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23 NEW YORK STATE HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION Eighteenth-Century America (1999), with the acquisition of national independence, a desire arose in the country to demonstrate individual American achievement, especially in military and political affairs. And, in spite of a rela- tive lack of support in the new nation for cultural and in- tellectual pursuits, inventors, artists, and men of science joined the roster of American worthies. "e elevation of the men of science to the role of national exemplar," writes Fortune, "was also a product of the importance given to Enlightenment science and the connection some men found between liberty, civic virtue, and the fostering of scientific truth." 23 A characteristic example of this portrait type and a painting that almost certainly influenced Brumidi's fres- coed lunette for the Patent Corridor is Benjamin West's 1806 portrait of Fulton (fig. 11). Soon after completing the painting West gave it to Fulton, who brought it back with him when he returned to America in October 1806. e work eventually entered the collection of the New York State Historical Association in Cooperstown. Brumidi could have easily found the image since several copies were made and an engraved version served as frontispiece for Cadwallader D. Colden's Life of Fulton published in 1817. 24 Brumidi's and West's paintings depict Fulton comfortably seated before dramatic red draperies, which In Physics, Brumidi shows how science was "applied to creating new modes of transportation." Physics, yet another female personification, sits at center carefully examining a chart. 19 A steamboat and steam locomotive, as in Brumidi's earlier painting of Progress, occupy the middle distance. Brumidi presents his figure of Physics in the traditional pose of melancholy, head supported by her right arm and hand with her elbow resting on the pedes- tal. Brumidi used this pose to evoke the intense level of introspection often associated with focused and sustained study. 20 e absence of a similar dependence on traditional allegory and Renaissance formulas for the depiction of modern American technological achievement is a distin- guishing feature of Brumidi's historical portrait of Robert Fulton and probably reflects the Italian artist's response to long-voiced criticisms from Members of Congress and the press that much of his imagery was too foreign-look- ing and therefore not authentically American; the same charge, incidentally, was frequently aimed at Italianate American sculptors of the time. In May 1859, President James Buchanan appointed the United States Art Commission to advise him and Congress on the completion of the decorative program for the Capitol. In their report, issued the following year, the commission was particularly critical of the un-American subjects decorating the Capitol: "It is not enough that the artist select an American subject for his work. He must also be imbued with a high sense of the nature of the insti- tutions of the country, and should have a certain assimila- tion with its habits and manners." 21 With respect to his portrayal of Fulton, Brumidi apparently took these criticisms to heart, for he turned to a tradition of portraiture embedded in late eighteenth- century American republican ideology and visual sources more in tune with mid-nineteenth-century American sensibilities. e most direct sources for Brumidi's Robert Fulton are late eighteenth-century American portraits of men of science, a portrait type that consciously linked naturalists, physicians, and inventors to the contemplative life of the scholar and the intellectual as well as to the social and cul- tural pursuits associated with the gentleman and American polite society. Although these portraits sought to define the scientific identities of the sitters, endeavor, accomplish- ment, and ambition were emphasized by surrounding the subject with the books, models, tools, apparatus, and/or instruments of his trade, and by incorporating extended visual references to his specific inventions or discoveries. 22 According to Brandon Brame Fortune, author of Franklin and His Friends: Portraying the Man of Science in Fig. 11. Benjamin West, Robert Fulton, 1806. Oil on canvas, Fenimore Art Museum, New York State Historical Associa on, Cooperstown. THE CAPITOL DOME SPRING 2014