Tag Archives: Independence Day

Lincoln vs. Jefferson

A comparison of the Lincoln and the Jefferson memorials is almost as fascinating, in some ways even more so, than a comparison of Messrs. Lincoln and Jefferson themselves. Since I can add little to the second conversation I will confine … Continue reading

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Beauty, nature or nurture?

I often repeat the idea that our love for beauty – and for architecture whose ornament stimulates that love – arises from our prehistoric neurobiology. Primitive man on the savannah needed to be aware of details revealing dangers to be … Continue reading

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The 4th w/out the Overture

I am still suffering from Tchaikovsky’s Retreat from Providence. Last year the Rhode Island Philharmonic gave a bravura performance of “The 1812 Overture” for the city’s Fourth of July celebration at India Point Park. Not this year. I have no … Continue reading

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Independence architecture

The classicism of the Jefferson Memorial, inspired by the Pantheon in Rome, a design beloved of Jefferson, is by John Russell Pope and was dedicated in 1943, during the Second World War. The monument’s classicism was pecked at by modernist … Continue reading

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