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
[Illustration: HISTORY
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.