1.
Henry Kirke Bush-Brown
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Henry Kirke Bush-Brown was an American sculptor and the adopted nephew of sculptor Henry Kirke Brown. He was raised in Newburgh, New York and attended the National Academy of Design in New York City and he became known for historically accurate realist sculptures illustrating American history. Bush-Brown was married to the painter Margaret Lesley Bush-Brown, with whom he had three surviving children, their daughter, Lydia, became a noted designer, Bush-Brown produced three equestrian bronze sculptures at Gettysburg battlefield. The first equestrian statue ever produced by Bush-Brown was that of General George Meade, located on Hancock Avenue, it is near where Meade watched his Union troops repulse the Confederate charge. This statue was created two years of research, and portrays Meade without a hat, as he appeared during the battle. Meade holds a pair of binoculars in his hand and his hat in his left hand. A sword hangs from the side of his saddle. The sculpture of Meade gazes across the battlefield toward the statue of his opponent, following the production of Meade, Bush-Brown created a 9, 000-pound monument of General John F. Reynolds, in which the horse has only two feet on the ground. This statue was dedicated in 1899 at a ceremony in which Bush-Brown, Reynolds nephew, the sculpture is located approximately 1100 feet from the marker where Reynolds was killed. The statue of Sedgwick incorporates such details as the dents in the Generals scabbard, in addition, Bush-Brown made a bust of Abraham Lincoln, dedicated in 1912 as part of the Lincoln Speech Memorial commemorating Lincolns Gettysburg Address. Bush-Brown created numerous sculptures for the exterior of New York Citys Beaux Arts 1907 Surrogates Courthouse, in 1910 he created a bronze statue of Mary Jemison, The White Woman of the Genesee, which marks her grave in New Yorks Letchworth State Park. Bush-Brown also produced a relief of financier and civic planner Cyrus Clark, brown’s relief of Clark is embedded in a natural rock outcropping near the 83rd Street entrance to Riverside Park. Apart from his numerous sculptures related to American history, Bush-Brown was also the author of an unpublished biographical manuscript detailing the life, one copy of the manuscript is with the Bush-Brown family papers at Smith College and another is held by the Library of Congress. Bush-Brown died in Washington, D. C. and was buried in Memorial Cemetery, Arundel, Henry Kirke Bush-Brown at Gettysburg Sculptures Biographical information Catalog at Smithsonian Figures on New York Citys Surrogates Court Building Image of Spirit of 61 sculpture, Philadelphia, PA
2.
Newburgh, New York
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Newburgh /ˈnuːbərɡ/ is a city located in Orange County, New York, United States,60 miles north of New York City, and 90 miles south of Albany, on the Hudson River. Newburgh is a part of the New York metropolitan area, the Newburgh area was first settled in the early 18th century by the Germans and British. During the American Revolution, Newburgh served as the headquarters of the Continental Army, prior to its chartering in 1865, the city of Newburgh was part of the town of Newburgh, the town now borders the city to the north and west. East of the city is the Hudson River, the city of Beacon, New York across the river, the entire southern boundary of the city is with the town of New Windsor. Most of this boundary is formed by Quassaick Creek, in May 2016, the city requested help for its PFOS contaminated water supply under Superfund. At the time of European contact the area of Newburgh was occupied by the Waoranek, the area that became Newburgh was first explored by Europeans when Henry Hudson stopped by during his 1609 expedition up the river that now bears his name. Around 1683 provincial governor Thomas Dongan purchased the land from the Woaranek, the first settlement was made in the spring of 1709 by fifty-four Palatine refugees, sponsored by Queen Anne of Great Britain. The settlers named it the Palatine Parish by Quassic, in 1743 a ferry at the foot of First Street had been established between Newburgh and Fishkill Landing. In 1752 the land had been surveyed by Cadwallader Colden and named Newburgh after Newburgh in his native Scotland, shipyards were established and docks and warehouses lined the waterfront. Newburgh was the headquarters of the Continental Army from March,1782 until the part of 1783. While the army was camped at Newburgh, some of its senior officers began the Newburgh conspiracy to overthrow the government, General George Washington was able to persuade his officers to stay loyal to him. The army was disbanded here in 1783, Washington received the famous Newburgh letter from Lewis Nicola proposing that he become king here. It drew a rebuke from Washington. In honor of his refusal of that suggestion, Kings Highway, the year 1793 saw Newburghs first newspaper, The Newburgh Packet. The hamlet of Newburgh was incorporated as a village in 1800, at the time of its settlement it was in Ulster County and was that countys seat. When Rockland County was split from Orange County in 1798, Newburgh, Newburgh thus lost its status as the county seat to Goshen. The former Ulster County courthouse still stands as Newburghs old city courthouse building, by 1793 there were four sloop lines operating out of Newburgh. As new turnpikes opened trade extended into the interior, passenger coaches and farm wagons raveled as far west as Canandaigua
3.
Sculpture
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Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. It is one of the plastic arts, a wide variety of materials may be worked by removal such as carving, assembled by welding or modelling, or molded, or cast. However, most ancient sculpture was painted, and this has been lost. Those cultures whose sculptures have survived in quantities include the cultures of the ancient Mediterranean, India and China, the Western tradition of sculpture began in ancient Greece, and Greece is widely seen as producing great masterpieces in the classical period. During the Middle Ages, Gothic sculpture represented the agonies and passions of the Christian faith, the revival of classical models in the Renaissance produced famous sculptures such as Michelangelos David. Relief is often classified by the degree of projection from the wall into low or bas-relief, high relief, sunk-relief is a technique restricted to ancient Egypt. Relief sculpture may also decorate steles, upright slabs, usually of stone, techniques such as casting, stamping and moulding use an intermediate matrix containing the design to produce the work, many of these allow the production of several copies. The term sculpture is used mainly to describe large works. The very large or colossal statue has had an enduring appeal since antiquity, another grand form of portrait sculpture is the equestrian statue of a rider on horse, which has become rare in recent decades. The smallest forms of life-size portrait sculpture are the head, showing just that, or the bust, small forms of sculpture include the figurine, normally a statue that is no more than 18 inches tall, and for reliefs the plaquette, medal or coin. Sculpture is an important form of public art, a collection of sculpture in a garden setting can be called a sculpture garden. One of the most common purposes of sculpture is in form of association with religion. Cult images are common in cultures, though they are often not the colossal statues of deities which characterized ancient Greek art. The actual cult images in the innermost sanctuaries of Egyptian temples, of which none have survived, were rather small. The same is true in Hinduism, where the very simple. Some undoubtedly advanced cultures, such as the Indus Valley civilization, appear to have had no monumental sculpture at all, though producing very sophisticated figurines, the Mississippian culture seems to have been progressing towards its use, with small stone figures, when it collapsed. Other cultures, such as ancient Egypt and the Easter Island culture, from the 20th century the relatively restricted range of subjects found in large sculpture expanded greatly, with abstract subjects and the use or representation of any type of subject now common. Today much sculpture is made for intermittent display in galleries and museums, small sculpted fittings for furniture and other objects go well back into antiquity, as in the Nimrud ivories, Begram ivories and finds from the tomb of Tutankhamun
4.
Portrait
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A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person, for this reason, in photography a portrait is generally not a snapshot, but a composed image of a person in a still position. A portrait often shows a person looking directly at the painter or photographer, nonetheless, many subjects, such as Akhenaten and some other Egyptian pharaohs, can be recognised by their distinctive features. The 28 surviving rather small statues of Gudea, ruler of Lagash in Sumeria between c.2144 -2124 BC, show a consistent appearance with some individuality. Some of the earliest surviving painted portraits of people who were not rulers are the Greco-Roman funeral portraits that survived in the dry climate of Egypts Fayum district. These are almost the only paintings from the world that have survived, apart from frescos, though many sculptures. Although the appearance of the figures differs considerably, they are considerably idealized, the art of the portrait flourished in Ancient Greek and especially Roman sculpture, where sitters demanded individualized and realistic portraits, even unflattering ones. During the 4th century, the portrait began to retreat in favor of a symbol of what that person looked like. In the Europe of the Early Middle Ages representations of individuals are mostly generalized, true portraits of the outward appearance of individuals re-emerged in the late Middle Ages, in tomb monuments, donor portraits, miniatures in illuminated manuscripts and then panel paintings. Moche culture of Peru was one of the few ancient civilizations which produced portraits and these works accurately represent anatomical features in great detail. The individuals portrayed would have been recognizable without the need for other symbols or a reference to their names. The individuals portrayed were members of the elite, priests, warriors. They were represented during several stages of their lives, the faces of gods were also depicted. To date, no portraits of women have been found, there is particular emphasis on the representation of the details of headdresses, hairstyles, body adornment and face painting. One of the portraits in the Western world is Leonardo da Vincis painting titled Mona Lisa. What has been claimed as the worlds oldest known portrait was found in 2006 in the Vilhonneur grotto near Angoulême and is thought to be 27,000 years old. Profile view, full view, and three-quarter view, are three common designations for portraits, each referring to a particular orientation of the head of the individual depicted. Such terms would tend to have greater applicability to two-dimensional artwork such as photography, in the case of three-dimensional artwork, the viewer can usually alter their orientation to the artwork by moving around it
5.
Boston
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Boston is the capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. Boston is also the seat of Suffolk County, although the county government was disbanded on July 1,1999. The city proper covers 48 square miles with a population of 667,137 in 2015, making it the largest city in New England. Alternately, as a Combined Statistical Area, this wider commuting region is home to some 8.1 million people, One of the oldest cities in the United States, Boston was founded on the Shawmut Peninsula in 1630 by Puritan settlers from England. It was the scene of several key events of the American Revolution, such as the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, the Battle of Bunker Hill, and the Siege of Boston. Upon U. S. independence from Great Britain, it continued to be an important port and manufacturing hub as well as a center for education, through land reclamation and municipal annexation, Boston has expanded beyond the original peninsula. Its rich history attracts many tourists, with Faneuil Hall alone drawing over 20 million visitors per year, Bostons many firsts include the United States first public school, Boston Latin School, first subway system, the Tremont Street Subway, and first public park, Boston Common. Bostons economic base also includes finance, professional and business services, biotechnology, information technology, the city has one of the highest costs of living in the United States as it has undergone gentrification, though it remains high on world livability rankings. Bostons early European settlers had first called the area Trimountaine but later renamed it Boston after Boston, Lincolnshire, England, the renaming on September 7,1630 was by Puritan colonists from England who had moved over from Charlestown earlier that year in quest of fresh water. Their settlement was limited to the Shawmut Peninsula, at that time surrounded by the Massachusetts Bay and Charles River. The peninsula is thought to have been inhabited as early as 5000 BC, in 1629, the Massachusetts Bay Colonys first governor John Winthrop led the signing of the Cambridge Agreement, a key founding document of the city. Puritan ethics and their focus on education influenced its early history, over the next 130 years, the city participated in four French and Indian Wars, until the British defeated the French and their Indian allies in North America. Boston was the largest town in British America until Philadelphia grew larger in the mid-18th century, Bostons harbor activity was significantly curtailed by the Embargo Act of 1807 and the War of 1812. Foreign trade returned after these hostilities, but Bostons merchants had found alternatives for their investments in the interim. Manufacturing became an important component of the economy, and the citys industrial manufacturing overtook international trade in economic importance by the mid-19th century. Boston remained one of the nations largest manufacturing centers until the early 20th century, a network of small rivers bordering the city and connecting it to the surrounding region facilitated shipment of goods and led to a proliferation of mills and factories. Later, a network of railroads furthered the regions industry. Boston was a port of the Atlantic triangular slave trade in the New England colonies
6.
Chester Harding (painter)
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Chester Harding was an American portrait painter. Harding was born at Conway, Massachusetts, brought up in the wilderness of New York state, he was a lad of robust physique, standing over 6 feet 3 inches. His family removed to Caledonia, New York, when he was fourteen years old, in the War of 1812, he marched as a drummer with the militia to the St Lawrence. He became subsequently chairmaker, peddler, inn-keeper, and house-painter, painting signs in Pittsburgh and he worked at this latter occupation a year, when acquaintance with a traveling portrait painter led him to attempt that art. Having succeeded in producing a portrait of his wife, he devoted himself enthusiastically to the profession. He painted several other portraits at Pittsburg, and then went to Paris, Kentucky and he made enough money to take him to the schools at the Philadelphia Academy of Design. He then established himself in St. Louis, and eventually went on the road as an itinerant portrait painter, in August 1823, he went to England and set up a studio in London, and spent three years in studying and painting. He met with success, painting royalty and the nobility. In 1843, he went to England again, and afterward resided in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1828 he was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Honorary Academician. He painted portraits of many of the prominent men and women of his time. Among the people who sat for him were James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, John Marshall, Nicholas Brown, Jr. Dudley Leavitt Pickman, Charles Carroll, William Wirt, Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, Washington Allston, the Dukes of Norfolk, Hamilton, and Sussex, Samuel Rogers, Harding is the only known painter who painted Daniel Boone from life. His last work was a portrait of Gen. William T. Sherman and his portrait of Daniel Webster went to the Bar Association of New York, and that of John Randolph to the Corcoran Gallery at Washington, D. C. He wrote My Egotistography, which was privately printed, hardings Gallery Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Harding, Chester. Wilson, James Grant, Fiske, John, eds, American Art Journal, Vol.15, No. “Chester Harding, ” The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XIX, January,1867, No, CXI, pp. 485–488 at cdl. library. cornell. edu
7.
Henry Peters Gray
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Henry Peters Gray was an American portrait and genre painter. Born in New York City he was a pupil of Daniel Huntington in New York, elected a member of the National Academy of Design in 1842, he succeeded Huntington as president in 1870, holding the position until 1871. The later years of his life were devoted to portrait work and he was strongly influenced by the old Italian masters, painting in mellow colour with a classical tendency. One of his canvases was an allegorical composition called The Birth of our Flag. He died in New York City, the Greek Lovers was painted by Gray after a trip to Italy, where he was greatly influenced by the art of the Italian Renaissance. This painting was well received in its day, and reflects the nineteenth-century fascination with Greco-Roman antiquity. The painting shows her in her decline, possibly “thinking of her faithless lover. —or were her thoughts wandering to that distant churchyard, into whose bosom she might soon be gathered. ”Attribution Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Gray, Henry Peters. 1893 Biographical Sketch This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh
8.
Equestrian statue
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An equestrian statue is a statue of a rider mounted on a horse, from the Latin eques, meaning knight, deriving from equus, meaning horse. A statue of a horse is strictly an equine statue. A full-sized equestrian statue is a difficult and expensive object for any culture to produce, Equestrian statuary in the West goes back at least as far as Archaic Greece. Found on the Athenian acropolis, the sixth century BC statue known as the Rampin Rider depicts a kouros mounted on horseback, a number of ancient Egyptian, Assyrian and Persian reliefs show mounted figures, usually rulers, though no free standing statues are known. The Chinese Terracotta Army has no mounted riders, though cavalrymen stand beside their mounts, the Regisole was a bronze classical or Late Antique equestrian monument of a ruler, highly influential during the Italian Renaissance but destroyed in 1796 in the wake of the French Revolution. It was originally erected at Ravenna, but removed to Pavia in the Middle Ages, a fragment of an equestrian portrait sculpture of Augustus has also survived. Equestrian statues were not very frequent in the Middle ages, nevertheless, there are some examples, like the Bamberg Horseman, located in Bamberg Cathedral. Another example is the Magdeburg Reiter, in the city of Magdeburg, there are a few roughly half-size statues of Saint George and the Dragon, including the famous ones in Prague and Stockholm. The Scaliger Tombs in Verona include Gothic statues at less than lifesize, a well-known small bronze in Paris may be a contemporary portrait of Charlemagne, although its date and subject are uncertain. Leonardo da Vinci had planned an equestrian monument to the Milanese ruler. The The Wax Horse and Rider is a model for an equestrian statue of Charles dAmboise. Titians equestrian portrait of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor of 1548 applied the form again to a ruler, taccas studio would produce such models for the rulers in France and Spain. His last public commission was the equestrian bronze of Philip IV, begun in 1634. The near life-size equestrian statue of Charles I of England by Hubert Le Sueur of 1633 at Charing Cross in London is the earliest large English example, which was followed by many. The Bronze Horseman is an equestrian statue, on a huge base, of Peter the Great of 1782 by Étienne Maurice Falconet in Saint Petersburg. Mills was the first American sculptor to overcome the challenge of casting a rider on a rearing horse, the resulting sculpture was so popular he repeated it, for Washington, D. C. New Orleans, Louisiana and Nashville, Tennessee, cyrus Edwin Dallin made a specialty of equestrian sculptures of American Indians, his Appeal to the Great Spirit stands before the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The Robert Gould Shaw Monument in Boston, Massachusetts is a famous relief including an equestrian portrait, as the 20th century progressed, the popularity of the equestrian monument declined sharply, as monarchies fell, and the military use of horses virtually vanished
9.
George Washington
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George Washington was an American politician and soldier who served as the first President of the United States from 1789 to 1797 and was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. He served as Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War and he is popularly considered the driving force behind the nations establishment and came to be known as the father of the country, both during his lifetime and to this day. Washington was widely admired for his leadership qualities and was unanimously elected president by the Electoral College in the first two national elections. Washingtons incumbency established many precedents still in use today, such as the system, the inaugural address. His retirement from office two terms established a tradition that lasted until 1940 when Franklin Delano Roosevelt won an unprecedented third term. The 22nd Amendment now limits the president to two elected terms and he was born into the provincial gentry of Colonial Virginia to a family of wealthy planters who owned tobacco plantations and slaves, which he inherited. In his youth, he became an officer in the colonial militia during the first stages of the French. In 1775, the Second Continental Congress commissioned him as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army in the American Revolution, in that command, Washington forced the British out of Boston in 1776 but was defeated and nearly captured later that year when he lost New York City. After crossing the Delaware River in the middle of winter, he defeated the British in two battles, retook New Jersey, and restored momentum to the Patriot cause and his strategy enabled Continental forces to capture two major British armies at Saratoga in 1777 and Yorktown in 1781. In battle, however, Washington was repeatedly outmaneuvered by British generals with larger armies, after victory had been finalized in 1783, Washington resigned as commander-in-chief rather than seize power, proving his opposition to dictatorship and his commitment to American republicanism. Washington presided over the Constitutional Convention in 1787, which devised a new form of government for the United States. Following his election as president in 1789, he worked to unify rival factions in the fledgling nation and he supported Alexander Hamiltons programs to satisfy all debts, federal and state, established a permanent seat of government, implemented an effective tax system, and created a national bank. In avoiding war with Great Britain, he guaranteed a decade of peace and profitable trade by securing the Jay Treaty in 1795 and he remained non-partisan, never joining the Federalist Party, although he largely supported its policies. Washingtons Farewell Address was a primer on civic virtue, warning against partisanship, sectionalism. He retired from the presidency in 1797, returning to his home, upon his death, Washington was eulogized as first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen by Representative Henry Lee III of Virginia. He was revered in life and in death, scholarly and public polling consistently ranks him among the top three presidents in American history and he has been depicted and remembered in monuments, public works, currency, and other dedications to the present day. He was born on February 11,1731, according to the Julian calendar, the Gregorian calendar was adopted within the British Empire in 1752, and it renders a birth date of February 22,1732. Washington was of primarily English gentry descent, especially from Sulgrave and his great-grandfather John Washington emigrated to Virginia in 1656 and began accumulating land and slaves, as did his son Lawrence and his grandson, Georges father Augustine
10.
Clark Mills (sculptor)
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Clark Mills was an American sculptor, best known for four versions of an equestrian statue of Andrew Jackson, located in Washington, D. C. Nashville, Tennessee, Jacksonville, Florida and New Orleans, Louisiana and he had a studio, in Charleston, South Carolina, and Washington, D. C. at 15th Street, and Pennsylvania Avenue. He had three sons, he remarried and had a step-daughter, there was some dispute over his will. He was interred at Glenwood Cemetery in Washington, D. C, in 1865 Mills made a life-cast of Abraham Lincolns head. It is generally felt to be inferior in quality to the 1860 cast made by Leonard Volk. One of Mills works is located in Presidents Park, also known as Lafayette Square, the statue of Andrew Jackson was unveiled January 8,1853. It was a Saturday on the 38th anniversary of the Battle of New Orleans, senator Stephen A. Douglas was the keynote speaker at the unveiling. There are three other castings in New Orleans, Jacksonville, Florida, and Nashville, Tennessee. Beginning in 1860, the Statue of Freedom, which sits atop the United States Capitol, was cast in five sections by Mills. Mills also captured a tense and crucial moment in the Revolutionary War with the creation of a statue of Lieutenant General George Washington in 1860. Congress commissioned this statue in 1853 because of the popularity of Millss equestrian statue of Andrew Jackson. In World War II, the United States liberty ship SS Clark Mills was named in his honor, American Lion, Andrew Jackson in the White House. Charles Colbert, Clark Mills and the Phrenologist, The Art Bulletin, Vol.70, No
11.
Bronze sculpture
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Bronze is the most popular metal for cast metal sculptures, a cast bronze sculpture is often called simply a bronze. It can be used for statues, singly or in groups, reliefs and it is often gilded to give gilt-bronze or ormolu. Common bronze alloys have the unusual and desirable property of expanding slightly just before they set, then, as the bronze cools, it shrinks a little, making it easier to separate from the mould. Their strength and ductility is an advantage when figures in action are to be created and these qualities allow the creation of extended figures, as in Jeté, or figures that have small cross sections in their support, such as the equestrian statue of Richard the Lionheart. As recently as 2007 several life sized bronze sculptures by John Waddell were stolen, there are many different bronze alloys, and the term is now tending to be regarded by museums as too imprecise, and replaced in descriptions by copper alloy, especially for older objects. Typically modern bronze is 88% copper and 12% tin, alpha bronze consists of the alpha solid solution of tin in copper. Alpha bronze alloys of 4–5% tin are used to make coins, the proportions of this mixture may suggest that the candlestick was made from a hoard of old coins. The Benin Bronzes are really brass, and the Romanesque Baptismal font at St Bartholomews Church, Liège is described as both bronze and brass. In the Bronze Age, two forms of bronze were used, classic bronze, about 10% tin, was used in casting. Bladed weapons were mostly cast from bronze, while helmets. On one definition, modern statuary bronze is 90% copper and 10% tin, the great civilizations of the old world worked in bronze for art, from the time of the introduction of the alloy for edged weapons. Dancing Girl from Mohenjodaro belonging to Harappan Civilization dating back to 2500 BCE is perhaps the first bronze statue of the world, the Greeks were the first to scale the figures up to life size. Few examples exist in good condition, one is the seawater-preserved bronze Victorious Youth that required painstaking efforts to bring it to its present state for museum display, far more Roman bronze statues have survived. Over the long period of Egyptian dynastic art, small lost-wax bronze figurines were made in large numbers. Sri Lankan Sinhalese Bronze statue of Buddhist Alakothiveshwara Tara Devi statue now in England is an example of Bronze statues. From the ninth through the century the Chola dynasty in South India represented the pinnacle of bronze casting in India. Making bronzes is highly skilled work, and a number of casting processes may be employed, including lost-wax casting, sand casting. The term bronze is also applied to metal sculptures made by electrotyping, although these sculptures are typically pure copper and their fabrication does not involve metal casting
12.
National Statuary Hall
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National Statuary Hall is a chamber in the United States Capitol devoted to sculptures of prominent Americans. The hall, also known as the Old Hall of the House, is a large, two-story and it is located immediately south of the Rotunda. The meeting place of the U. S. House of Representatives for nearly 50 years, the Hall is built in the shape of an ancient amphitheater and is one of the earliest examples of Neoclassical architecture in America. While most wall surfaces are painted plaster, the low gallery walls, around the rooms perimeter stand colossal columns of variegated breccia marble quarried along the Potomac River. The Corinthian capitals of white marble were carved in Carrara, Italy, a lantern in the fireproof cast-steel ceiling admits natural light into the Hall. The chamber floor is laid with black and white marble tiles, only two of the many statues presently in the room were commissioned for display in the original Hall of the House. Enrico Causicis neoclassical plaster Liberty and the Eagle looks out over the Hall from a niche above the colonnade behind what was once the Speakers rostrum, the sandstone relief eagle in the frieze of the entablature below was carved by Giuseppe Valaperta. Above the door leading into the Rotunda is the Car of History by Carlo Franzoni and this neoclassical marble sculpture depicts Clio, the Muse of History, riding in the chariot of Time and recording events in the chamber below. The wheel of the chariot contains the clock, the works are by Simon Willard. It has been said that John Quincy Adams took advantage of the Halls acoustics to eavesdrop on other members conversing on the side of the room. To test the acoustics today, one party should stand near the floor plaque marking Adams desk on the West side of the Hall while the party stands at the corresponding spot on the East side. However, this is only a myth, as the current half dome, the Adams story began long after Adams death as a tourist gimmick, according to Capitol historian William C. Though echoes were a significant problem, there is no documentation of a whisper spot prior to the twentieth century. This chamber is the hall and third meeting place built for the House of Representatives in this location. Prior to this, the House members met in a squat, oval, temporary building known as the Oven, which had been hastily erected in 1801. The first permanent Hall, designed by Benjamin Henry Latrobe, was completed in 1807, however, the Hall was rebuilt in its present form by Latrobe and his successor, Charles Bulfinch, between 1815 and 1819. Unfortunately, the smooth, curved ceiling promoted annoying echoes, making it difficult to conduct business, various attempts to improve the acoustics, including hanging draperies and reversing the seating arrangement, proved unsuccessful. The only solution to this problem was to build an entirely new Hall, in 1850, a new Hall was authorized, and the House moved into its present chamber in the new House wing in 1857
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This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Brown, Henry Kirke". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
