ext_13337 ([identity profile] fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com) wrote in [personal profile] sovay 2015-07-25 03:20 pm (UTC)

As I am from Missouri, I perforce grew up with Benton's art, as he was born and raised there. His great-great-uncle, the elder Thomas Hart Benton, was one of Missouri's first U.S. senators (his daughter Jessie married John Charles Frémont, if that helps fit him into a pattern), and before he moved to Missouri he fought a duel with Andrew Jackson.

One of the artist Benton's (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hart_Benton_(painter)?wprov=sfti1) originally controversial works (he'd already depicted Indiana history a little too honestly, so they should have known) is in a caucus room at the Missouri state Capitol; it includes Jesse James and Frankie and Johnny, in both cases mid-felony. It's called A Social History of Missouri* (http://travelphotobase.com/v/USMOK/MOJC411.HTM). Benton considered it one of his better works. Schoolchildren are shown it when they visit the Capitol and adore it; it's full of real people. His fellow Regionalists include Grant Wood and John Steuart Curry, whose Kansas Statehouse painting of John Brown is iconic. Benton did a lot with Greek myths; the Wikipedia article in the link includes the painting of Hercules wrestling Achelous, and I remember one of Hades and Persephone but I don't recall where it's held.

Benton hated museums; he saw them as places where art is embalmed & buried away from people. He was a populist, and along with his virtues, applied the courage of his convictions to his bigotries.

*the link goes to one of the sections, which includes Huck and Jim on the raft; the site has the other sections as well.

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