The Capitol Dome

NOTES 1. David O'Brien, Aer the Revolution: Antoine-Jean Gros, Painting and Propaganda Under Napoleon (Uni- versity Park, PA, 2006), pp. 176, 222. 2. Herbert Small, "Handbook of the New Library of Congress," in John Y. Cole and Henry Hope Reed, eds., e Library of Congress: e Art and Architecture of the omas Jefferson Building (New York, 1997), p. 135. IMAGE CREDITS: Fig. 1. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, [LC-DIG-highsm-01960] Fig. 2. e Preservation Society of Newport County Fig. 3. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, [LC-DIG-highsm-03186] Fig. 4. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, [LC-DIG-highsm-02006] Fig. 5. Detail, Library of Congress, Prints & Pho- tographs Division, [LC-DIG-highsm-01958] Fig. 6. Google Art Project, Raphael, via Wikimedia Commons Fig. 7. Private Collection/Stephen Ongpin Fine Art, via commons.wikimedia.org Fig. 8. Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund, National Gallery of Art, Washington Fig. 9. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, [LC-DIG-highsm-01786] Fig. 10. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, [LC-DIG-highsm-01788] Fig. 11. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, [LC-DIG-highsm-01988] Fig. 12. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, [LC-DIG-highsm-01759] Fig. 13. © National Portrait Gallery, London Fig. 14. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, [LC-DIG-highsm-02070] Fig. 15. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, [LC-DIG-highsm-02071] Fig. 16. Apothéose de sainte Geneviève, ©Bernard Acloque/Centre des monuments nationaux Fig. 17. Detail, Library of Congress, Prints & Pho- tographs Division, [ LC-DIG-highsm-02070] Fig. 18. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, [LC-DIG-highsm-03187] Fig. 19. National Gallery of Art, Washington Fig. 20. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, [LC-DIG-highsm-02086] sculpture and painting, in the form of a mallet, brush, and palette. is allegory displays the third fine art, architec- ture, as a model of the Parthenon (447– 432 B.C.E.) by the Greek architects Ictinus and Callicrates (470– 420 B.C.E.). One of the most celebrated structures of the ancient world, the Parthenon on the Acropolis in Athens served as the temple of Pallas Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom and the equivalent of the Roman deity Minerva. Instead of depicting the Parthenon in its current state, devoid of most of its sculptures, Saint-Gaudens and Tonetti-Dozzi show this temple in its former glory with all of its statuary intact. eir representation of this edifice is remarkably similar to an illustration in a study of the Parthenon (1845) by the French architect Alexis Paccard (1813–1867), specifically in the inclusion of its original sculptures and their place- ment within the pediment and along the roofline. Even though the Main Reading Room differs from the rest of the Jefferson Building in its absence of an image of Athena/Miner va, the presence of her temple in this space emphasizes the sacred nature of knowledge. In essence, the Main Reading Room has become an American Pantheon or a repository of Pan-knowledge. e bronze, marble, and plaster sculptures by Philip Martiny, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, and François Michel Louis Tonetti-Dozzi and the mural series by Edwin How- land Blashfield that form the focus of this article are only a few of the many examples of statuary and mural paint- ings in the Library of Congress's omas Jefferson Build- ing. Designed by multiple artists, all these images are united through a celebration of western culture and the promotion of the accumulation and dissemination of knowledge. LYNDA COOPER is a scholar specializing in American art, particularly the Beaux-Arts Movement of the late nine- teenth and early twentieth centuries. She holds a doctorate in art history from Virginia Commonwealth University and two master's degrees in art history and museum studies from Syracuse University. Cooper conducts research for the history department at the United States Capitol Historical Society and is a docent at the Library of Congress, where she gives slide presentations and gallery talks on the archi- tecture, murals, sculptures, and mosaics of the omas Jef- ferson Building (1889–1897) to the current volunteers and docents-in-training. Cooper has recently been selected as a recipient of the Capitol Fellowship through the U.S. Capitol Historical Society and the Architect of the Capitol for 2018. 32 THE CAPITOL DOME

• Cover