History
The land for Capitol Square was donated by Cyrus K. Holliday via his Topeka Town Company in 1862. The master architect was Edward Townsend Mix with the wings designed by John G. Haskell. Construction on the East Wing began in 1866, using "native" limestone from Geary County, Kansas. Construction began on the West Wing in 1879 using limestone from Cottonwood Falls, Kansas and in 1881, the legislature authorized and appropriated funds for the construction of a central building to link the two wings. Construction of this central building began in 1886, and the contract for dome construction was let in May, 1889. The building was declared officially complete in 1903, after thirty-seven years of construction.
It was not until 1988 that a design for a sculpture to stand atop the dome was finally approved. Ad Astra, a 22'-2" bronze sculpture weighing 4,420 lbs, was installed atop the dome on October 10, 2002. The sculpture depicts a Kansa Native American with bow and arrow pointed at the North Star and was chosen from 27 entries to adorn the dome. The title Ad Astra is Latin shortening of the state motto Ad Astra Per Aspera To the stars through difficulty. The sculptor is Richard Bergen.
In 1898, Jerome Fedeli painted frescos near the top of the dome in the rotunda. Fedeli's work depicted bare-breasted classical women. However officials referred to the paintings as "Nude Telephone Girls" and had them painted-over. In the 1930s, John Steuart Curry painted murals on the second floor including the building's most famous painting—Tragic Prelude—which depicts an oversize and raging John Brown wedged between flames and a tornado. Curry's work gained considerable notoriety for depicting unsavory aspects of Kansas history and he left them unsigned and did not complete a commission to paint murals in the rotunda. From 1976 to 1978, Lumen Martin Winter painted the murals in the rotunda.
Read more about this topic: Kansas State Capitol
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“No cause is left but the most ancient of all, the one, in fact, that from the beginning of our history has determined the very existence of politics, the cause of freedom versus tyranny.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)
“History does nothing; it does not possess immense riches, it does not fight battles. It is men, real, living, who do all this.... It is not “history” which uses men as a means of achieving—as if it were an individual person—its own ends. History is nothing but the activity of men in pursuit of their ends.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“You that would judge me do not judge alone
This book or that, come to this hallowed place
Where my friends’ portraits hang and look thereon;
Ireland’s history in their lineaments trace;
Think where man’s glory most begins and ends
And say my glory was I had such friends.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)