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one of the best examples among Brumidi's Capitol decora- tions of a work of art intended to evoke authentic American meanings without relying heavily on the use of mythology, allegory, or overt classical allusions. e Fulton fresco, however, was not the first portrait of the American inventor painted by Brumidi. e artist also included Fulton in an allegory of science (fig. 3), one of the secondary groups comprising Brumidi's monumental Apotheosis of Washington, completed for the Capitol Rotunda in 1865. In the scene, Fulton and two other American inventors—Benjamin Franklin and Samuel F.B. Morse, the latter another significant American artist turned scientist-look on as two workmen use an electric genera- tor to store power in batteries. 6 As Michael Quick has noted in American Portraiture in the Grand Manner, 1720–1920 (1981), a group portrait bringing together the most innovative leaders in art, science, politics, etc. "was a popular form at mid-century." 7 Probably the best-known work of this type is Christian Schussele's Men of Progress (fig. 4), now at the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, which presents a veritable pantheon of contemporary American inven- tors. Morse with his telegraph occupies the center of the Fig. 2. Constan no Brumidi, Robert Fulton, c. 1873 Fresco, over the door to Senate Room 116, United States Capitol. e growing hostility toward the arts and high culture in general during the decades after the Revolution forced American artists to make difficult judgments regarding the nation's prospects and their own professional possibili- ties. us, as Ellis accurately predicts, we encounter men from this period, such as Robert Fulton, "who combined an incredibly optimistic estimate of America's cultural potential with a deep distrust of their own artistic callings, hatred for the pecuniary values of the marketplace with considerable skill as entrepreneurs, [and] intense private ambition with a genuine craving to channel their creative energies into public service." 5 Nearly three-quarters of a century after the Clermont made its inaugural trip up the Hudson, Constantino Brumidi produced an historical portrait of Fulton as part of his extensive ongoing mural decoration for the interi- or of the United States Capitol (fig. 2). Brumidi's fresco of Fulton reaffirmed the cultural principles originally embodied in the steamboat. It is also a particularly well- constructed illustration of the artist turned scientist, and ARCHITECT OF THE CAPITOL Fig. 3. Constan no Brumidi, "Science", detail from Apotheosis of Washington, 1865. Fresco, canopy of the Rotunda, United States Capitol. ARCHITECT OF THE CAPITOL SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION Fig. 4. Chris an Schussele, Men of Progress: American Inventors, 1862. Oil on canvas, Na onal Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Ins tu on, Washington, D.C. 19 THE CAPITOL DOME SPRING 2014