Passage IV

Christy’s Constitution

The following paragraphs may or may not be in the most logical order. Each paragraph is numbered in brackets, and question 59 will ask you to choose where Paragraph 3 should most logically be placed.

[1]

From shoes to chandelier, Scene at the Signing of the Constitution of the United States blend accuracy with artistic license to achieve the artist’s vision of an event that took place in Philadelphia’s Independence Hall. The artist, Howard Chandler Christy, was born in 1873, long after George Washington presided—over the momentous event that in 1787 served the final role of ending the Constitutional Convention.

[2]

[1] The group portrait, as big as a billboard, hangs in the US Capitol building, where it was installed in 1940. [2] Christy’s prior preparations in advance of the work included a visit to Philadelphia to study how the light falls through the windows in Independence Hall. [3] Christy arranged to see the inkwells into which the quills would have been dipped as the delegates prepared to make history. [4] He scoured countless drawings of period furniture and fabrics, noting color, texture, design. [5] Hunting down portraits of the signers and scrutinized them. (54)

[3]

Such measures may seem standard in the making of historical paintings, but that is not the case. For example, in Emanuel Luetze’s Washington Crossing the Delaware, the president strikes a noble pose on a boat. Experts now agree could not have been the vessel that carried the revolutionary leader across the river. In another, painting of the signing of the US Constitution, artist Barry Faulkner places the figures in a Roman ruin.

[4]

Accurate in many respects, Christy’s painting also plays with the truth to suggest the grandeur of the moment. For instance, Washington benefits from more than his share of natural light, which singles him out in Christy’s famous painting. Many of the assembled men, luminaries as Benjamin Franklin and James Madison, improbably stare the viewer squarely in the eye. Their expressions suggest they are well aware of their own importance but even more aware of the viewer’s, almost as if one more signature will give the document its full meaning.