Following are notes by artist Elliott Banfield on the three original pictures of the U.S. Capitol, White House, and Supreme Court building that hang in the reception room of AEI's Wohlstetter Conference Center. Additional notes and small renderings of the pictures, along with purchasing information, are posted at www.elliottbanfield.com/pages/Landmarks/LandmarksIntro.html. Remarks at the installation of the pictures at AEI on September 11, 2002, are posted at www.aei.org/landmarks.

1. The Capitol (88" x 44")

This picture of the Capitol is the keystone of the Landmarks series. That's because the Capitol represents the central branch (in fact, the trunk) of the government The centrality of the Congress is, I suppose, a subject of debate among experts; but for the tourist in Washington who compares the buildings that house the branches, there's little doubt. The magnificence of the Capitol is far greater than that of any other building in the United States.

But it's precisely the magnificence that makes the building hard to draw: the Capitol consists of four main parts, a central section (the original building, completed c. 1830), a north wing, a south wing, and a gigantic dome. To show all these parts in one image, and to recreate an historical scene, is very hard. There's no place where a photographer might stand to get it all in. To overcome this problem I photographed each element of the building separately and then knitted the photos together in a way that seemed about right, although I probably broke some fundamental rules of perspective in the process.

I chose to animate the picture by presenting the inauguration of William McKinley. I show him taking the oath of office on the steps of the Capitol's east front on the cold and rainy day, March 4, 1901. Theodore Roosevelt stood next to him. The event was pretty well documented by at least one good photo, which I downloaded from the Library of Congress's website.

The crowd that witnessed the inauguration was very large: many people (all men it would seem) were jammed together before the covered platform from which McKinley and other notables spoke. It would appear that there was no fear of violence or assassination. There was, rather, an amazing trust and faith in the benevolence of the political order. It was precisely the sense of benevolence that I tried to convey in the picture. Some of the figures in the foreground are dressed in the styles of the day, which were very intricate and opulent in some cases. Wealth and privilege were not ashamed to show themselves. But there was poverty also: the newsboys, for example, might have been orphans. But it would seem that no one was complaining or begrudging another person his superior status.

In the course of making the picture I read a bit about the history of the Capitol. In 1850 it became evident that the existing building required enlargement to accommodate the congressmen from newly admitted states. The alteration of the building might have been accomplished, I suppose, in a very modest way, but the Congress decided instead to build two huge new wings and a central dome. I've not researched the matter, but it would seem likely that the grand plan was adopted as a way of cementing the Compromise of 1850. That agreement between the Northern and Southern states was an attempt to bury the problem of slavery and to prevent civil war. My teacher, Norris K. Smith, proposed as a general rule that architectural monuments are the result of political crises: here would seem to be a case in point.

When I visited the Capitol in preparation for this work I noted that although the building is well preserved and kept in very good shape, the area that was filled with spectators back in 1901 is now a parking lot. The shiny SUVs of our congressmen seem to be a rather supercilious presence, and I wished them gone. The area was designed as a ceremonial space, rather like a church. The cars are reminders that while the space remains, the piety has vanished.

2. The White House (45.5" x 38")

In order to obtain information necessary for the making of this picture I went, quite naturally, to Washington. The White House is off limits, but I saw it from the usual distant vantage points. There's not much doubt that the south facade of the building presents the most appealing view. The rounded portico is a strong feature, and it makes up for the otherwise poor quality of the building's architectural details. Although I'm not qualified to discuss these matters authoritatively, I'm of the opinion that the moldings are too thin. They don't project enough to create the shadows that are needed to define the shape of the building. The capitals are really bad. The dentils are tiny; they should stand out much more. And since the building is painted in a blinding white, all the shadows wash out anyway. And so forth. When the building was designed the United States had no professional architects, and the task of creating a Palladian villa was a bit beyond us. The alterations that have taken place over the years have not helped very much: the balcony inserted by Harry Truman into the portico, all the stuff on the roof. If someone wanted to tear the place down and start over again I would not object.

In view of the building's defects I found it necessary by way of compensation to spend a lot of time drawing and painting the park that graciously surrounds the building. I really struggled with that because I'm not a landscape artist; most of my work has to do with figures. I felt (after much experimentation) that a very painterly approach is necessary to render grass and foliage. In order to create that effect I had to create "brushes" in Photoshop, which allowed me to imitate to some extent the texture of impasto paint.

My beloved computer (G4 Macintosh with 8.6 OS) allowed me to experiment with a great variety of color and lighting effects: I tested literally hundreds of possibilities. I'm not a colorist, but I certainly produced a better looking picture than my unaided faculties would allow. The computer is, in my view, a huge gift to the artist.

I needed a good photo of the building, an item that proved very hard to find. In recent times the White House has been shrouded by foliage: possibly for security reasons. By a lucky accident I noticed during a visit to the Heurich mansion (where the Washington Historical Association is housed) a picture of the White House that was taken in the 1840s by a photographer named Plumbe. It is probably the first picture ever taken of the building. It was perfect for my purpose. It shows the building from precisely the best viewpoint, and the details are all very clearly displayed. (It's ironic that of the millions of photos taken since, this one is the best.) The photo, which belongs to the Library of Congress, provided a sort of skeletal image that needed to be reconfigured and changed in many respects; but as a start it was ideal.

I also had to figure out how to draw the people in the foreground. I decided early on to show the annual Easter Egg Roll "event", because it was an occasion that would be well documented with photos. The management of The Washington Post gave me the rare privilege of visiting their picture collection, where I was able to find excellent material. The Library of Congress also has a collection of nice photos that are available online. The Easter Egg thing was started in Benjamin Harrison's time, and it was photographed pretty regularly ever since. It's an obvious subject: Women, Children, the White House, and Easter. All neatly scheduled, ready for the photographer. How perfectly delightful it all is to be sure. Well, okay, maybe too delightful. I'd have preferred a picture showing the White House in the Andrew Jackson period, when unruly crowds overran the building. But there was no photo documentation for that. At the Post, however, I discovered excellent pictures taken in the 1930s. People dressed very neatly and formally back then. They really tried to meet the expectations of what was still an aristocratic social setup. And Eleanor Roosevelt was there, on the scene, getting tons of good publicity. The Post also had lots of photos from the Eisenhower era, but in those pics the people somehow looked sloppy and they flopped around the lawn as if they were on the beach.

My picture is an idealization: it shows the building and the setting in a way that never was. In the great divide between realist and classical artists I side with the classical. In that respect I am at one with the architects who created the Landmarks: the classical forms are derived from nature, but they are molded by the idealizing mind of the artist.

3. The Supreme Court (45.5" x 38")

I went down to Washington to do the necessary research for this image as for the others in the Landmark series. The Supreme Court sits on an intersection near the Capitol, and there are no particular difficulties in taking photos of its main entrance, by which it is well known to anyone who reads the newspapers. At first glance there doesn't seem to be anything very special about the building. It's a very straightforward rendition of a Roman temple, a form that was becoming boringly familiar in the late 1930s, when the building was erected. There is a slight sense that the architect had run out of ideas, that the great tradition had run its course. My problem was to overcome the sense of conventionality, of the lack of any surprising element.

In truth, the building is quite dramatic: particularly as one mounts its steps and approaches its bronze doors, one is impressed by its grand scale and the great craftsmanship with which it was put together. Unfortunately it's very hard to capture this excitement in a photo. I took many pictures, all of which were nice, but they were no different from the pictures that are taken every day by every bozo with a camera.

But in one set of photos I was lucky: I shot the building as it was in transition from a backlighted to a frontlighted moment. The light from the sun struck the vast expanse of white marble in front of the building and bounced it upward to the facade, which was still in shadow. In that way the light came not from the sky, but unexpectedly it radiated from the ground. This was the key element. I added some fluttering flags, a few birds, a wispy cloud, and bit by bit the picture took its final form. The sense of majestic scale is a very important: I tried to emphasize that aspect of the building by having it fill as much of the picture as I could, and by having human figures diminish in size as they get further from the picture plane. Depictions of human figures are essential in architectural rendering: without them there's no way to tell how big the building is.

The final dramatic touch comes from the crowd that animates the scene. I got the idea of rendering the historic moment of the Watergate period from a photo that I found in the collection of The Washington Post. The paper's photog had shot Leon Jaworski in his moment of triumph as he left the Court: he is shown in the photo just as I render him here. Head down, holding all the cards. Surrounded by eager reporters and gleeful Democrats. In order to draw the crowd I asked some friends to walk up and down the steps at Columbia University while I shot them with a camcorder. Freeze frames from the video were very useful.

I think it's notable that I used a lot of technical resources that were not readily available until recently, thanks to the development of digital technology. Without these resources I suppose that the work would have required a much greater investment of manpower and cost. This fact might explain why I was (to the best of my knowledge) the first artist to attempt a serious rendering of any of the landmarks.