Public Art #5

D.C. has a LOT of public art.

One large category is bronze statues of generals sitting on horses.  We already shared a photo of General Washington riding his horse (actually, it was General Napoleon's horse).

Pictured below is a less successful general, Major General George B. McClellan.  The statue overlooks the DuPont Circle neighborhood and the general appears to be surveying traffic and pedestrians.  General McClellan was a capable leader but was overly cautious in President Lincoln's view.  Still, McClellan played a pivotal role in the early years of the Civil War, including at the Battle of Antietam.  The bloody outcome at Antietam was viewed as a Union victory, giving Lincoln an opportune moment in history to issue the Emancipation Proclamation and forestalling diplomatic recognition of the Confederate States by England and France.  Perhaps McClellan deserves a statue after all.   

General George B. McClellan by Frederick MacMonnies (1907)

Other public art takes less ostentatious forms, like small sculptures sprinkled here and there around D.C.  One example, also found in DuPont Circle, is the Floating Head (pictured below). 

Andrei Sakharov (or Floating Head) by P. Shapiro (located
outside the Russia House Restaurant & Lounge on Connecticut Avenue)

The sculpture depicts Andrei Sakharov, Soviet nuclear physicist and dissident, and winner of the 1975 Nobel Peace Prize.    

Greg wondered what Floating Head represents:

     (a) A person pained with regret about having developed nuclear weapons.

     (b) A person weary from fighting for peace during the Cold War.   

     (c)  A person suffering from a migraine.

Thanks for viewing some public art with us.