A Harmony of the Arts: The Nebraska State Capitol surveys in words and pictures the architectural achievement and the artists responsible for it. Frederick C. Luebke introduces the book with a history of the capitals and capitols of Nebraska. H. Keith Sawyers writes about Goodhue’s architectural vision, which was carried out by other artists after his death. David Murphy examines the contribution of Hartley Burr Alexander, the philosopher and anthropologist who developed the symbological details of Goodhue’s vision and invested the building’s many inscriptions with poetic elegance. Dale L. Gibbs considers Lee Lawrie’s sculpture, remarkably congruent with the general design. Joan Woodside and Betsy Gabb discuss the decorative art of the mosaicist, Hildreth Meiere. Norman Geske and Jon Nelson examine the capitol murals, painted by eight artists over four decades. And Robert C. Ripley allows the reader to see the building in its setting, as landscaped by Ernst Herminghaus. Lavishly illustrated and handsomely produced, A Harmony of the Arts presents the first survey in many years of Nebraska’s magnificent capitol and offers new ways of looking at it.
