| The Rotunda | |
|---|---|
 Frontispiece to Views of the Public Buildings in the City of New York 1827. | |
 | |
| General information | |
| Location | Manhattan, New York City |
| Opened | 1818 |
| Demolished | 1870 |
The Rotunda was a building that stood in City Hall Park in Lower Manhattan, New York City, from 1818 to 1870. [1]
The Rotunda was built at the initiative of American artist John Vanderlyn to display panoramic paintings. According to historians Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace, Vanderlyn was motivated by the refusal of the city's cultural elite to include paintings such as his nude Ariadne Asleep on the Island of Naxos [2] in public exhibitions on the grounds that it was an affront to public decency. [3] Backed by John Jacob Astor and other wealthy New Yorkers, he built The Rotunda. Widely regarded as the city's first art museum, [4] [5] [1] it operated on a commercial footing. [3]
The building was designed on the model of The Pantheon in Rome. It was fifty-six feet (17 m) in diameter, crowned with a thirty-foot (9.1 m) dome. [3]
The Rotunda opened in 1818 to display Vanderlyn's Panoramic View of the Palace and Gardens of Versailles, [3] a cyclorama now on display in a purpose-built, circular room in the American Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York City. [6] In the painting, to the right of the Latona Fountain, Vanderlyn painted himself pointing towards Czar Alexander I of Russia and King Frederick William III of Prussia. [6]
In time its use changed to housing government agencies, and the building was altered accordingly. [4] [1] On November 5, 1852, in the offices of the Croton Aqueduct Department, the American Society of Civil Engineers and Architects was founded. [5] The society held meetings at this location from 1853 to 1855. [7]
Today, a bronze plaque inside the park marks the site of the Rotunda. [5]
The Palace of Versailles is a former royal residence commissioned by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, about 18 kilometres (11 mi) west of Paris, France.
Panoramic paintings are massive artworks that reveal a wide, all-encompassing view of a particular subject, often a landscape, military battle, or historical event. They became especially popular in the 19th century in Europe and the United States, inciting opposition from some writers of Romantic poetry. A few have survived into the 21st century and are on public display. Typically shown in rotundas for viewing, panoramas were meant to be so lifelike they confused the spectator between what was real and what was image.
The year 2002 in art involves various significant events.
The Palace of Fine Arts is a monumental structure located in the Marina District of San Francisco, California, originally built for the 1915 Panama–Pacific International Exposition to exhibit works of art. It was constructed from concrete and steel, and the building was claimed to be fireproof. According to a metal plate at the rotunda, it was rebuilt under B.F. Modglin, local manager of MacDonald & Kahn, between 1964 and 1967. In the years 1973 and 1974, the columniated pylons were added. It is the only structure from the exposition that survives on site.
A cyclorama is a panoramic image on the inside of a cylindrical platform, designed to give viewers standing in the middle of the cylinder a 360° view, and also a building designed to show a panoramic image. The intended effect is to make viewers, surrounded by the panoramic image, feel as if they were standing in the midst of the place depicted in the image.
John Vanderlyn was an American neoclassicist painter.
The Burghers of Calais is a sculpture by Auguste Rodin in twelve original castings and numerous copies. It commemorates an event during the Hundred Years' War, when Calais, a French port on the English Channel, surrendered to the English after an eleven-month siege. The city commissioned Rodin to create the sculpture in 1884 and the work was completed in 1889.
A cosmorama is an exhibition of perspective pictures of different places in the world, usually world landmarks. Careful use of illumination and lenses gives the images greater realism.
Robert Walter Weir was an American artist and educator and is considered a painter of the Hudson River School. Weir was elected to the National Academy of Design in 1829 and was an instructor at the United States Military Academy. His best-known work is Embarkation of the Pilgrims in the United States Capitol rotunda in Washington, D.C. More than 450 of his works are known, and he created many unsigned paintings that may never be attributed to him.
Sanssouci is a historical building in Potsdam, near Berlin. Built by Prussian King Frederick the Great as his summer palace, it is often counted among the German rivals of Versailles. While Sanssouci is in the more intimate Rococo style and is far smaller than its French Baroque counterpart, it, too, is notable for the numerous temples and follies in the surrounding park. The palace was designed and built by Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff between 1745 and 1747 to meet Frederick's need for a private residence where he could escape the pomp and ceremony of the royal court. The palace's name is a French phrase meaning "without worries" or "carefree", emphasising that the palace was meant as a place of relaxation rather than a seat of power.
Washington at Princeton is a 1779 painting by Charles Willson Peale, showing George Washington after the Battle of Princeton. The original was commissioned by the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania for its council chamber in Independence Hall in Philadelphia. Peale made eight copies of the painting. The original, now owned by the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, was completed in early 1779, when Washington sat for Peale in Philadelphia.
Suzy Frelinghuysen, also known as Suzy Morris, was an American abstract painter and opera singer.
Beauty Revealed is an 1828 self-portrait by the American artist Sarah Goodridge, a watercolor portrait miniature on a piece of ivory. Depicting only the artist's bared breasts surrounded by white cloth, the 6.7-by-8-centimeter painting, originally backed with paper, is now in a modern frame. Goodridge, aged forty when she completed the miniature, depicts breasts that appear imbued with a "balance, paleness, and buoyancy" by the harmony of light, color, and balance. The surrounding cloth draws the viewer to focus on them, leading to the body being "erased".
Pieter Vanderlyn was an American colonial painter.
Pietro Montana was a 20th-century Italian-American sculptor, painter and teacher, noted for his war memorials and religious works.
Columbian Academy of Painting was one of the earliest art schools in the United States. It was founded by brothers Archibald and Alexander Robertson in 1792. The school was located in New York at 79 Liberty Street.
The Velaslavasay Panorama is an exhibition hall, theatre and gardens in Los Angeles, California, featuring the only painted, 360-degree panorama created in the United States since the nineteenth century. The Velaslavasay Panorama was originally established by artist Sara Velas in 2000 at the Tswuun-Tswuun Rotunda on Hollywood Boulevard. The museum's name combines Velas' last name with her mother's maiden name, Asay. In 2004, its original venue threatened with demolition, the panorama moved to its present location at the Union Theatre in Historical West Adams.
The Louis XIV style or Louis Quatorze, also called French classicism, was the style of architecture and decorative arts intended to glorify King Louis XIV and his reign. It featured majesty, harmony and regularity. It became the official style during the reign of Louis XIV (1643–1715), imposed upon artists by the newly established Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture and the Académie royale d'architecture. It had an important influence upon the architecture of other European monarchs, from Frederick the Great of Prussia to Peter the Great of Russia. Major architects of the period included François Mansart, Jules Hardouin-Mansart, Robert de Cotte, Pierre Le Muet, Claude Perrault, and Louis Le Vau. Major monuments included the Palace of Versailles, the Grand Trianon at Versailles, and the Church of Les Invalides (1675–1691).
Joseph Harrison Jr. was an American mechanical engineer, financier and art collector. He made a fortune building locomotives for Russia, and was decorated by Czar Nicholas I for completing the Saint Petersburg-Moscow Railway.
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