I gain a sense that whoever is employed here has a greatdeal of wealth, be it in knowledge or money, and tremendous authority. The Greeks sawtheir rulers as being next to godliness, and in a way, the people who work here are ourrulers.The subject of the art that I observed had a theme of peace, war, nobility, anddiscovery. The first statue I saw was a large monument made of bronze and marble. Themonument featured Ulysses S. Grant, James A. Garfield, Phillip Sheridan, William T.Sherman, Rutherford B. Hayes, Salmon Chase, and Edwin Stanton standing under aGreek goddess (who resembles Ceres because she is surrounded by bushels of wheat andgrains) with a quote under her that says “These are my jewels”. These men were by farthe greatest men to come from Ohio and just like the Greeks who cast their heroes inbronze, so have we cast our heroes for all to see in bronze at the Capitol. The nextmonument I saw was a huge angel in bronze that included an inscription about peace.Then, on another side of the building, there are two monuments to the soldiers that wentto fight at Iwo Jima. These walls contain etched letters from various soldiers, some ofthem are happy letters while others are very sad. There seemed to be many monuments towar than anything else. The monuments about war weren’t sad though, they actuallyglorify all of the people who have fought for our country as well as the publics support offreedom. The last monument I saw represented discovery. I had Christopher Columbus ontop of it and the base below him had tiles in it with pictures of mans greatest discoveries. In ancient cultures the temple was the “city center” and I believe that is the rolethat the city was trying to establish when they built the Capitol building. The building islocated on two of the most traveled roads in Columbus. It is also in a place where peopletraveling in any direction on those roads can see it. I think that it was placed in th...
