Description

See ‘Ancient Greece’, a fresco by Edgar Britton in the refectory of the Lane Tech College Prep High School in Chicago, Illinois. It is one of a series ‘Epochs in the History of Man’, also including ‘Early Man’, ‘Ancient Egypt’, ‘Middle Ages’, ‘Renaissance’ and ‘Modern Times’. The artwork, completed in 1937, was sponsored by the Federal Art Project. This  was in turn overseen by the Works Progress Administration (WPA), which was launched during the Depression to provide work for the unemployed.

Britton was born in Nebraska, and originally trained to be a dentist, but turned to art when he found human anatomy by far the most interesting aspect of dentistry. His left-wing politics attracted him to public art projects celebrating workers and industrial activity. He became one of the greatest of the ‘New Deal’ artists, and deeply influenced by Mexican communist muralist Diego Rivera;  other important Britton murals include a stunning series of industrial scenes at a school elsewhere in Illinois—Highland Park.

When he came to illustrate the epochs of human history, he once again put work and the material environment centre stage. In the background of his ancient Greek scene, a procession of men, women and children strides uphill in a mountainous landscape. A family scene on the lower left-hand and a discussion between older men (one of whom is holding a papyrus) and a small boy suggest intellectual work, perhaps philosophy. But at the very centre stands an artist—a muscular, imposing sculptor—hewing a raw slab of rock to liberate the beautiful statue of an archaic youth, or kouros, inside.

Britton was himself a sculptor as well as a muralist, and in later life exchanged his paintbrush for his chisel altogether. His public commissions include a 25-foot high ‘Prometheus’ tower at the United Bank of Denver, and an ‘Orpheus’ at Penrose Public Library in Colorado Springs.