there’s a lot of symbolism about how important George Washington is. He has liberty and victory. So victory and liberty on either side of him. Again, ancient symbols of these big
3:41 important ideas and the 13 women surrounding him, we can see four of them here in this close up represent the 13 original colonies. Underneath Washington, you have those six figures. So we’re going to focus on this figure right here. And I can see some interesting symbols I’ve seen before. I see that she is next to a bald eagle.
4:01 And I can see her shield has the stripes in the blue of the American flag. And she’s got her sword raised here. So she is representing armed freedom. So freedom fighting under her feet, kingly power and tyranny. So if you look closely at this robe here under her feet, it looks like the robe of a king.
4:25 You can see the regal red and the fur. That would be something that a king would wear. So you have tyranny and kingly power being crushed by this ideal of freedom. The figures other than armed freedom are science, marine, commerce, mechanics, and agriculture. So all important elements of a country that’s thriving. So I’m just going to zoom in on one of them.
4:46 And this is marine. So this is the whole idea. This is Neptune, right? The god of the sea. You can see his trident. So you have this again, this ancient god. We have togas we have everybody dressed in these ancient symbols. But what’s also really cool is that the artist also brought in elements of the modern. So this right back here behind Neptune is a steamship, an ironclad steamship,
5:10 which would have been very modern, very cutting edge for 1865. And he is also, along with his sort of here, helping to lay the transatlantic telegraph cable under the ocean. So again, the telegraph was like the Internet of the day. Sounds kind of crazy to think about that. But she couldn’t get instant contact
5:31 with anybody back then, but a telegraph would allow that. So again, this was important blending of the modern and the ancient. And that’s really important symbolism, too, if you have all these ideas of something that’s thriving with science, agriculture, industry. It’s timeless, it’s ancient, it’s modern. It’s all of these things that you’d hope the new country would be.
5:53 We started by asking about the symbolism of law and liberty inside the Capitol dome. And we learned a lot about the rich symbolism. And again, I just touched on the tip of the iceberg. There’s so much more to this story, and now I’m going to turn it over to you. What are some things that you learned? If you’re using your organizer, make sure to write them down now.
6:14 And what do you still want to know? I’d love to hear from you on your thoughts of law and liberty and inside the Capitol dome, or just the ideas in and of themselves. Be sure to like this video and subscribe to our channel if you learned something. We’ll be back again soon with more pictures to help us think about these important topics in American history and civics. Until then, everybody keep looking at the pictures and keep asking questions.
6:37 Take care. Wow. I didn’t know history was so relevant. Kind of makes you think. Think what? That you definitely have to subscribe to the Bill of Rights Institute’s YouTube channel. They have so many videos on American history, government, and civics, from primary source. Document breakdowns to historical image analysis.
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