Bowdoin College Museum of Art | - Rome (The Art Idea)

Preview image of work. oil on canvas, Rome (The Art Idea) 329

1893.37

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Rome (The Art Idea)

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Artist

Elihu Vedder (New York City, New York, 1836 - 1923, Rome, Italy)

Title

Rome (The Art Idea)

Creation Date

1894

Century

late 19th century

Dimensions

144 in. x 288 in. (365.76 cm x 731.5 cm)

Object Type

painting

Creation Place

North America, United States

Medium and Support

oil on canvas

Credit Line

Gift of the Misses Harriet Sarah and Mary Sophia Walker

Copyright

Public Domain

Accession Number

1893.37

The Museum’s central rotunda is a magisterial space decorated below the dome by four large semicircular murals by the four leading painters of the American Renaissance: Elihu Vedder, Kenyon Cox, Abbott Thayer and John LaFarge. They were commissioned by McKim who believed in the unity of the arts and constituted an extremely important ensemble of architectural decoration. The original mural scheme called for each artist to paint an allegorical representation of one of the four cities perceived at the time as most central to the development of western art. Elihu Vedder’s mural depicts Rome under whose gaze appear the different elements of art: Wisdom, Knowledge, Soul, Life, Harmony, Love, Color and Form.