Study for "Science Instructing Industry"
1898
Medium
Painting
Classification
Painting
Department
Smithsonian Collection
Museum
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Credit
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Ambrose Lansing
Accession Number
1983.114.17
Tags
About this artwork
In the late nineteenth century, artists decorated Americaâs 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, pos...
About the Artist
Kenyon Cox · 1856–1919
Kenyon Cox (1856–1919) was born on October 27 in Warren, Ohio, to General Jacob Dolson Cox, a prominent politician and Civil War veteran, and Helen Finney Cox. Despite fragile health, young Cox pursued art at the Art Academy of Cincinnati before advancing to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. In 1877, he traveled to Paris, studying first under Carolus-Duran, then at the Éco...