Dinosaurs at the Nebraska State Capitol

Neale Monks (UK)

Not many palaeontologists would go on a field trip to the Houses of Parliament in London, but if you do something similar in the state of Nebraska, you will be surprised to find a whole variety of prehistoric life, including dinosaurs (Fig. 1), ammonites and trilobites.

The vision of Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue

Within 20 years of its construction in 1889, Nebraska’s second State Capitol was already falling apart (Fig. 2). It was also far too small for the needs of a state whose population had nearly doubled in size. In 1919, a bill was passed to fund construction of a new building and architects from across the country submitted designs as part of a formal architectural competition.

Most were for designs like those of government buildings elsewhere in the country, based on a classical design, particularly variations of the federal capitol in Washington DC. However, the selected design was a tower-dominated scheme by Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue of New York, which combined a variety of styles with elements of Romanesque, Byzantine, Gothic and Art Deco.

When Goodhue submitted his plan for the Nebraska State Capitol in 1920, it was already his intention to work with sculptor, Lee Lawrie, and mosaicist, Hildreth Meiere. He had worked with them both before on other projects and both were internationally recognised for their exemplary skills in their respective fields.

Goodhue envisioned a series of sculptures and bas reliefs on the outside of the building relating to themes of law, democracy and the history of the state of Nebraska. Initially at least, Goodhue intended to develop the imagery himself and Lawrie would produce the sculptures.

On the inside of the building, the ceilings and floors would be decorated with mosaics produced by Meiere. Those on the floor would be connected with the land, both in terms of history as well as the mineral and agricultural resources provided by Nature. Those on the ceilings would describe human ambitions and virtues. So, by looking at the floor, visitors would be recall where they had come from and, by looking at the ceiling, visitors would be reminded of what they were trying to achieve.

Quite early on, Goodhue realised that he did not have the philosophical depth of knowledge to create the thematic schemes he wanted. In particular, he was having problems finding names for the four figures flanking the main entrance to the building. He wanted these figures to be related to the concept of Law, but so far had coined only three names, Knowledge, Mercy and Force. In 1921, the commission overseeing the construction of the Capitol asked for help from the head of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Nebraska, Hartley Burr Alexander.

Alexander revised the names of the four figures and provided Goodhue and Lawrie with a much more poetic inscription to put above the Capitol’s entrance – “Wisdom, Justice, Power and Mercy – Constant Guardians of the Law”. As the fourth member of Goodhue’s team, Alexander quickly became fully involved.

Edwin Hinckley Barbour

While Alexander had few problems developing the motifs and inscriptions used on the outside of the building, one particular part of the building fell outside his (admittedly impressive) field of knowledge. Meiere was working on a mosaic that was to describe the evolution of life. It was to be installed on the floor of the Rotunda (Fig. 4), complementing mosaics in the adjoining vestibule and foyer relating the creation of the Solar System and the geological formation of the Earth. Polymath that he was, Alexander was not a palaeontologist.

At the time the Capitol was being built, the director of the University of Nebraska State Museum was one of the country’s foremost vertebrate palaeontologists, Edwin Hinckley Barbour. His name will be familiar to those interested in sabre-toothed cats, many of which are members of the genus, Barbourofelis. He organised numerous collecting trips to the west of the state, where fossil mammals were particularly abundant. Among the specimens brought back was the largest articulated mammoth skeleton in the world, a specimen of Archidiskodon imperator, which went on display in 1933.

Barbour was rather more than just a palaeontologist. Like so many scientists of this era, he had many talents and was involved in all sorts of projects outside the State Museum. He invented a continuous chain device that pulled water up from creeks so that farmers could irrigate their fields. Barbour was also one of the first people to use a movie camera in Nebraska and, in 1893, produced a film about the state to encourage immigration and investment that was shown at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago that year.

He was a very talented artist as well and it was this that made him so useful to Meiere. Combined with his knowledge of the palaeontology and geology of the state, Barbour helped produce numerous very fine paintings and sketches that Meiere could use to design her mosaics.

Hildreth Meiere

Meiere (Fig. 5) was born in New York in 1892, but had received much of her training in Italy. She was working in a time of transition, between the complex ornamentation of the Beaux Arts tradition of the early twentieth century, on the one hand, and the much simpler functionalism of the 1930s, on the other. Not long after the Nebraska State Capitol was finished, ‘less is more’ became the watchword when it came to interior decorating and the sort of mosaics that Meiere was producing became much less popular.

While the more radical modernists of the time simply wanted to banish ornamentation as far as possible, Meiere believed that decoration, done properly, enriched a building, and that the key was to avoid fussiness. Ornamentation should be there for a purpose, and not for its own sake and, in this belief, she was in perfect accord with Goodhue.

Art and science

The mosaic is based around five circular structures known as tondi, one in the centre, with the other four surrounding it. The central tondo contains a figure representing Mother Nature, while the four other tondi contain figures that represent the classical elements of Water (to the north), Fire (to the east), Air (to the south), and Earth (to the west). A ribbon-like band, called a guilloche (pronounced ‘ghee-osh’), works its way around the five tondi, starting at the northern one. It is within the guilloche that the procession of life, from its simplest forms to the most complex, would be shown.

Meiere began by writing to Barbour, asking for some sketches of extinct animals and plants that she might use. At least 24 of these beautiful sketches are preserved in the Capitol archives. Ever the philosopher, Alexander wanted the images chosen to be both accurate and informative and, in 1928, laid out the basic rules to Meiere and Barbour:

It is my notion that the series [of pictures] should be broadly representative of the whole animal kingdom … in each division the movement from the more primitive to the more developed … marine forms first, then primitive terrestrial forms … flying forms, and finally … the mammals”.

It was also important that the extinct organisms featured in the mosaic would have a connection with Nebraska. However, Alexander allowed a certain degree of latitude here, by admitting species found, not just in the modern state of Nebraska, but the old Nebraska Territory generally, a region of land that includes everything from Kansas up to the Canadian border.

Within the guilloche, each animal is spaced out with a plant of some type, with the exceptions being the marine animals. Instead, they are separated with sea lilies (Fig. 7). While sea lilies are, of course, animals, they look like plants, so do the job admirably.

The plants used on the rest of the guilloche were stylised to some degree, but were not used mindlessly. The plants alongside the early land animals and dinosaurs represent those found in coal, and so represent the great forests and swamps of the Carboniferous Period.

The plants put alongside the birds and insects are flowering plants. Alexander suggested to Barbour that this would be doubly appropriate – not only do insects and flowers have a close relationship through the process of pollination, but flowers and birds also evolved at about the same time. Finally, the plants used alongside the land mammals are deciduous trees, together representing a later stage of the evolution of life on land.

There were limitations on what could be achieved (Fig. 8), given the required shape and design of the mosaic, and this forced Barbour to make certain compromises.

At the time, bipedal dinosaurs (such as duckbills) were usually oriented standing upright, a bit like modern kangaroos (Fig. 9).

However, Meiere needed reconstructions that were long rather than tall, so that they could be fitted into the ribbon-like arrangement, or guilloche, her design required. So the bipedal dinosaurs ended up leaning forwards. Oddly enough, modern reconstructions tend towards orienting them in a similar way, though usually with the tail held horizontally as well.

Reading the mosaic

What makes the Rotunda mosaic such a unique piece of art is the seamless way modern science has been interwoven with classical learning. On the one hand, the animals and plants chosen relate to the elemental motif in each tondo (Fig. 11), so that sea creatures surround the Genius of the Water, flying animals around the Genius of Air, and so on. But, on the other hand, the animals and plants are arranged in a type of geological progression. As the guilloche unwinds, it reveals successive episodes in the diversification of life – its origins in the sea, adaptation to dry land, the evolution of flight and, finally, the radiation of mammals into the animal faunas we see today.

Starting at the northernmost tondo, we see the Genius of the Water, representing that particular element. However, the seas were also the birthplace of life and, in the part of the guilloche that wraps around this tondo, we see reconstructions of various marine animals, including a jawless fish, an ammonite (Fig. 12) and a trilobite.

One of the most remarkable figures in the entire mosaic can be observed here as well – a beautiful reconstruction of a sea scorpion fossil that was found at Peru, Nebraska, some 65 miles to the southeast (Fig. 13).

Following the guilloche, we come next to a section wrapped around the Genius of Fire. Here, fire can be taken to represent not just the classical element, but also the evolution of life as it adapts to dry land. Both the plants and animals featured here are amphibious or fully terrestrial types, with the dinosaurs, in particular, playing a significant role. The odd man out is a reconstruction of a mosasaur (Fig. 14). While these giant lizards were certainly marine animals, they lived during the same period of time as the dinosaurs, and their fossils are among the most charismatic of all the giant reptiles found in Nebraska.

The southern tondo comes next and, here, the guilloche surrounds the Genius of Air. The animals figured begin with two different types of insect, then a pterodactyl, some birds and finally a bat. The uniting motif is, of course, flight, with all four of these different types of animals sharing that distinctive ability. One of the birds featured is Ichthyornis, a Late Cretaceous seabird native to the Western Interior Seaway that once covered much of North America, including Nebraska. Unlike modern birds, Ichthyornis had teeth and Meiere made sure these were visible on her mosaic. She also added another reptilian trait to the design, a bird’s egg, visible on the guilloche slightly ahead of Ichthyornis.

The final flying animal is not a bird, but a mammal – the bat. This creature neatly leads the guilloche into a selection of mammal species wrapped around the Genius of Earth. Nebraska is uncommonly well provided with fossil mammals, and many of these are featured in the mosaic. These include a giant armadillo, a bison, a sabre-tooth cat, a mastodon and a mammoth. The quality of the reconstructions are superb, to the degree that on the primitive horse design, you can clearly see that it has three toes on each foot, not just a single hoof!

Conclusion

The Rotunda mosaic is an exceptional artwork in many ways, but perhaps the most striking thing is that it is in a governmental building and not a museum or university. In fact, the Rotunda is immediately outside the legislative chamber and, as a meeting space, it is widely used by state senators, lobbyists and members of the general public. How strange to think much political wheeling and dealing goes on above a pictorial history of life on Earth!

Acknowledgements

The author must extend his thanks to Bob Ripley and the Office of the Capitol Commission for their kind assistance and permission to use their images. The further assistance of Jim Eske and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln is also gratefully acknowledged.