Study for Science Instructing Industry”

Kenyon Cox, Study for "Science Instructing Industry", 1898, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Ambrose Lansing, 1983.114.17
Copied Kenyon Cox, Study for "Science Instructing Industry", 1898, oil on canvas, 1620 in. (40.750.8 cm.), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Ambrose Lansing, 1983.114.17
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Artwork Details

Title
Study for Science Instructing Industry”
Artist
Date
1898
Dimensions
1620 in. (40.750.8 cm.)
Credit Line
Gift of Mrs. Ambrose Lansing
Mediums
Mediums Description
oil on canvas
Classifications
Keywords
  • Figure male
  • Landscape
  • Study
  • Figure female — knee length
  • Allegory — arts and sciences — science
  • Allegory — arts and sciences — industry
Object Number
1983.114.17

Artwork Description

In the late nineteenth century, artists decorated America’s public buildings with murals that were meant to teach moral and civic lessons to visitors passing through the halls. Many artists chose mythological or allegorical scenes. In this study, Kenyon Cox represented industry as a muscular young man and science as a laurel-crowned, toga-clad woman. The ruddy skin of the male figure contrasts sharply with the white toga and milky skin of the goddess, a choice Cox made so that the figures, posed closely together, would read clearly from a distance in the finished mural. Cox believed that mythological figures provided more beautiful decoration than figures dressed in contemporary clothes. He once wrote that “The painter who cares greatly for the expressiveness of the body will feel little attraction to belt buckles and brass buttons” (Morgan, Keepers of Culture, 1989).