Study for Mural for Appellate Court Building, New York; "Statute Law", Helmet for Figure of "Force"

Download2291 × 2850 px View on a wall Edit

Artist: Kenyon Cox (American, 1856–1919)
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 17 x 13 7/8 in. (43.2 x 35.3 cm.)
Museum: Smithsonian Institution
Rights: CC0 — no rights reserved

At the turn of the twentieth century, American artists decorated important public buildings with colorful and theatrical murals, images that were meant to enhance architectural spaces and impart lessons of good taste and moral values. In 1898 the National Society of Mural Painters nominated Kenyon Cox and nine other members to create murals for the new state appellate court building in New York City.

The space given to Cox was the most challenging: Only four feet high and thirty-five feet long, it had two smaller, angled areas at each end. He chose to paint allegorical figures symbolizing the principles of law. This study for the figure of Force shows a woman wearing a helmet and looking out with a formidable expression; it is the kind of detailed sketch Cox made of each figure before beginning the mural. (Morgan, Kenyon Cox, 1856-1919: A Life in American Art, 1994)