Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1920-01-28

THE cAPTTOL's ARTIST
(spsssal Corrssposdsncs q rs AFsas).

Washington, D. c.. Jan. 26.-The
fact is not generally known that
conkress has an artist. He Is ON
cially known as the designer Of
the bureau Of painting. under FL
Holt Woods, who has charge Of all
the governments buildings and
grounds in the district.
This artist, Mr.. Moberiy, is . YER
satile man, and he has to be. Ev-
erything that anyone connected
with the capitol wants done in the
way of art, design or painting it
devolves upon Moberly to do. His
duties range from such difficult ar
tistic feats as restoring one of the
famous Brumidi frescoes. when it
has been practically destroyed by
fire, to the making of . giant map
Of a harbor for some congressman
to use on the floor of the house in
pressing his claim for an appro-
priation.
Moberly made an appointment
the other day to meet q reporter
opposite the room of the joint COM
mittee on printing, where he was
painting a panel, but when the time
came he was not there. He had
left directions that he would be in
his shop in the basement. There
he was found executing a realistic
likeness of an automobile license
for some clerk who had lost his.
In about five minutes he did life
size portrait Of a district license
tag, which would have fooled any
cop in the country. He was re-
warded with a handful of cigars,
which he shared with his inter-
viewer, which shows that Moberly
is not only versatile artist, but
also a generous and obliging one.
The greater part of Moberly's
work consists in caring for all of
the painted decorations in the cap
itol building. The magnitude and
variety Of this job you would never
realize unless you could accompany
Moberly on tour of the building.
Not only are there a great many
oil paintings hung In the building,
but almost every square yard of
every wall on every floor above the
F., basement is in some way decorated
i-either with design or a mural
painting or gilt molding. 1t is
probably no exaggeration to say
that there are acres of decorations
in the capitol building, all of which
are more or less subject to injury
by time, moisture, or violence. For
example, when, few years ago,
some crank set off a bomb in one
of the corridors and wrecked a
couple of walls. the principal thing
that he accomplished was the de-
struction of hundred or so square
yards of valuable mural painting
by Brumidi, which it took Moberly
many weeks to replace. 1t is a
striking proof of his familiarity
with every inch of this great build
ing that he was able to reproduce
the Brumidi pictures from memory
in such a way that very close in
spection is necessary to detect
where Brumidi's work ends and
Moberly's begins. He believes that
the duty of restorer is not to ex-
press his own ideas, but to put
himself in the mental boots of the
original artist and try to do what
that artist was trying to do-a feat
which requires imagination and
sympathy as we'll as skill.
| Moberly is peculiarly qualified
for his job both by training and
by ambition. He comes of a line of
painters and musicians. His father
and his fathers father followed
both OF these professions. and he
has followed both. He describes
himself as a painter taught in the
old school He explains that in the
old days man who expected to
live by painting could not afford
to specialize as the modern artist
does, but had to be capable of do
ing all sorts of jobs. He also had
: to be able~to mix and grind his
own colors, and had to understand
the chemistry of his pigments. In
this school of versatility Moberly
was trained. and the training has
been invaluable to hin in his work
at the capitol. For the frescoes
and mural paintings of that build
ing are done by no less than three
different methods. Some of them
.. are "lime paintings" so called. in
which the color is put upon wet
plaster and allowed to soak in
some are water colors and some
are oils. A knowledge of the chem
istry of these three different meth.
DDS is naturally indispensable tc
the man who has to keep the paint.
ings in good order.
When he was nine years old
Moberly came to Washington, and
he saw the great Italian artist
Brumidi, at work in the capitol
He was impressed by the f1neness
! of his work. and by the greatness
l OF the capitol as national monu
!: ment, and he made up his mind te
get a job as capitol artist. HI
worked for a time with his fathe,
and then went away and became &
decorator. He worked in New
York and Pennsylvania at the time
when men were making great ant
: sudden fortunes in the oil business
and many interiors of splendit
e residences did he decorate for new
ly made millionaires. One OF hi.
: jobs was the decorating of a pri
e vate car, which cost $65. 900 anf
e which the president Of the LAX,