The Bluegrass and Beyond

We might not like a lot of what goes on inside the Kentucky Capitol, but the building itself is pretty special.

And it just got a lot more special.

Beautiful new murals were installed two weeks ago in the four pendentive corners between the Capitol’s rotunda and the dome.

The murals will be dedicated this weekend during a two-day celebration of the Capitol’s centennial. There is a gala Friday night and free family activities all day Saturday, with tours of the Capitol and the executive mansion, food, balloon rides and entertainment.

“This is a unique opportunity to celebrate the Capitol,” said first lady Jane Beshear, who helped to organize the celebration.

The Capitol was dedicated June 2, 1910, nearly six years after construction began on what was then farmland across the Kentucky River from downtown Frankfort. Murals had always been planned for those spaces above the rotunda. But you know how Kentuckians are — always short of money. We just never got around to it.

Jeffrey Greene noticed the blank corners in 1992, when his New York-based company was doing restoration work in the Capitol’s elegant State Reception Room. The Cincinnati native is perhaps the closest thing this country has to a capitol handyman. Since he started Evergreene Architectural Arts in 1978, it has created murals for the U.S. Capitol and has done restoration work in 31 of 50 state capitols.

Greene left some sketches of what murals in those corners might look like, but nothing came of it until 2005, after David Buchta became curator and director of the Kentucky Division of Historic Properties.

“He found the sketches, called me and said, ‘What is this?’” Greene said last month as he supervised installation and finishing touches on the murals.

Still, the murals wouldn’t have been done without Marion Forcht of Corbin, a member of the Historic Properties Advisory Commission, which looks after Kentucky’s old and new capitols and governors’ mansions. She and her husband, banker Terry Forcht, decided that such a unique piece of public art would be a great legacy to leave their state. They donated nearly $300,000 to create and install the murals.

“I’m extremely pleased with them,” Marion Forcht said as she sat on marble steps leading to the Capitol’s Senate Chamber and watched artists on tall scaffolding install the murals. “They certainly fulfilled our expectations. The skill of the people who do that work is amazing.”

Greene said the murals were designed and painted in the relatively short span of six months by a group of 10 artists and craftsmen.

“It was a fun project,” he said. “With restoration, you’re just putting back what was once there. This is more of a challenge, because you’re creating new murals, but in a historical style so that they look as if they have always been there.”

Evergreene created murals that celebrate Kentucky’s history and culture using allegorical figures and images of places and things for which the state is famous.

For example, one mural, called Nature: The Bounty of the Land, shows the mythical figure Ceres, symbol of agriculture and bounty. The figure is flanked by a jockey and farmer and symbols of Kentucky’s agrarian heritage, from cattle, tobacco and horses to the Twin Spires of Churchill Downs.

The other three murals are similarly designed. They are called: Industry: The Strength of Commerce; Culture: The Fruits of Knowledge; and Civitas: The Light of Progress. At the base of each mural is a faux-bas relief depicting Kentucky’s Native American heritage.

Each mural — which is about 30 feet at its widest point and 25 feet tall — is crammed with Kentucky symbolism.

“As one looks at it, you can find more and more going on,” said Greene, a trained portrait painter who oversaw the painting of each human figure’s face. “We tried to have these richly layered so people can enjoy them on a number of levels.”

If you go

What: Gala Event in the Capitol rotunda, with unveiling of murals, music, hors d’oeuvres and Kentucky wine and bourbon bar.

When: 7 p.m. Friday

Cost: $75 a person. Call (502) 564-5500 for tickets

What: Family activities on Capitol grounds, tours of the Capitol and executive mansion. Activities include balloon and carriage rides, music, crafts and an antique car show.

When: Beginning at 7:30 a.m. Saturday

Cost: Free

For more information: www.capitol.ky.gov

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This entry was posted on June 2, 2010 at 11:25 am and is filed under architecture, Art, Business, design, Frankfort, History, Kentucky life, Newspaper columns, People, Photos, Politics. Tagged: evergreene architectural arts, Historic preservation, kentucky capitol, Kentucky history, philanthropy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.