The Arts of War and The Arts of Peace

Arlington Memorial Bridge and Rock Creek Parkway

Congress first proposed a new bridge across the Potomac River between B Street NW and Georgetown in 1886, with designs offered that year and in 1898, but neither was built. After floods in 1881, Congress ordered the Potomac channel deepened, using silt to reclaim the Tiber Creek tidal inlet; this work was largely complete by 1890, and the area was designated West Potomac Park in 1897. During this period Columbia Island formed as an offshoot of Analostan Island, making possible a bridge further south than earlier locations.

The Senate Park Commission's 1902 McMillan Plan proposed a bridge from West Potomac Park—the proposed site for the Lincoln Memorial—across the Potomac to Arlington National Cemetery, aligned with Arlington House, as a memorial to national unification after the Civil War. No action was taken for 12 years; the Public Buildings Act of March 4, 1913 created the Arlington Memorial Bridge Commission, but World War I prevented funding. The McMillan Plan also proposed parkways, including the Rock Creek and Potomac Parkway from E Street NW through Rock Creek Park to the National Zoological Park, authorized in March 1913, with principal construction beginning in 1923.

Designing the statues

Kendall fought to retain the eastern terminus pylons even as the Commission of Fine Arts moved ahead with plans for equestrian statuary. James Earle Fraser and Leo Friedlander were commissioned to craft sculptures for the eastern terminus, though how they were chosen is unclear. Fraser's biographer and the National Park Service say there was a competition in 1931, while the Office of Public Buildings and Public Parks and the Washington Post point to a selection process in 1929; Friedlander's biographers state he was directly chosen in 1929, and museum curator Joel Rosenkranz says his commission came directly from McKim, Mead & White with no competition.

Government regulations required sculptors to create four plaster versions—one-sixteenth, three-sixteenths, half, and full size—before final approval. Preliminary designs for the equestrian statues were ready by June 1929; the CFA discussed them on December 11, 1929, and Kendall abandoned his attempt to restore the pylons by year's end. By early 1930, Friedlander and Fraser were discussing placement and pedestals with the Army Corps of Engineers, which also worked with McKim, Mead and White to determine height and placement.

On July 1, 1930, Lieutenant Colonel Ulysses S. Grant III provided the CFA with refined plans, and the CFA again approved the designs, likely authorizing construction of the three-sixteenths size models.

Statues

The Arts of War consists of two statue groups, Valor and Sacrifice, in an Art Deco style known as Delayed Deco. Facing Arlington Memorial Bridge from the District of Columbia, Valor is on the left and Sacrifice on the right. Valor depicts a bearded, muscular male nude symbolic of Mars, the Roman god of war, with a semi-nude female striding forward, a shield attached to her left trailing forearm. Sacrifice shows the same figures in different poses: the nude male holds a small child in his arms, head bowed, while the semi-nude female stands to his right, her back to him and the horse, but her head turned backward to look at the rider, her right arm reaching up to touch his right elbow.

The Arts of Peace, also known as The Peaceful Arts, consists of Music and Harvest and Aspiration and Literature, in the Neoclassical style with elements of Art Moderne. Facing Rock Creek Parkway from the Lincoln Memorial traffic circle, Aspiration and Literature is on the left and Music and Harvest on the right. Pegasus, the mythological source of inspiration and poetry, is the centerpiece of both groups. Aspiration and Literature includes a nude male on Pegasus' right with a toga over his left shoulder and an open book in his trailing right hand, symbolizing literature, and on Pegasus' left a nude male with both shoulders draped in a toga aiming a bow backward, symbolizing aspiration; a serpent trails behind the personification of literature, symbolizing wisdom and knowledge.

Music and Harvest consists of a nude male on Pegasus' right holding a sickle and carrying a sheaf of cut wheat over his shoulder, symbolizing harvest, and a semi-nude female on Pegasus' left holding a harp in her trailing left hand, symbolizing music; behind the woman is a turtle, symbolizing the belief that art is long and time is fleeting.

Conservation and refurbishment

By 1970, all four statues needed significant repair. Much of the gilding no longer adhered to the bronze, and there were numerous cracks and holes; the Fraser pieces, especially Music and Harvest, were in particularly poor shape. The National Park Service asked the National Bureau of Standards for advice, which offered five options: do nothing; sandblast the gilding off and let a natural patina form; sandblast and paint with gold gilt paint, requiring renewal every five years; clean and apply gold leaf; or clean and regild using brush electroplating.

The latter three required dismounting, repairing, and remounting the sculptures. The Park Service chose brush electroplating. Workers found that the interior of each pedestal was exposed to bare earth, causing excessive condensation inside the hollow statues; the statues were not completely seated on their plinths, allowing additional moisture through poorly sealed joints. Extreme temperature changes and proximity to the river worsened condensation, leaving interiors damp or wet with pooled water.

This moisture caused severe galvanic corrosion: steel joint bolts had almost completely disintegrated, and many steel angle irons were near failure; National Bureau of Standards workers believed all four statues were on the verge of structural collapse. The corrosion was worsened by gypsum left inside the Arts of Peace statues from the casting molds. The problems were solved by replacing steel bolts and angle irons with bronze components and cleaning as much gypsum as possible from the interiors; more than 1,000 brass bolts were used in Music and Harvest and Aspiration and Literature alone.