Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/1180196
3 THE CAPITOL DOME would Brumidi, then living in America, have had access to the subjects and motifs of particular Pompeian paint- ings to be able to transform and transfer them onto the Capitol's walls? What messages did Brumidi and his patron, Montgomery Meigs, the supervising engineer of the Capitol, convey with the Pompeian style and Graeco- Roman figures of this mural cycle? A recent and ongoing study of the mural cycle in S-127 has provided many insights regarding Brumidi's inspiration, design, and subjects. Though the complex iconographic program and historical context of its model continue to be studied, we can now understand far more about this early decorative undertaking of the patron-artist team, Meigs and Brumidi. First, it is now clear that Brumidi borrowed extensively from Pompeian wall paintings that were (in many cases) discovered at the site in the early nineteenth century or were on display in the Real Museo Borbonico in Naples (today the Naples Archaeological Museum). In addition, we now have iden- tified the source that provided models not only for the figures themselves, but also for the overall design of the walls. Brumidi consulted an enormous "elephant folio," owned by the Library of Congress and originally printed in Berlin between 1828 and 1829. This volume, by the German decorative painter Wilhelm Zahn, reproduced drawings of Roman wall paintings, recorded as they were discovered at Pompeii and other sites around the Bay of Naples. Finally, notes from Meigs's journal about his goals for commissioning murals for the interior of the Capitol in general but also about the completed paintings in S-127 in particular show that, in addition to their aes- thetic goals "to make beautiful the Capitol," 2 Meigs and Brumidi were striving to position the nation's new hall of government, the Capitol, among its European archi- tectural peers. With this echo of Roman wall painting and mythology decorating the walls of the epicenter of American legislature, Meigs and Brumidi continued the Founding Fathers' links between America and Rome and their reliance on public art as a tool for writing the history of the still-new nation. BRUMIDI'S MURALS FOR THE NAVAL AFFAIRS COMMITTEE MEETING ROOM Constantino Brumidi began work at the Capitol with his first murals in early 1855 and was soon put on the payroll. On 20 August 1856, a watercolor design he had submit- ted for the murals in the Naval Affairs Committee room (S-127) was approved by Montgomery Meigs, and Bru- midi began to coordinate a team of artists and decorative painters who worked alongside him to execute the decora- Fig. 2. Constantino Brumidi, floating maiden with flag, c. 1857, S-127, U.S. Capitol Fig. 3. Floating Maenad, 1st c A.D., House of the Ship, Pompeii