Art, history, and political drama all meld together in this one
dramatic story about one dramatic sculpture.
The nation's first federally-commissioned monument, Horatio Greenough's
huge marble statue of George Washington, sits near the entrance of the
Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. Meant to be the
symbolic focus of the whole continent--at the very center of the US
Capitol--the monument instead seems a sadly curious relic.
This book tells the tale of its demotion from stardom to obscurity: the
story is stranger than fiction, including an attempted murder; fights in
the USA, Britain, and Italy; and political maneuvering. Horatio
Greenough and the Form Majestic: The Biography of the Nation's First
Washington Monument presents new research into the complicated tale. It
translates and explains the monument's Latin inscription and offers the
story of how the work was brought to America by a sea captain
subsequently immortalized by Herman Melville. The book also untangles
and decodes the monument's symbolism for the average spectator and art
lovers alike.
This is the story of the commissioning, conception, execution,
transportation, installation and re-location, the public's bemused and
often fond reception, subsequently frequent re-positionings, and so much
more of the nation's first monument to George Washington. Horatio
Greenough's statue rests at the heart of an amazing tale, never told
before this book.
