Wisconsin State Capitol Assembly Chamber Madison Wisconsin
Date:
1908 or 1914
Notes:
Richard Murray, 1977.
Brochure of the Mural Painters, a National Society Founded 1895, New York: the Kalkhoff Company, 1916.
Wisconsin State Capitol Guide and History, 29th ed., State of Wisconsin (booklet), pg. 41-43.
Weiner, Mina Rieur, ed., "Edwin Howland Blashfield: Master American Muralist," New York, NY: W. W. Norton and Company, 2009, pg. 89.
Image on file.
Wisconsin State Capitol Guide and History, 29th ed., State of Wisconsin (booklet), pg. 42.
The information provided about this artwork was compiled as part of the Smithsonian American Art Museum's Inventories of American Painting and Sculpture database, designed to provide descriptive and location information on artworks by American artists in public and private collections worldwide.
Summary:
The mural depicts Wisconsin in the past as a female figure seated on a rock, surrounded by figures representing her past. The women around her with aquatic plants symbolize Lake Superior, Lake Michigan, and the Mississippi River, the bodies of water by which Wisconsin is partially surrounded. Beside the them is a seated Father Claude Allouez, and behind are Nicolet, Radisson, De Groseilliers, Le Sueur, and De Langlade. On the right is a color guard from one of Wisconsin's regiments of 1861. Wisconsin in the present is a female figure pointing through the woods toward the Capitol, which is in the distance. Behind her are figures of lumbermen, miners, and farmers with their families. On the far right are a female and male Native American representing the past. The future is a female figure with her lamp of progress held in her hand as she listens to Conservation tell her to take care of her trees.
