Domenico Ghirlandaio

Said to be a self-portrait,
figure from Adoration of the Magi,
circa 1488, Domenico Ghirlandaio

To be successful as a professional, an artist must please those with the wealth to afford his services. This fact is as true today as it was five hundred years ago. The Renaissance painter, Raphaello Sanzio once likened this, quite favorably, to being a harlot. Today, as in Raphael's time, talent and hard work are important, but knowing the right people, and knowing how to curry their favor, is just as important if the artist likes to eat, even more so if he cares to live well. Though not from Florence, Raphael studied there for a time as a teenager and one of his best friends was another artist a little younger than he, named Ridolfo. Like Raphael, Ridolfo was quite good at painting portraits, which wasn't surprising considering who his father was. Ridolfo's father ran one of the most successful art workshops in all Florence. His name was Ghirlandaio (pronounced GER-land-EYE-o). Actually that wasn't his real name at all but something of a corporate identity his family and workshop had taken on to advertise the fact that, as goldsmiths, they'd invented and made popular gold garlands for women and girls of high fashion to wear in their hair. Ghirlande is Italian for garland, Ghirlandaio simply meant "maker of garlands." His real name was Domenico di Tommaso Bigordi. 

Though no gold hair garlands
survive from the period,
this book of hours has been
attributed to Ghirlandaio's
goldlsmithing workshop
dating from 1485

Domenico liked to design things made of gold, but even as an apprentice, cared little for making them.  He preferred to paint.  His early work bears the influence of the Italians, Masaccio and Fra Filippo Lippi, along with the Northern influence of Hugo van der Goes. It was a unique mixture. Along with his two younger brothers and later his son, the Ghirlandaio shop competed with that of the other major artist of the Florentine School at the time, Sandro Botticelli, for the important private and church commissions of the day--portraits, altarpieces, gold and silver chalices used to serve mass, and most importantly, the massive frescos needed to decorate all the new churches being built and remodeled under the economic prosperity of the ruling Medici and their wealthy banking partners.  Ghirlandaio knew how to please these wealthy families. He was a portrait painter, but more than that, he often used them and their offspring as models, painting their likenesses into important religious works. Add to this the use of their luxurious palazzos as settings and the modern dress of the day, one might think John the Baptist or the Virgin Mary were born and raised in Florence.

Birth of St Mary, 1586-90. Domenico Ghirlandaio, Santa Maria Novello, Florence, Italy

That's exactly the impression one comes away with in viewing Ghirlandaio's Birth of the Virgin, a fresco for Santa Maria Novella in Florence. The fresco, painted around 1486, framed between two highly decorated, square pilasters (with a third, identical one painted in between; becoming part of the scene itself), depicts the interior of the Tornabuoni home (wealthy friends of the Medici). A staircase is displayed on the left, while St. Anne, the mother of Mary, reclines somewhat stiffly on an elevated bed.  Five female members of the Tornabuoni family stand by bearing congratulatory wishes, observing the newborn baby (Mary) about to receive a bath. Ghirlandaio was as much a master of the rather complex one-point perspective as he was the standing figures, their portrait faces, and their fashionable attire. A wide, tromp l'oeil, sculptured frieze of putti near the ceiling of the room is especially eye-catching. But perhaps the most beautiful and exciting rendering in the whole painting is that of a lowly maid on the far right, pouring water into a bath basin. Like the illusionary sculpture of the frieze it does not appear to have been painted by Ghirlandaio or any of his brothers. The flowing, dynamic movement of the young girl's dress and the fluid grace of her face and pose suggest it was done by a talented young apprentice studying fresco in the Ghirlandaio workshop at the time. His name was Michelangelo Buonarroti.

Birth of St. Mary (detail) said to be by
the hand of Michelangelo

Diagnosing Dead Artists

One of the things I find most interesting as I continually probe the lives of famous artists is the amazing range in ages when they died. Of course as little as a century ago the average life span even here in the U.S. was a mere 47 years. Today, we routinely expect people to live well into their 70's, so the numbers are naturally skewed lower in the distant centuries, all of which makes some of the very long life spans of certain artists hundred of years ago all the more remarkable. Raphael was a mere 38 years old when he died. His contemporary, Michelangelo, lived to be 89. Among the Mannerist painters from about the same period, Giorgione and Titian present a similar range. Giorgione died at the age of 33, while Titian, born in 1478, died in 1576 (his birth date is somewhat uncertain) making him around 98 years of age, probably a record for famous painters.

Rembrandt Self-portrait, 1859,
ten years before his death,
Washington National Gallery of Art

Detail of the artist's
left temporal artery

This Rembrandt self-portrait
 (detail) dating from 1669,
said to be his last before he
died, shows no indication
of an enlarged artery on
his right side.

Some time ago, a Dr. Carlos H. Espinel, a professor at Georgetown University, was wondering through Washington's National Gallery of Art when he came upon one of Rembrandt's many self portraits (above, left). His doctor's trained eye noticed something unusual. It would seem that Rembrandt's left temporal artery was enlarged. Through this and the study of several other late self-portraits by the seventeenth century master, he has diagnosed Rembrandt as having died from temporal arteritis. Later research from non-pictorial sources have tended to confirm this. A study of Leonardo's Mona Lisa has led Espinel to believe her mystical smile may have been the result of partial paralysis of a branch of a facial muscle.

A detail from Raphael's
School of Athens, 1509-10,
depicts Michelangelo at age 35,
apparently already suffering from gout.

From a portrait of Michelangelo by Raphael, painted as part of his School of Athens (detail at left), fresco in the Vatican, Espinel has zeroed in on some prominent bumps on the sculptor's exposed right knee. He categorizes them as "tophi"--deposits of uric acid salts. Letters and poems by Michelangelo indicate he suffered from kidney stones, all of which has led the doctor to postulate Michelangelo probably died of gout (not an uncommon ailment at the time). He pictures Michelangelo, a confirmed workaholic all his life, as living off a diet of bread and wine (processed by Italians at the time in lead containers) as well as the likelihood he was exposed to lead based paints; all confirmed causes of the typical hunchback indicating gout, precisely as depicted in Raphael's painting. As for Raphael's early death, Espinel speculates it may have resulted from the dashing young artist's penchant for sexual excess carried to unhealthy extremes. Contemporary writings and letters suggest various venereal diseases may have led to the weakening of his heart, which would account for the surprising suddenness of his death.

Raphael da Sanzio, sexual

excesses and venereal diseases?

Espinel writes regularly on the subject of "ArtMedicine" for the British medical journal The Lancet. His studies have also centered on artists of this century, particularly the Dutch-born abstractionist, Willem DeKooning, who suffered from Alzheimer's toward the end of his life, though Espinel has found evidence in his painting that he may have enjoyed a surprising remission, at least in the physical debilitation of the dread disease, for up to a year. DeKooning died in 1997. Espinel considers art to be a valid tool for studying dementia, a framework for studying the mind itself, as well as a means toward gaining a better understanding of the lives and deaths of the great artists of the past.

A Sketch by Daumier

Perhaps Michelangelo's The Drunkeness of Noah
reminded Picasso of this drawing by Daumier
titled  Rue Transnonain from 1834.

When Pablo Picasso obtained enough wealth from his work to allow him to travel widely, like any self-respecting artist, he found that all roads led to Rome. And though not in fact, in Rome, for the artist at least, all roads led to the Vatican. And once in the Vatican, in spite of the looming power of the magnificent cathedral, for the artist, all roads (corridors?) led to the Sistine Chapel next door.  Picasso, as artists and tourist alike have done for five centuries, strained his neck and gazed upward in awe at what Michelangelo and Pope Julius II hath wrought. "It's like a vast sketch by Daumier."  He said.  Not the reaction one might expect, even from Picasso. Who was this sketcher extraordinaire that Picasso should admire him so?

Gargantua, 1831, Honore Daumier

Honore Daumier (pronounced UN-or-AY DOME-yay) was born in 1808. He started drawing at age thirteen and his first job as an artist was in the role of what we would call today a political cartoonist, though at the time one couldn't much think of such a calling as an occupation.  But he was good at it.  In fact, too good for his own good.  His first drawing landed him in jail for six months. He had the audacity to portray the king, Louis-Phillipe, as Gargantua, the gluttonous ogre in a French storybook.  Daumier was in good company--his publisher was jailed too. And while the cartooning business didn't pay much (nothing, actually), he did earn his first fees as an artist about the same time--as a sign painter. The king eventually banned all political cartoons so Daumier took to drawing insightful, amusing pictures of the French bourgeoisie instead. One depicted a lady in a blizzard, her "bustle" (a cosmetic device made of springs hidden beneath a lady's skirts to accentuate her derrière) hosting quite an accumulation of snow. A shopkeeper asks, "Would you like a touch of the broom, madam?"  With these he was able to earn a modest living.

The Print Lover, 1857-60, Honore Daumier

Daumier painted too, though like his cartoons, his efforts with a brush were so highly individual as to constitute a style unto themselves. Technically, one would have to class him with the Realists though his style was in no way realistic. However his choice of subjects was very much in line with those of Realism's Corot and Courbet in depicting the humble, modest, lower classes as they struggled with the daily grind of 19th century existence. Politically, Daumier was a life-long republican, not to be confused with the American creatures by the same name. Quite the  opposite, Daumier was very much a liberal. Being a republican in France at that time meant he opposed autocratic rule, which made him a target for the ruling governments of all but eight years of his life. And it wasn't just autocrats he like to skewer with is steel pen--lawyers and judges took it on the chin too. Only in the last years of his life did his paintings and engravings begin to bring respectable prices; and even then his work appealed more to artists and collectors than to the middle-classes he delighted in lampooning. He died in 1879 and enjoyed a state funeral staged by a friendly republican government (costing all of twelve francs). And from that time on, his reputation began to rise. He was an artist's artist, and thus it should come as little surprise that Picasso, another artist's artist, should compare the great Michelangelo to him.

The Legislative Belly, 1834, Honore Daumier, a cartoon appropriate even today.

Currier and Ives

Ruins of the Merchants' Exchange, 1835,
Currier & Ives

Each of us have, in our mind's eye, a visual image of what it was like to live a hundred or hundred and fifty years ago. Perhaps the most vivid of these come from movies, westerns such as Stagecoach, small period pieces like Little Women, or great epics like Gone with the Wind. Some of our images come from the genre paintings of the era, such as the work of Eastman Johnson. In some cases, crude photos of great events come to mind, all of which have served to illustrate the ponderous old American history books we all used to lug back and forth to class every day in high school. And, if we still had those books, and peered into them once again, we might realize yet another type of imagery we've probably forgotten about, but which once made up a very great part of how American's saw themselves in the 19th century--the lithographic print. And at the top of that pictorial genre is the name, Currier and Ives.

Awful Conflagration of the Steamboat Lexington in Long Island Sound, 1840, Currier & Ives

In the 1800s, lithographic art was a relatively new thing. It was invented by the Bavarian artist, Alois Senefelder as late as 1798, employing smoothly ground, porous native limestone in a fairly complex printing process involving a grease pencil, water, and oil based inks. It was 1825 before the process found its way to the U.S. as William and John Pendleton began a printing business in Boston using Senefelder's methods. It was there, around 1830, they hired an eighteen-year-old apprentice named Nathaniel Currier to help in the business. Around 1833, Currier left the firm to work with Philadelphia lithographer M.E.D. Brown, who produced printed scientific illustrations. Two years later, Currier moved to New York intending to work once more for John Pendleton who had opened an office there.  Instead, he ended up buying the fledgling branch office and starting his own firm--N. Currier.

Not all Currier & Ives prints had to do

with firey disasters, some dealt with

much more "important" matters, as in

Kiss Me Quick, from the 1840s

In the beginning, Currier produced sheet music, letterheads, and other stock in trade printed items, but two early lithographic editions, Ruins of the Planters Hotel and Ruins of the Merchant's Exchange N.Y. (top, left) quickly underlined the marketing potential for pictures of current events, launching the new company in the direction it would take for the next seventy-five years. Currier capitalized on his ability to create depictions of newsworthy events (usually dramatic catastrophies such as the Lexington Steamboat fire, above) just days after their occurrence. In 1852, he hired James Merritt Ives as his head bookkeeper. Five years later, the books in order, and Ives' marketing savvy propelling the firm to new heights, he was made a full partner. Currier and Ives was born. Both men were competent, if not exceptional artists, outstanding lithographers, and shrewd businessmen. They also had a keen eye and gut feeling for that which the various levels of American society wanted hanging on their walls.

American Homestead Winter, Currier & Ives

Whether nostalgic urban dwellers longing for their frontier roots, or Midwestern farmers yearning for depictions of urban sophistication, Currier and Ives' vast selection filled the bill. Their portfolio eventually grew to some 7,500 different images. And whether marketed through big city print shops, Sears and Roebuck catalogs, or country peddlers, this inexpensive form of art reproduction became practically synonymous with middle-class Victorian decor. Currier and Ives brought to life the work of artists as diverse as Frances Palmer, Arthur F. Tait, Louis Maurer, John Schutler, James Butterworth, Thomas Worth, and perhaps most memorably, the snowy, country homestead scenes of George H. Durrie, which we've all seen on Christmas cards (above, left) invoking a simple, agrarian past steeped in sentimentality even when they were first printed in the 1860s. Currier died in 1888, Ives in 1895.  The firm passed to their sons who continued together until 1902 when the younger Currier sold out to the younger Ives who in turn liquidated much of the stock and sold the company to a Daniel W. Logan, in 1907. By that time, except in some areas of rural America, the Currier and Ives style and printing techniques had been supplanted by much more modern ones. Today, thanks to revivals of interest in the 1920s and 30s original Currier and Ives lithographs are much sought after by collectors and history buffs, kind of making them the "baseball cards" of the art world.

Cornelius Gijsbrechts



Self-portrait to Still-Life, 1663, Cornelius Gijsbrechts

During the latter part of the thirteenth century, the great Medieval painter, Cimabue, one Monday morning came to work in his studio and picked up his brushes to continue his work on a large altarpiece, his famed Madonna Enthroned. Climbing up the scaffolding to the top of the nearly thirteen-foot-tall painting, he found a fly on the nose of the Madonna which he'd painted just a few days before. Given the fact that the painting medium was made from egg yolks, flies and other insects were often a problem when the paint was fresh. He tried three time to frighten it off, only to realize finally, that one of his apprentices, the painter Giotto, had painted the fly on the Madonna's nose as a practical joke. That may or may not have been the beginning of what the French dubbed "tromp l'oeil" (fool the eye) painting, but there's no doubt such work has been a persistent presence in art going back nearly that far. Today we see it in what's variously known as "Super Realism" or "Photo Realism" and of course traditional and non-traditional still-life paintings. It's a type of painting that, while not spectacular, is something of a spectacle, beloved by realist artists as a means of showing off their technical virtuosity, and by viewers for its magic in fooling their eyes, if only for a moment, into confusing reality with illusion. It's an area of art I've recently played with though I'm no match for the likes of Cornelius Gijsbrechts (don't ask how to pronounce that).

Reverse Side of Painting, 1670, Cornelius Gijsbrechts

Magic is a good word for this type of art. Gijsbrechts, one might say, was almost as much magician as painter. Don't be surprised if you've never heard of him, he seems to have magically appeared in Copenhagen at the court of King Frederick III in 1668. He played the royal audience for four years then just as mysteriously as he'd appeared, he vanished in 1672, never to be seen again. But during those four years, he certainly wowed the crowd. And when the king died, his show was booked for a second run during the first two years of the reign of his successor, Christian V. This king even build a museum with an entire room, the perspectivekammer, devoted entirely to Gijsbrechts' astonishing images. So, what did Cornelius paint that so enamored the Danish royal court?  On a shelf in the National Gallery in London sits a framed painting, leaning against the wall, facing it. Oops, sorry, don't touch, it's not a framed painting at all, but an unframed canvas depicting the back of a framed painting.

Trompe l'oeil-staffeli med frugtstykke'
1768-72, Cornelius Gijsbrechts

Elsewhere in the exhibit stands an artists easel, on it, a still-life in progress, another painting leaning against the legs of the easel, again facing away from the viewer while on the base tray are the tools of the artist's trade. You guessed it, the whole thing, easel and all, is a ruse, painted in one piece on a single wooden panel, complete with rear leg and holes cut in the appropriate locations over and under the painting. Damn, wish I'd thought of that.

An Open Cupboard, 1665,
 Cornelius Gijsbrechts

The Dutch loved their vanitas still-life paintings, and judging by his style and name, Gijsbrechts may have been Dutch. Several of his more traditional (if you can call them that) fool-the-eye still-lifes have the typical vanitas elements (burning candles, flowers, bubbles, food, insects, etc.) of this type of painting, though often with a twist, such as an illusionary torn spot in the canvas, edges painted to look frayed, even some painted dirt and grime to make them look old.  In one case, a painted tack is posed opposite the real thing. One of Gijsbrechts more remarkable works features a small cupboard (right)with what appears to be glass in its doors. One door is a painted illusion, an identical one to its right is real. And when opened, it reveals the painted contents of the cupboard just as they appear through the illusionary glass. On the inside of the "door" several letters and momentos which appear from the front to be tucked inside between the glass and frame, are painted as seen from the back. Closer inspection reveals the hinged cupboard door is nothing more than a stretched canvas painted on both sides. I love Gijsbrechts work, but in discovering it, I've become somewhat disillusioned. Just when you think you're onto something new, you discover some Dutch genius was doing it over three hundred years ago!

Colonial Architecture

Post-medieval English, sometimes called Tudor style

Without a doubt one of the most confusing areas of art has to do with architectural styles and in particular those involving domestic architecture...not domestic simply as in USA, but domestic in terms of domiciles--homes. But speaking of USA, of these styles, probably the most difficult and terribly overused is the term "Colonial." Technically, that means those in existence before 1776, but even that limitation does little to simplify the designation. It's like referring to all 20th century architecture as "modern."

The House of Seven Gables, made famous by
Nathaniel Hawthorne (Salem, Mass.), dates from
1668 and is the purest example of early
New England Colonial architecture surviving.

The earliest "colonial" architecture might rightly be called Post-medieval English (above, left) though in appearance the "post" part might be a bit optimistic. It typically features brick construction, a central chimney mass serving two to four fireplaces, small doors, and even smaller, leaded glass window panes. Southern versions sometimes had chimneys at either ends of the gabled roof. The phrase "plain Jane" comes to mind. The clapboard "saltbox" style, sometimes with a front overhang of the second story is a later variation of this style. A little later, small dormers appeared. A little later still, especially in the North, numerous gables developed as in the "House of Seven Gables" (above, right).

Dutch Colonial style dating from 1658,
Gloucester County, Virginia

In the New York area (and elsewhere) there developed what has been called the Dutch Colonial style (left). Usually one-and-a-half stories, the most notable feature being its gambrel roof, having two distinctively different angles of slope. Tradition has it that Dutch carpenters applied ship building techniques, in a sense, creating an inverted "hull" to make up the roof. This had the advantage of creating a great deal of head room on the second level and thus more usable living space. Dormers are also quite common along with flared eaves in the front and little or no overhang on the ends. Small front porches and larger side porches are quite common in more recent adaptations. Stone, and wood were the most common building materials. What we commonly think of as Cape Cod style is an offspring of the Dutch Colonial root.

Photo by A. Balet

The French Colonial Maison Berquette-Ribault,

1789, St. Genevieve, Missouri

In the South we have the distinctly different French Colonial style (right) typical of the Mississippi Delta area. Quite often of brick or stone with a hipped roof (sloping on four sides), they were typically only one-room deep with outside entrances to each room and tall, slender, shuttered, multi-paned windows. Rural versions sometimes have a raised front porch with the main roof overhanging it supported by slender wooden posts. Urban versions often have painted, wrought iron balconies. Dispersal of summer heat and humidity was a prime architectural concern. Brick versions are often painted white. Frequently, a roofed, pavilion style porch extends around on all four sides, even on two-storied structures. Window treatments are usually very simple except in cases where there is an English influence. Arched doors and windows are not uncommon.

The Gonzales-Alvarez House (1727),
St. Augustine, Florida, is probably the purest
surviving example of the Spanish Colonial style.

In the far West and Florida we find Spanish Colonial architecture of brick, stone, adobe, or stucco, sometimes with wooden second stories added later. Exposed beams both inside and out are sometimes seen. Red tile roofs are common in western versions where flat or very gently sloping "shed" type roofs can be found. Doors and windows are often mere holes in the wall differing only in size and shape. The use of wood is mostly limited to floors and roof areas. Doors and shutters appear "homemade" except in areas where English influences reached. Cantilevered, roofed balconies are quite common too on larger, later versions of this style.

Georgian colonial, Reed Creek Farm, eastern
Maryland, 1775

The most common visualization we have of Colonial architecture should, more rightfully be called "Georgian" (right, also discussed in the previous entry). It takes its name from the reign of England's King George III and is common all up and down the east coast and as far inland as the Appalachian Mountains. There are examples with nearly every different type roof mentioned so far. Door and window treatments were simple in the beginning, but as this style grew in popularity, Adam and Palladian styles with their Greek and Roman influences became common. Some grew quite ornate featuring broken pediments, arches, and fancy masonry. Brick was the most common material, especially for those still in existence today Add-on wings, dormers, and roof balustrades helped decorate these homes. Southern versions often included Grecco-Roman or "Mount Vernon" porticoes, ideal for hot, sunny days. In the North, entry porticoes were small or non-existent. Most versions were two-storied but examples of three-storied structures often exist in urban areas along with end-abutted "townhouse" derivatives. This style, in the early 19th century eventually morphed into the still more ornate and urban "Federal" style (below), which is often lumped (inaccurately) in with the Colonial style. So, next time you hear someone talk about "colonial" architecture, tell them to be more specific.

The Federal style, Woodlawn, 1805, William Thorton

Classical Revival Architecture

Classical Revival style in its purest form seen
here in Benjamin Latrobe's 1798-1804 Bank of
Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA

It would be convenient, in studying early American architecture, if the building of Colonial style homes had ceased promptly on July 4, 1776, and a whole new style had been born that day along with the new nation. Fortunately for us, the Declaration of Independence was about politics, not architecture, though certainly Thomas Jefferson, being the Renaissance man he was, could have written as eloquently about one as the other. Well, actually, he did, though his words on architecture are far outshone by his deeds. His magnificently well thought out and well proportioned statement on Classic Revival architecture embodied in his own Monticello reads as passionately, yet logically in bricks and mortar as does his immortal words to King George on parchment.

Adam style fireplace details, 1770

In general, I don't care much for "revival" architecture. Very often it can best be described as "kitsch," and in most cases, the two terms are synonyms--architecture imitating architecture. Yet, imitative or not, I love Classical Revival (top, right). Part of the reason is that Classical Revival humanized the cold, hard, geometrically dominated Classical style. I suppose, in giving it some thought, all revivalist styles do this, it's just that the Classical style of the Greeks and Romans so badly needed humanizing while all the others, didn't so much. After all, Classical architecture was the style of Roman temples, government buildings, art museums, some churches, hospitals, libraries, and bath houses. It was magnificent and grandiose, but not often very human or even on a human scale. It was the architecture of the gods!



The Georgian style Hammond-Harwood House, 1774, Anapolis, Maryland



In discussing Colonial architecture there's mostly the Georgian period just prior to the revolution (as seen above).  Though it appeared before 1776, the first hint of the upcoming Classical Revival came during the 1780s up through the 1820s in the form of what's called the Adam style (above, left). No, it was not a primitive post and lintel architecture named for the husband of Eve; but for the British architect, Robert Adam, who, along with his younger brother, had the most important architectural practice in all England during the latter part of the 18th century. If one were to describe the Adam style, it would be as a transitional movement from Georgian to true Classical Revival. There are still many Georgian elements and proportions present but it's in the details, the window and door designs, cupolas, balustrades, cornices, steps, iron balconies, and other adornments that the Adam style presaged Classical Revival. The decorations were beautiful, like fine jewelry, lots of fanlight windows, arched door frames, masonry insets with carved swags, restrained pediments over doors (or entrance stoops), curved steps, and paneled shutters. Sometimes this style is referred to as the "Federal Style," though this designation is prone to mixing the politics and architecture of the time.

Unlike many "revival" styles, Classical Revival
translates well to domestic applications as seen
in the modest, wood, single story Kempf house,
dating from 1852-53 in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Every July Fourth we think back to the American founding fathers. In addition to Jefferson, we might also consider some of the founding fathers of American architecture as well, all of whom came to their profession copying the Adam style of their English cousins before moving on to the full-fledged Classical Revival that was to become synonymous with the democratic ideals of their new nation. From Boston came Charles Bulfinch; from Savannah, William Jay; from Philadelphia, Benjamin Latrobe; from Charleston, Gabriel Manigault; from New York, John McComb; from Massachusetts, Samuel McIntire; and from Maine, Alexander Parris. It would be romantic, not to mention inspirational, to think of these great designers, artists, and builders from all over the colonies as having met somewhere across town from Independence hall to sign some great architectural manifesto of independence from Great Britain. Sadly, it didn't happen. Given the geography and provincial nature of the American colonies, most of them probably didn't even know each other. Yet independently, these founding fathers guided their new nation's carpenters and craftsmen into the molding of a new national architecture reflecting the same noble, democratic, human principals as those of Jefferson and his cohorts.