Chapter C: Brumidi

The 1871 letter quoted above, written from New York, is the only reference in a Brumidi letter of the Brumidi file in the Architect’s office to any painting of Brumidi’s outside of Washington. It seems to have been proven, though, beyond a doubt that _The Crucifixion_ in St. Stephen’s Church in New York is one of at least four such sacred paintings. The picture of _Saint Peter_ and _Saint Paul_ was painted in the Philadelphia Cathedral; _The Holy Trinity_ was done in the Cathedral at Mexico City, and _The First Communion of Saint Aloysius_ was placed above the altar in the old Saint Aloysius Church in Washington.

A study of the Saint Aloysius mural brought to light a letter written by Brumidi in Italian to Father Sestini of Georgetown University back in 1855. Father Sestini is said to have been such a close friend of Brumidi’s that the artist included the Father in his fresco of St. Aloysius. This letter to Father Sestini, translated by Father Geib of Georgetown University, is reproduced in its entirety, it being the only communication found from Brumidi to a Father in the Catholic Church. The letter to Father Sestini follows:

November 11, 1855

“I was displeased at not having been in my studios when you came to
talk to me about the painting to be done in Baltimore. Concerning
this, I shall be interested to know whether the Church has a flat
ceiling, since in that case the painting could be easily executed
on canvas, and later on, be placed against the said ceiling; this
being the only way I can actually do anything in the service of the
Society (of Jesus), since my contracted engagements for the Capitol
do not let me move away from Washington, having also to offer my
assistance to other artists of decorative painting and fresco, who
work under my direction.

“If, therefore, there would be room for a picture (frame), as large
as might be its size to be placed in the said way, I could paint it
in tempera and produce the same appearance of a fresco. This is all
I can promise in the circumstances in which now I am, and you would
not attribute the objections already expressed to a lack of good
will. Meanwhile, I profess myself entirely obliged for the favors I
have at all times received from the Society (of Jesus).

“I repeat myself respectfully your most obliged servant,

CONSTANTINO BRUMIDI”

A certain anonymous letter from the Brumidi file in the Architect’s office at the Capitol should be quoted at this time. It was written on April 8, 1857, addressed to Mr. Walter, Architect of the Capitol, and shows Brumidi the target for more criticism. This crude and biased letter is quoted in full:

The unrolled map of ocean shoreline, the compass, and the telescope carried by the Maidens of the Navy, advance the naval theme in the old Senate Committee Room on Naval Affairs. Seven other such panels of exquisite design and color complete the wall decorations of this room. The simulated pillars with seaweed carvings and pearl ornaments are as deceptive as the sea shell cornucopias on the ledge at the pillars’ base. All are painted in oil on a flat surface of dry plaster.]

“The protegé and a kind of informer of Cap’t. Meigs, an Italian painter, Brumidi, paid $6 daily by Government, did three pictures for the churches of New York and in Georgetown and for which he received a good pay in hours and during the time which he had no right to dispose of.... His friend is paid too for the thing that he does not understand nor he attends to, yet all this is allowed and tolerated. What do you say about it? Shall we make public notice in papers or will you attend to it?”

SENATE FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE ROOM

Brumidi painted four large, bronze-colored medallions on the walls of this room, each medallion recording the profile of a noted chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.

On the north wall is Henry Clay of Kentucky who served the Committee as chairman from 1834 to 1836. On the south wall is William S. Allen of Ohio, Committee chairman from 1845 to 1846. The east wall portrays Simon E. Cameron of Pennsylvania, who was chairman from 1871 to 1877, while on the west wall is Charles W. Sumner of Massachusetts, chairman from 1861 to 1871.

The voucher paying Brumidi for this work, dated June 21, 1874, reads as follows:

“For painting four medallion portraits in the Committee Room of Foreign Affairs, United States Senate, @ $50 each--$200.”

SENATE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA COMMITTEE ROOMS

Two of these Senate Annex rooms, the District of Columbia Committee Rooms, have unusual frescoed ceilings--that of the larger room being equal in workmanship to that of the President’s Room. Since this large Committee Room was originally set apart as a Senate Library the groupings were chosen with that in mind, for there the artist has represented Geography, History, Physics, and Telegraph. In each group is the Brumidi Madonna and the artist’s distinctive cherubs. The walls of this room were never finished but the ceiling colors are as brilliant today as though painted yesterday.

In the files of the Architect of the Capitol is to be found a collection of original Brumidi letters. Among these are two referring to the Library decorations, both written in 1858--one by a draughtsman, Johannes Oertel, to Mr. Brumidi, and one by Mr. Brumidi to Captain Meigs, then superintendent of Capitol construction. The old artist apparently bothered not to answer ridicule and art criticism but a “direct reproach” on the discharge of his duty did not go unchallenged. The two letters follow:

From Mr. Oertel to Mr. Brumidi:

“With much surprise I learned that last Saturday you had commenced to paint the ceiling at the Senate Library. This room, as you are aware, was assigned to me by Capt. Meigs. I had consequently made preparation to begin it, and have spent much time in doing so. The work is now useless, and my labor in vain.

“Common courtesy should have induced you to consult me before beginning yourself. I cannot conceive the propriety of your taking work out of my hands, to which by commission I was fairly entitled. I must regard it as an unjust interference with my rights, which rights I shall endeavor in the future to guard from invasion.”

From Mr. Brumidi to Capt. Meigs:

“On the 26th of April 1858, I received from Mr. Oertel the enclosed letter, which is very remarkable for the injurious sentiments it contains.

“I remember very well our conversation

This Brumidi color lunette in the District of Columbia Committee Room of the Senate, a part of that room’s frescoed ceiling, was given the name “History” by the artist. All paintings in this room were done with the thought of a decorative motif for a Senate Library. The allegory in this lunette might suggest Young America writing her history, confident and undisturbed either by war or time. If this room has a Brumidi signature it has not yet been found.]

that you had invited a draughtsman to come to Washington to help me with my cartoons. Some days after, in the beginning of last year (1857), Mr. Oertel presented himself and told me he was the artist intended to assist me with my designs. I inquired of him if he could paint. He answered no, that he was only a draughtsman. In proof of this assertion he showed to me an oil painting of small dimension, representing the head of St. Paul. Such was his only experiment in coloring.

“After this I gave him the measure of six circles on the pilasters in the Navy Room, to make a corresponding number of portraits of celebrated men in the American Navy, intending to paint them myself. After that day I did not again see Mr. Oertel, because he had received orders from you to make the designs for the stained glass in the House of Representatives. In consequence of which order I could not have his services. I have never yet received the designs for the aforesaid portraits, therefore, I made them myself, also the cartoons for my other work, intending to execute them when the weather was favorable.

“Not being able to work in the room of the Committee of War, as it is at present occupied, nor in the ante-chamber of the Senate as there are many workmen employed there, I commenced in the Senate Library _not having received any information that the frescoes there were intended for Mr. Oertel_ nor could I think that an artist who himself has confessed that he had no practice in painting could think of executing pictures in fresco which is undoubtedly the most difficult of all varieties of painting.

“If for about fifteen months Mr. Oertel had been under your immediate orders, I could not again employ him without a new order from you, notwithstanding I have only painted one panel in the Library, and if you desire that Mr. Oertel shall make his first experiment in fresco in the aforesaid room, there still remain three vacant panels.

“In everything concerning the work in the Capitol Extension, it is my duty to receive orders and whatsoever observations may be needed only from you. So that I pray you please to make known to Mr. Oertel that neither he nor any other person has authority to send me such an insolent letter, containing as it does a direct reproach on the discharge of my duty, and I consider he has done me a serious injury.”

Although this Senate Library was begun by Brumidi in 1858 it would seem that only one lunette was finished at that time and that negotiations for its completion were again resumed on August 12, 1866, when Mr. Brumidi wrote the following letter to Architect Clark itemizing the completion costs:

“...The three panels in the ceiling, painted in real fresco representing allegorical subjects, corresponding to the original plan, and to the other already painted by myself, for $1,500 each, making an amount of $4,500--and 500 dollars more for painting all the figures and ornaments in the same ceiling in correspondence with the others, making a total cost of $5,000.

“The enclosed account at the old price of daily wages was presented by me to put under consideration what would have been the cost of the work if it had been completed six years ago. The mentioned persons, Peruchi and Geier were employed expressly one to help me as an artist, and the other to serve me in preparing the cartoons, the colors, and to assist me in my private studio as well as in the Capitol, and they having nothing to do with the plasterer who fixes the mortar in the wall, always furnished by the government.”

Architect Clark’s reply a few days later was short and to the point, “I do not consider there is three times as much to do as has already been done.”

Brumidi painted in the Capitol Building throughout the entire war between the States. In the little ante-room of the Senate District of Columbia Committee Room, originally the office of the Sergeant at Arms of the Senate, is his only effort to picture that conflict. This small room has four allegorical designs painted about its upper walls and one large fresco in the center of the ceiling. This fresco is signed, “C. Brumidi, 1876,” and represents “Columbia Welcoming the South Back into the Union.”

On the east wall is “Secession”--the breaking of the fasces, and the rival products of the North and South; on the south wall is war and strife; on the north wall the implements of war are exchanged for those of peace, while on the west wall the fasces are again united with the words “E Pluribus Unum.”

These two Senate Committee Rooms present a great contrast in brilliancy of color. The somber tone of the smaller room might be due to its date of execution, it having been finished only four years before the artist’s death. The larger room is said to have had a bit of restoration at one time during the two restoration periods that some of the Brumidi frescoes have had in the Capitol.

Charles Ayer Whipple was employed in 1919 to restore some of the Brumidi paintings especially in the basement corridors in the Senate Annex. This artist is recorded to have said at that time, “The Brumidi decorations are second to none in the whole world.” In 1921 Charles E. Moberly also did some restoration of Brumidi paintings but his work was chiefly in the House Committee Room where a fire had marred the side walls, and in the Reception room of the Senate where a bomb explosion in the early days of World War I damaged the walls and ceiling.

GROUND FLOOR CORRIDORS SENATE EXTENSION

The Senate Appropriations Committee Rooms earlier referred to are entered from the West Corridor on the ground floor of the Senate Extension. Above the door leading into these Committee Rooms is the Brumidi fresco of Bellona, the Roman goddess of War, with her stacked guns, flag-draped cannon and silent drum and trumpets at her feet. This West Corridor with vaulted ceiling is elaborately decorated in 15th Century style, thought to have been inspired by the Loggia of Raphael in the Vatican at Rome, that portion of the Vatican at one time said to have been restored by Brumidi. In the Capitol’s West Corridor are studies of birds, butterflies and children. Among the humming birds, cardinals, bluejays, and robins are 13 exquisite landscapes and inimitable medallion profiles of John Hancock, Francis Hopkinson, Robert Livingston, Roger Sherman, John Jay, Charles Thompson, Charles Carroll and Robert Morris. In a special ceiling design are the twelve signs of the zodiac in fields of Pompeian blue.

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. I have been told that the aged artist loved these birds as a father loves his children and that he often lingered in their midst as if a strong tie bound him to them.”

The North Corridor is equally as colorful as the West Corridor. Here we find painted on the walls, parrots and quail, lizards and chipmunks, squirrels and mice in their own habitat and color, midst every kind of flower and fruit imaginable. Children dance about the trailing arbutus, lilies of the valley, morning glories, columbine, bleeding hearts and peonies. Panels adorned with clusters and baskets of fruit--purple grapes, pineapples, peaches, plums, currants and cherries help to frame medallion profiles of Daniel Morgan, Jonathan Trumbull, Horatio Gates, Israel Putnam, Thomas Mifflin, Silas Deane, Richard Montgomery, Joseph Warren, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin.

In this corridor also are two large frescoes above other Committee room doors. “The Cession of Louisiana,” picturing Livingston, Monroe and Barbe-Marbois in the act of negotiating the Louisiana purchase, is at the west end of this corridor. At the east end of this corridor is “The Signing of the First Treaty of Peace with Great Britain in 1782” in which likenesses of Richard Oswald, John Adams, Henry Laurens, John Jay and Benjamin Franklin are portrayed.

A voucher, signed by Brumidi, and dated November 11, 1874, has been found referring to this treaty picture:

“For painting in Fresco over the entrance of the room of the Committee of Foreign Affairs, the picture of the Signing of the First Treaty with Great Britain--$600.”

On the upper walls of the Patent Corridor at the extreme east end of the North Corridor are large frescoes of Fulton and his invention on the Hudson, Fitch working on a steamboat model, and Franklin in his laboratory, while the ceiling displays many small designs of patents important to the American people. Roses of all colors, conventionalized or in tall graceful vases, predominate in this corridor decoration. Brumidi is reported to have said that his “Palisades of the Hudson” in the Robert Fulton fresco were not strong enough in perspective and that he hoped some day to have time to strengthen that portion of his painting.

A Brumidi voucher dated November 28, 1873, helps to verify the fact that the Fulton painting is a fresco:

“For painting in fresco the picture of Robert Fulton in the Senate wing, in the passage in front of the room of the Committee on Patents--$500.”

The Main Corridor on the ground floor of the Senate Extension is said to follow the Byzantine style of decoration with subdued backgrounds that display to perfection 14 more oval-shaped landscapes of marvelous depth and beauty. At the extreme north end of the corridor are the profile portraits of Andrew Jackson and Henry Clay, large frescoes of Justice Story and Chancellor Kent and a

Four such groups of Graces in varying attitudes and color combinations are used by Brumidi as corner motives on the frescoed ceiling of the District of Columbia Committee Room of the Senate. So delicately beautiful are the pastel shades in the maidens’ drapery that the studies of graces are equally as popular as the lunettes which they separate. Again, all frames and intricate moldings are painted on a smooth ceiling surface. The working sketch for these Graces is reproduced in black and white on page 79.]

bust of Chancellor Livingstone executed in imitation sculpture.

Two vouchers signed by Brumidi and dated August 24, 1874, fix the date, price and style of painting in the north end of this main corridor:

“For painting bust in light and shade of Chancellor Livingston at north end of basement story--$100.”

“For painting in fresco the portraits of Justice Story and Chancellor Kent at north end of basement story--$400.”

There is also a South Corridor on this ground floor of the Senate Extension done in the same subdued Byzantine style with eight large studies of animals in oval frames painted in oil on the walls and eight other ovals of the same size displaying in each the United States shield.

Two facts concerning Brumidi disturb us at this point in some such way as Smith D. Fry evidently was disturbed back in 1912 when he wrote his “Story of the Capitol.” Mr. Fry apparently satisfied his own wonder in these words:

“Many people inquire how it was possible for Brumidi to accomplish such an enormous amount of art work. The great designer and decorator prepared his colors according to methods known only to himself. They were mixed or triturated by employees under Brumidi’s direction. Leslie and others covered the walls with backgrounds, under Brumidi’s direction. Other near artists made outlines, according to directions of the tireless worker. But all of the artistic work was finished by the hand of the matchless Brumidi himself. That the name of Brumidi and the story of his wonderful work have not been known to the American people is not due to lack of appreciation but to the fact that there has been no one with time and acquaintance with his work to tell the people about it.”

CAPITOL ROTUNDA

On the frieze of the Rotunda Brumidi did his last work in the Capitol Building. This frieze is a belt nine feet wide which circles the Rotunda 58 feet from the floor. The Rotunda is 300 feet in circumference. On October 1, 1877, the Architect of the Capitol gave the following report, “The belt of the Rotunda intended to be enriched with basso relievos is being embellished in real fresco representing in light and shadow events in our history arranged in chronological order, begining with the Landing of Columbus and ending with a period of our Revolutionary history to be decided later.”

According to Brumidi’s signed statement of 1874, earlier quoted, “That large frieze in the Rotunda was sketched by order of Captain Meigs before the war,” but the artist was 72 years old before he actually was allowed to begin painting the frieze in the difficult Rotunda location.

He had in mind fifteen historical scenes planned to cover fifteen divisions of the frieze and from his file of letters we know how desperately he worked to finish these frescoes before sickness should compel him to lay aside his brush. The following four short letters to the Architect of the Capitol during Brumidi’s last months show the heroic effort made by the artist to complete his frieze:

Washington, D. C., October 15, 1878

“I have returned at home, having improved enough and I am
translating in large proportion the cartoon of Pocahontas, and if
Monday the plasterer is ready to proceed with the panel of DeSoto I
desire to go on in that work, if my health will permit me, as I
hope.”