|Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington D.C. a century ago, a watercolor dated 1908.|
A couple weeks ago I wrote about the artists who, over the years, have been inspired to paint the White House. In researching such works I found a number of similar paintings featuring the Capital city of the United States of America itself. Here I'm not talking about the painters of Washington, D. C., but their paintings. Their artists are often anonymous or quite obscure. Very often such work becomes a treasured part of our nations art heritage simply because of the subject, the artist's name bane being little more than a marginal note which eventually get's marginalized into anonymity. The same is often the case with the exact dates in which the work was created, leaving us frequently guessing even as to the decade from which work derived. In selecting these artists' impressions, I've consciously avoided standard tourist images in favor of works literally inspired by the city and its landmarks. Although the city has several world-class museums of art, I've taken to looking outside such vaulted institutions for art of the city, rather than art in the city.
|Aerial Construction View, Washington, D.C.--art inspired by the city planners.|
|Washington, D.C. Skyline, Michael Tompsett|
|A Beautiful Girl Painting the|
|A View of the Capitol of Washington, 1802 watercolor, William Birch|
|The United States Capitol at|
sunset (detail), M. Bleichner
|A Washington, D.C. wall mural depicting some of the city's most distinguished |
residents from the past. I have no idea who the lady in the middle might be.
|Reflections, 1988, Lee Teter.|