Words + Images

The Bowdoin Murals are found in the rotunda of the Walker Art Building at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine. The four murals in the building represent Athens, Florence, Rome and Venice, honoring cities that had profoundly affected western art. Each of the four artists chosen to paint the murals were considered masters of figure painting. One of those artists was John La Farge. Among his fellow artists, which included Elihu Vedder, John Thayer and Kenyon Cox, La Farge was considered the elder statesman or senior artist.

La Farge chose as his subject Athens and the goddess Athena. Each of the murals features a central female form. In La Farge’s case his mural’s central subject is not Athena, but a nymph being painted by the goddess herself in a sacred grove.

Due to be completed in spring 1894 just before the building’s dedication, La Farge’s mural was not actually installed until 1898.

In the following publication you can read a very detailed and fascinating account of the Walker Art Building, the creation of the murals and the behind the scenes of La Farge at work. https://digitalcommons.bowdoin.edu/art-museum-miscellaneous-publications/2/

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