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The Drama of Law in Nebraska State Capitol: Scupture and Inscription

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The Drama of Law in Nebraska State Capitol: Scupture and Inscription University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Great Plains Quarterly Great Plains Studies, Center for 1993 The Drama of Law in Nebraska State Capitol: Scupture and Inscription Robert Haller University of Nebraska-Lincoln Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly Part of the Other International and Area Studies Commons Haller, Robert, "The Drama of Law in Nebraska State Capitol: Scupture and Inscription" (1993). Great Plains Quarterly. 774. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly/774 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Great Plains Studies, Center for at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Great Plains Quarterly by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. THE DRAMA OF LAW IN THE NEBRASKA STATE CAPITOL SCULPTURE AND INSCRIPTIONS ROBERT HALLER Drama is the quality that Hartley Burr COLLABORATION: ALEXANDER, GOODHUE, Alexander, the "thematic consultant" for the AND LAWRIE Nebraska State Capitol, admired in the sculp­ ture of his time. In his role as consultant, Starting in 1898 Lawrie had supplied the Alexander fused the ideas of the building's sculpture for Goodhue's buildings. Some of architect, Bertram Goodhue, and its sculptor, their most successful collaborations are the Lee Lawrie, into a sustained programmatic in­ Pawtucket Public Library, the Cathedral of St. terpretation of society and law. This paper John the Divine and St. Bartholomew's Church discusses the significance and the development in New York City, the National Academy of of the twenty-one Lawrie sculptural panels Sciences, and, after the Nebraska State Capitol, around the cornices of the Capitol that illus­ the Los Angeles Public Library. The self-taught trate the "Development of Law."! Goodhue and the Yale-trained Lawrie had made themselves familiar with the traditions of public art, especially the Gothic, and had expanded the iconography then prevailing in church ar­ chitecture and decoration in the United States. Their stylistic compatibility complemented their shared sense of cultural values. Both were dedicated to drawing the public into pondering the meaning of a building by supplying viewers with images that they could identify within Robert Haller, professor of English at the University of configurations of meaning that challenged the Nebraska-Lincoln, has published widely in the fields of conventional wisdom on the subjects and in­ medieval and renaissance studies and linguistics. This vited viewers to transcend usual interpretations. essay represents a part of his continuing research on the Although Goodhue had rather whimsically writ­ Nebraska capitol. ten to Lawrie when he received the commission for the Nebraska State Capitol, saying that [GPQ 13 (Winter 1993): 3-201 Lawrie could not be the sculptor on the project 3 4 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, WINTER 1993 because the building was classical and Lawrie principles that served a "rejuvenated provin­ was Gothic, he was nonetheless determined to cialism" gave Goodhue and Lawrie faith in his work with Lawrie, whom he believed was the ability to focus their program on the state of premier sculptor of the time.2 Nebraska.4 They must have been convinced, Lawrie and Goodhue knew their medieval too, that he understood the close integration of and renaissance iconography and went well architecture and sculpture that the two had beyond nineteenth-century precedents in deco­ achieved. rating their cathedrals and Gothic churches. Alexander supplied Lawrie with several new For the history of the law, however, they had no subjects, including Nebraska statehood, and good early examples of thematic programs and commented on each panel before it took its final fell back on popular surveys of the history of form. (See Table 1.) He interpreted and built civilization such as James Henry Breasted's on the dramatic touch that Lawrie gave to all his Ancient Times: A History of the Early WoruP work, focusing on the drama of the law's devel­ The original program for the exterior panels of opment as he understood it. Without directly the Nebraska Capitol featured deliberative bod­ refuting the idea of Law as detached, objective, ies, constitutions, proclamations, and law codes. and external to human action and passion, There is no indication that the deliberative Alexander gave Law the dynamic quality found bodies would be shown doing anything other at the focal points of great conflicts in American than deliberating. Of the original subjects, only life and history. According to an article he "Burke Defending Americans," the "Trial of wrote in 1931, Alexander believed that a sculp­ Orestes," and the "Secession of the Plebs" sug­ ture should be not merely a period tableau but gest dramatic scenes. The rest of the subjects a work of plastic art, framed as "a sequence of would be period tableaux, differentiated by sought moments, each the thrilling pause in costume and architectural milieu, and present­ which the action is stayed, as by a gesture of ing the variety of codes and constitutions of the command, for but so long as will suffice for the Western world (Ten Commandments, Magna one unforgettable pose, breath-taking, before Charta, Petition of Rights) and of the United its dramatic resolution."5 States (Mayflower Compact, Connecticut Con­ Alexander recognized that the conception of stitution, Declaration of Independence, Con­ Law contained in the Goodhue/Lawrie program stitution, Emancipation Proclamation). View­ was additive, not dramatic. They understood ers would be invited to call upon their own American democracy as taking bits and pieces historical knowledge to identify the figures and from the institutions and documents that pre­ to determine why a particular deliberative body ceded it. In contrast, Alexander sought to get or legislator should be accepted as a precedent his own dramatic conception into the program for American and Nebraskan legal processes. and to show each element of the good society While this might lead a viewer to a certain emerging from confrontation and taking its appreciation for history, it would not express place in the consciousness of those who carryon "The Drama of Law." the work of the Law in the present. Only with One suspects that Goodhue initially intended some degree of strife and internal conflict can to restrict Alexander, the local Nebraska histo­ democracies progress toward justice and reason. rian and philosopher, to supplying a few inscrip­ tions that would bring out the latent content of COLLABORATION ON THE SOUTH the existing program. Alexander, however, ELEVATION soon showed the architect and sculptor that he had a vital role to play in the collaboration. He The spirit of the original program is still convinced them that their design for a winged manifest on the south elevation. The two buffalo was inappropriate for the building and panels at the corners depict codifiers of law. his explanation of the intellectual and artistic The three on the balcony depict the signing or NEBRASKA STATE CAPITOL SCULPTURE 5 TABLE 1 Position Goodhue/Lawrie Original Alexander Revision Entrance Arch 1. (a) Wisdom (b) Force (c) Equity 1. (a) Wisdom (b) Justice (c)Power (d) Mercy (d) Mercy Constant Guardians of the Law Entrance Door 2. Migration of the Pioneers 2. Migration of the Pioneers South Balcony 3. (a) Declaration of Independence 3. (a) Declaration of Independence (b) Magna Charta (b) Magna Charta (c) Constitution (c) Constitution Tower 4. Eight engaged figures, Explorers 4. Eight engaged figures, Geniuses (a) Norse: Leif Ericson (a) History: Pentaour (b) Italian: Columbus (b) Cosmic: Ezekiel (c) Portuguese: Magellan (c) Reason: Socrates (d) English: (Port) Cabot (d) Law: Marcus Aurelius (e) Spain: Coronado (e) Faith: Apostle John (f) France: Cartier (f) Chivalry: St. Louis IX (g) Dutch: Hudson (g) Nature: Newton (h) English: Drake (h) Liberation: Lincoln Corners 5. (a) Trial of Orestes* 5. (a) Moses and Tables of Law* (b) Athenian Ecclesia (b) Deborah Judges Israel* (c) Roman Senate: Pyrrhic War (c) Judgment of Solomon* [West elevation comes here] [West elevation comes here] (d) Doge and Council of Venice (d) Plato Writes Republic (e) French Etats general (e) Trial of Orestes* (f) French Convention (f) Justinian's Code [South balcony comes here] [South balcony comes here] (g) Witenagemot (g) Ethelbert's Code (h) Model Parliament 1295 (h) Milton and Areopagitica (i) Burke Defending Americans* (i) Burke Defending Americans* [East elevation comes here] [East elevation comes here] (j) Mayflower Compact* (j) Louisiana Purchase (k) Connecticut Constitution (k) Kanasas-Nebraska Bill (I) William Penn (I) Nebraska Statehood East Elevation 6. (a) Emancipation Proclamation* 6. (a) Las Casas and Indians (b) Moses with tables of Law* (b) Mayflower Compact* (c) Deborah judges over Israel* (c) Emancipation Proclamation* West Elevation 7. (a) Judgment of Solomon* 7. (a) Solon gives laws to Athens (b) Secession of the Plebs to Mons Sacer* (b) The Twelve Tables (c) Charles Q and Petition of Rights (c) Secession of the Plebs to Mons Sacer* South Elevation 8. Ten half-length figures around stack room 8. Ten half-length figures around stack room (a) Akhnaton (b) Hammurabi (a) Akhnaton (b) Hammurabi (c) Minos (d) Moses (c) Minos (d) Moses (e) Caesar (f) Justinian (e) Caesar (f) Justinian (g) Napoleon (h) Solon (g) Napoleon (h) Solon (i) Solomon (j) Charlemagne (i) Solomon (j) Charlemagne Table 1. Comparison of Goodhue/Lawrie program with Alexander's revisions. Asterisks indicate elements common to both schemes. The scheme for the Goodhue/Lawrie original is on an unmarked and undated sheet in the Denison Library File, Nebraska State Capitol, near the original correspondence concerning the subjects for the capitol. Alexander's revisions are excerpted from the final Thematic Synopsis produced by Alexander in 1926. Copies are in the Capitol Archives. (See also McReady, note 1 below.) 6 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, WINTER 1993 Justinian and Ethelbert are calm and untroubled-no crisis compelled them to codify their laws.
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