Americans can be a fickle bunch when it comes to art. The Washington statue by Horatio Greenough that was supposed to adorn the Capitol rotunda was so heckled it was removed to a nearby park and hidden by a wooden shed for years. It was finally taken out of the elements in 1908 and put into the Smithsonian. One of the toes was broken off the statue and it literally took an act of Congress to get it repaired.
His quote:
"Allow me to exult a little that, during the months I spent at Washington, while my statue was the butt of wiseacres and witlings, I never, in word or thought, swerved from my principle - that the general mind is alone a quorum to judge a great work. When, in future time, the true sculptors of America have filled the metropolis with beauty and grandeur, will it not be worth $30,000 to be able to point to the figure and say -'There was the first struggle of our infant art'?"
'Wiseacres and witlings', gotta love it. I'm so going to steal that line.
Chris
