Statue of Liberty And Venus

The Statue of Liberty (Liberty Enlightening the World; French: La Liberté éclairant le monde) is a colossal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in New York Harbor, designed by Frédéric Bartholdi and dedicated on October 28, 1886. The statue, a gift to the United States from the people of FranceDell Precision M2300 Battery, is of a robed female figure representing Libertas, the Roman goddess of freedom, who bears a torch and a tabula ansata (a tablet evoking the law) upon which is inscribed the date of the American Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776. A broken chain lies at her feet. The statue has become an icon of freedom and of the United StatesDell Latitude 2110 Battery. Bartholdi was inspired by French law professor and politician Édouard René de Laboulaye, who commented in 1865 that any monument raised to American independence would properly be a joint project of the French and American peoples. Due to the troubled political situation in France, work on the statue did not commence until the early 1870sDell Latitude 2100 Battery. In 1875, Laboulaye proposed that the French finance the statue and the Americans provide the pedestal and the site. Bartholdi completed the head and the torch-bearing arm before the statue was fully designed, and these pieces were exhibited for publicity at international expositions. The arm was displayed at the Centennial Exposition in 1876 and in New York's Madison Square Park from 1876 to 1882Dell Vostro 1400 Battery. Fundraising proved difficult, especially for the Americans, and by 1885 work on the pedestal was threatened due to lack of funds. Publisher Joseph Pulitzer of the World started a drive for donations to complete the project that attracted more than 120,000 contributors, most of whom gave less than a dollar. The statue was constructed in France, shipped overseas in cratesDell Inspiron 1420 Battery, and assembled on the completed pedestal on what was then called Bedloe's Island. The statue's completion was marked by New York's first ticker-tape parade and a dedication ceremony presided over by President Grover Cleveland. The statue was administered by the United States Lighthouse Board until 1901 and then by the Department of War; since 1933 it has been maintained by the National Park Service. The statue was closed for renovation for much of 1938Dell Vostro 1700 Battery. In the early 1980s, it was found to have deteriorated to such an extent that a major restoration was required. While the statue was closed from 1984 to 1986, the torch and a large part of the internal structure were replaced. After the September 11 attacks in 2001, it was closed for reasons of safety and security; the pedestal reopened in 2004 and the statue in 2009Dell Vostro 1500 Battery, with limits on the number of visitors allowed to ascend to the crown. The statue, including the pedestal and base closed beginning on October 29, 2011, for up to a year so that a secondary staircase and other safety features can be installed; Liberty Island remains open. Public access to the balcony surrounding the torch has been barred for safety reasons since 1916Dell Inspiron 1721 Battery. Design and construction Origin The origin of the Statue of Liberty project is generally traced to a comment made by French law professor and politician Édouard René de Laboulaye in mid-1865. In after-dinner conversation at his home near Versailles, Laboulaye, an ardent supporter of the Union in the American Civil War, stated: "If a monument should rise in the United States, as a memorial to their independenceDell Inspiron 1720 Battery, I should think it only natural if it were built by united effort—a common work of both our nations."[6] Bartholdi's design patent Laboulaye's comment was not intended as a proposal, but it inspired a young sculptor, Frédéric Bartholdi, who was present at the dinner.[6] Given the repressive nature of the regime of Napoleon III, Bartholdi took no immediate action on the idea except to discuss it with LaboulayeDell Inspiron 1521 Battery. Instead, Bartholdi approached Ismail Pasha, Khedive of Egypt, with a plan to build a huge lighthouse in the form of an ancient Egyptian female fellah or peasant, robed and holding a torch aloft, at the northern entrance to the Suez Canal in Port Said. Sketches and models were made of the proposed work, though it was never erected. There was a classical precedent for the Suez proposalDell Inspiron 1520 Battery, the Colossus of Rhodes: an ancient bronze statue of the Greek god of the sun, Helios. This statue is believed to have been over 100 feet (30 m) high, and it similarly stood at a harbor entrance and carried a light to guide ships.[7] The American project was further delayed by the Franco-Prussian War, in which Bartholdi served as a major of militia.[6] In the war, Napoleon III was captured and deposedDell XPS M2010 Battery. Bartholdi's home province of Alsace was lost to the Prussians, and a more liberal republic was installed in France.[6] As Bartholdi had been planning a trip to the United States, he and Laboulaye decided the time was right to discuss the idea with influential Americans.[8] In June 1871, Bartholdi crossed the Atlantic, with letters of introduction signed by Laboulaye. Dell Vostro A860 Battery Arriving at New York Harbor, Bartholdi focused on Bedloe's Island as a site for the statue, struck by the fact that vessels arriving in New York had to sail past it. He was delighted to learn that the island was owned by the United States government—it had been ceded by the New York State Legislature in 1800 for harbor defenseDell Vostro A840 Battery. It was thus, as he put it in a letter to Laboulaye: "land common to all the states."[10] As well as meeting many influential New Yorkers, Bartholdi visited President Ulysses S. Grant, who assured him that it would not be difficult to obtain the site for the statue.[11] Bartholdi crossed the United States twice by rail, and met many Americans whom he felt would be sympathetic to the project.[9] But he remained concerned that popular opinion on both sides of the Atlantic was insufficiently supportive of the proposal, and he and Laboulaye decided to wait before mounting a public campaign. Dell Vostro 1088 Battery Bartholdi's Lion of Belfort Bartholdi had made a first model of his concept in 1870.[13] The son of a friend of Bartholdi's, American artist John La Farge, later maintained that Bartholdi made the first sketches for the statue during his U.S. visit at La Farge's Rhode Island studio. Bartholdi continued to develop the concept following his return to France. Dell Vostro 1015 BatteryHe also worked on a number of sculptures designed to bolster French patriotism after the defeat by the Prussians. One of these was the Lion of Belfort, a monumental sculpture carved in sandstone below the fortress of Belfort, which during the war had resisted a Prussian siege for over three months. The defiant lion, 73 feet (22 m) long and half that in heightDell Vostro 1014 Battery, displays an emotional quality characteristic of Romanticism, which Bartholdi would later bring to the Statue of Liberty.[14] Design, style, and symbolism Detail from a fresco by Constantino Brumidi in the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., showing two early symbols of America: Columbia (left) and the Indian princess Bartholdi and Laboulaye considered how best to express the idea of American liberty.[15] In early American history, two female figures were frequently used as cultural symbols of the nation. Dell Inspiron 1410 Battery One, Columbia, was seen as an embodiment of the United States in the manner that Britannia was identified with the United Kingdom and Marianne came to represent France. Columbia had supplanted the earlier figure of an Indian princess, which had come to be regarded as uncivilized and derogatory toward Americans.[16] The other significant female icon in American culture was a representation of LibertyDell Vostro 2510 Battery, derived from Libertas, the goddess of freedom widely worshipped in ancient Rome, especially among emancipated slaves. A Liberty figure adorned most American coins of the time,[15] and representations of Liberty appeared in popular and civic art, including Thomas Crawford's Statue of Freedom (1863) atop the dome of the United States Capitol Building. Dell Vostro 1520 Battery Artists of the 18th and 19th centuries striving to evoke republican ideals commonly used representations of Liberty.[15] A figure of Liberty was also depicted on the Great Seal of France.[15] However, Bartholdi and Laboulaye avoided an image of revolutionary liberty such as that depicted in Eugène Delacroix's famed Liberty Leading the People (1830) Dell Vostro 1510 Battery. In this painting, which commemorates France's Revolution of 1830, a half-clothed Liberty leads an armed mob over the bodies of the fallen.[16] Laboulaye had no sympathy for revolution, and so Bartholdi's figure would be fully dressed in flowing robes.[16] Instead of the impression of violence in the Delacroix work, Bartholdi wished to give the statue a peaceful appearance and chose a torch, representing progress, for the figure to hold. Dell Vostro 1320 Battery Crawford's statue was designed in the early 1850s. It was originally to be crowned with a pileus, the cap given to emancipated slaves in ancient Rome. Secretary of War Jefferson Davis, a Southerner who would later serve as president of the Confederate States of America, was concerned that the pileus would be taken as an abolitionist symbol. He ordered that it be changed to a helmet.[18] Delacroix's figure wears a pileus, Dell Vostro 1310 Battery and Bartholdi at first considered placing one on his figure as well. Instead, he used a diadem, or crown, to top its head.[19] In so doing, he avoided a reference to Marianne, who invariably wears a pileus.[20] The seven rays form a halo or aureole.[21] They evoke the sun, the seven seas, and the seven continents,[22] and represent another means, besides the torch, whereby Liberty enlightens the world. Dell Latitude E4310 Battery Bartholdi's early models were all similar in concept: a female figure in neoclassical style representing liberty, wearing a stola and pella (gown and cloak, common in depictions of Roman goddesses) and holding a torch aloft. The face was modeled after that of Charlotte Beysser Bartholdi, the sculptor's mother. Dell Latitude E4300 Battery He designed the figure with a strong, uncomplicated silhouette, which would be set off well by its dramatic harbor placement and allow passengers on vessels entering New York Bay to experience a changing perspective on the statue as they proceeded toward Manhattan. He gave it bold classical contours and applied simplified modeling, reflecting the huge scale of the project and its solemn purpose.[17] Bartholdi wrote of his techniqueDell Inspiron Mini 12 Battery: Thomas Crawford's Statue of Freedom The surfaces should be broad and simple, defined by a bold and clear design, accentuated in the important places. The enlargement of the details or their multiplicity is to be feared. By exaggerating the forms, in order to render them more clearly visible, or by enriching them with details, we would destroy the proportion of the work. Finally, the model, like the design, should have a summarized character, such as one would give to a rapid sketchDell Inspiron 1210 Battery. Only it is necessary that this character should be the product of volition and study, and that the artist, concentrating his knowledge, should find the form and the line in its greatest simplicity.[24] Bartholdi made alterations in the design as the project evolved. Bartholdi considered having Liberty hold a broken chain, but decided this would be too divisive in the days after the Civil War. The erected statue does rise over a broken chain, half-hidden by her robes and difficult to see from the ground. Dell Studio 1737 Battery Bartholdi was initially uncertain of what to place in Liberty's left hand; he settled on a tabula ansata, a keystone-shaped tablet[25] used to evoke the concept of law.[26] Though Bartholdi greatly admired the United States Constitution, he chose to inscribe "JULY IV MDCCLXXVI" on the tablet, thus associating the date of the country's Declaration of Independence with the concept of liberty. Dell Studio 1735 Battery Consultations with the metalwork foundry Gaget, Gauthier & Co. led Bartholdi to conclude that the skin should be made of copper sheets, beaten to shape by the repoussé method.[27] An advantage of this choice was that the entire statue would be light for its volume—the copper need be only .094 inches (2.4 mm) thick. He decided on a height of 151 feet (46 m) for the statueDell Studio 1558 Battery, double that of Italy's Colosso di San Carlo Borromeo and the German statue of Arminius, both made with the same method.[28] Bartholdi interested a former teacher of his, architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, in the project. Viollet-le-Duc planned to construct a brick pier within the statue, to which the skin would be anchored.[29] Announcement and early workDell Studio 1557 Battery By 1875, France was enjoying improved political stability and a recovering postwar economy. Growing interest in the upcoming Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia led Laboulaye to decide it was time to seek public support.[30] In September 1875, he announced the project and the formation of the Franco-American Union as its fundraising arm. With the announcement, the statue was given a name, Liberty Enlightening the World. Dell Studio 1555 Battery The French would finance the statue; Americans would be expected to pay for the pedestal.[32] The announcement provoked a generally favorable reaction in France, though many Frenchmen resented the United States for not coming to their aid during the war with Prussia.[31] French monarchists opposed the statue, if for no other reason than it was proposed by the liberal Laboulaye, who had recently been elected a senator for life. Dell Studio 1537 Battery Laboulaye arranged events designed to appeal to the rich and powerful, including a special performance at the Paris Opera on April 25, 1876, that featured a new cantata by composer Charles Gounod. The piece was titled La Liberté éclairant le monde, the French version of the statue's announced name. Dell Studio 1536 Battery Stereoscopic image of right arm and torch of the Statue of Liberty, 1876 Centennial Exposition Despite its initial focus on the elites, the Union was successful in raising funds from across French society. Schoolchildren and ordinary citizens gave, as did 181 French municipalities. Laboulaye's political allies supported the call, as did descendants of the French contingent in the American Revolutionary War. Less idealisticallyDell Studio 1535 Battery, contributions came from those who hoped for American support in the French attempt to build the Panama Canal. The firm of Japy Frères, copper merchants, donated all the copper needed to build the statue, a gift valued at 64,000 francs (about $16,000 at the time or the equivalent of $323,000 today).[33][34] The copper is said to have come from a mine in Visnes, Norway,[35] though this has not been conclusively determined. Dell Studio 14zn Battery Although plans for the statue had not been finalized, Bartholdi moved forward with fabrication of the right arm, bearing the torch, and the head. Work began at the Gaget, Gauthier & Co. workshop.[37] In May 1876, Bartholdi traveled to the United States as a member of a French delegation to the Centennial Exhibition,[38] and arranged for a huge painting of the statue to be shown in New York as part of the Centennial festivities. Dell Studio 1440 Battery The arm did not arrive in Philadelphia until August; because of its late arrival, it was not listed in the exhibition catalogue, and while some reports correctly identified the work, others called it the "Colossal Arm" or "Bartholdi Electric Light". The exhibition grounds contained a number of monumental artworks to compete for fairgoers' interest, including an outsized fountain designed by Bartholdi. Dell Inspiron 1764 Battery Nevertheless, the arm proved popular in the exhibition's waning days, and visitors would climb up to the balcony of the torch to view the fairgrounds.[41] After the exhibition closed, the arm was transported to New York, where it remained on display in Madison Square Park for several years before it was returned to France to join the rest of the statue. Dell Inspiron 17 Battery During his second trip to the United States, Bartholdi addressed a number of groups about the project, and urged the formation of American committees of the Franco-American Union.[42] Committees to raise money to pay for the foundation and pedestal were formed in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia. Dell Inspiron 1564 Battery The New York group eventually took on most of the responsibility for American fundraising and is often referred to as the "American Committee".[44] One of its members was 19-year-old Theodore Roosevelt, the future governor of New York and president of the United States.[42] On March 3, 1877, on his final full day in office, President Grant signed a joint resolution that authorized the President to accept the statue when it was presented by France and to select a site for it. President Rutherford B. HayesDell Inspiron 15 Battery, who took office the following day, selected the Bedloe's Island site that Bartholdi had proposed.[45] Construction in France The statue's head on exhibit at the Paris World's Fair, 1878 On his return to Paris in 1877, Bartholdi concentrated on completing the head, which was exhibited at the 1878 Paris World's Fair. Fundraising continued, with models of the statue put on sale. Tickets to view the construction activity at the Gaget, Gauthier & Co. workshop were also offered. Dell Inspiron 1464 Battery The French government authorized a lottery; among the prizes were valuable silver plate and a terracotta model of the statue. By the end of 1879, about 250,000 francs had been raised.[46] The head and arm had been built with assistance from Viollet-le-Duc, who fell ill in 1879. He soon died, leaving no indication of how he intended to transition from the copper skin to his proposed masonry pier. Dell Inspiron 14 Battery The following year, Bartholdi was able to obtain the services of the innovative designer and builder Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel.[34] Eiffel and his structural engineer, Maurice Koechlin, decided to abandon the pier and instead build an iron truss tower. Eiffel opted not to use a completely rigid structure, which would force stresses to accumulate in the skin and lead eventually to crackingDell Inspiron 1750 Battery. To enable the statue to move slightly in the winds of New York Harbor and as the metal expanded on hot summer days, he loosely connected the support structure to the skin using what was dubbed an armature—a metal framework that ends in a mesh of metal straps, known as "saddles", that are riveted to the skin, providing firm support. In a labor-intensive processDell Inspiron 1440 Battery, each saddle had to be crafted individually.[48][49] To prevent galvanic corrosion between the copper skin and the iron support structure, Eiffel insulated the skin with asbestos impregnated with shellac.[50] The change in structural material from masonry to iron allowed Bartholdi to change his plans for the statue's assembly. He had originally expected to assemble the skin on-site as the masonry pier was builtdell Studio 1747 battery; instead he decided to build the statue in France and have it disassembled and transported to the United States for reassembly in place on Bedloe's Island.[51] Eiffel's design made the statue one of the earliest examples of curtain wall construction, in which the exterior of the structure is not load bearing, but is instead supported by an interior framework. He included two interior spiral staircases, to make it easier for visitors to reach the observation point in the crown. dell Studio 1745 battery Access to an observation platform surrounding the torch was also provided, but the narrowness of the arm allowed for only a single ladder, 40 feet (12 m) long.[53] As the pylon tower arose, Eiffel and Bartholdi coordinated their work carefully so that completed segments of skin would fit exactly on the support structure.[54] In a symbolic act, the first rivet placed into the skin, fixing a copper plate onto the statue's big toe, was driven by United States Ambassador to France Levi P. Morton. dell Studio 1749 battery The skin was not, however, crafted in exact sequence from low to high; work proceeded on a number of segments simultaneously in a manner often confusing to visitors.[56] Some work was performed by contractors—one of the fingers was made to Bartholdi's exacting specifications by a coppersmith in the southern French town of Montauban. dell Studio 17 battery By 1882, the statue was complete up to the waist, an event Barthodi celebrated by inviting reporters to lunch on a platform built within the statue.[58] Laboulaye died in 1883. He was succeeded as chairman of the French committee by Ferdinand de Lesseps, builder of the Suez Canal. The completed statue was formally presented to Ambassador Morton at a ceremony in Paris on July 4, 1884, and de Lesseps announced that the French government had agreed to pay for its transport to New York. dell Studio XPS 1647 battery The statue remained intact in Paris pending sufficient progress on the pedestal; by January 1885, this had occurred and the statue was disassembled and crated for its ocean voyage.[60] Fundraising, criticism, and construction in the United States Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, June 1885, showing woodcuts of the completed statue in Paris, Bartholdi, and the statue's interior structure The committees in the United States faced great difficulties in obtaining funds. The Panic of 1873 had led to an economic depression that persisted through much of the decade. The Liberty statue project was not the only such undertaking that had difficulty raising moneydell Studio XPS 1645 battery: construction of the obelisk later known as the Washington Monument sometimes stalled for years; it would ultimately take over three-and-a-half decades to complete.[61] There was criticism both of Bartholdi's statue and of the fact that the gift required Americans to foot the bill for the pedestal. In the years following the Civil War, most Americans preferred realistic artworks depicting heroes and events from the nation's history, rather than allegorical works like the Liberty statue. dell Studio XPS 1640 battery There was also a feeling that Americans should design American public works—the selection of Italian-born Constantino Brumidi to decorate the Capitol had provoked intense criticism, even though he was a naturalized U.S. citizen.[62] Harper's Weekly declared its wish that "M. Bartholdi and our French cousins had 'gone the whole figure' while they were about it, and given us statue and pedestal at once." dell Studio XPS 16 batteryThe New York Times stated that "no true patriot can countenance any such expenditures for bronze females in the present state of our finances."[64] Faced with these criticisms, the American committees took little action for several years.[64] The foundation of Bartholdi's statue was to be laid inside Fort Wood, a disused army base on Bedloe's Island constructed between 1807 and 1811. Since 1823, it had rarely been used, though during the Civil War, it had served as a recruiting station. dell studio xps 13 battery The fortifications of the structure were in the shape of an eleven-point star. The statue's foundation and pedestal were aligned so that it would face southeast, greeting ships entering the harbor from the Atlantic Ocean.[66] In 1881, the New York committee commissioned Richard Morris Hunt to design the pedestal. Within months, Hunt submitted a detailed plan, indicating that he expected construction to take about nine months. dell studio xps 1340 battery He proposed a pedestal 114 feet (35 m) in height; faced with money problems, the committee reduced that to 89 feet (27 m).[68] Hunt's pedestal design contains elements of classical architecture, including Doric portals, and the large mass is fragmented with architectural detail to focus attention on the statue.[68] In form, it is a truncated pyramid, 62 feet (19 m) square at the base and 39.4 feet (12.0 m) at the top. The four sides are identical in appearanceDell Vostro 1720 Battery. Above the door on each side, there are ten disks upon which Bartholdi proposed to place the coats of arms of the states (between 1876 and 1889, there were 40 U.S. states), although this was not done. Above that, a balcony was placed on each side, framed by pillars. Bartholdi placed an observation platform near the top of the pedestal, above which the statue itself rises. Dell Vostro 1710 Battery According to author Louis Auchincloss, the pedestal "craggily evokes the power of an ancient Europe over which rises the dominating figure of the Statue of Liberty".[68] The committee hired former army General Charles Pomeroy Stone to oversee the construction work.[70] Construction on the 15-foot (4.6 m) deep foundation began in 1883, and the pedestal's cornerstone was laid in 1884. dell xps m1730 batteryIn Hunt's original conception, the pedestal was to have been made of solid granite. Financial concerns again forced him to revise his plans; the final design called for poured concrete walls, up to 20 feet (6.1 m) thick, faced with granite blocks.[71][72] The concrete mass was the largest poured to that time.[72] Fundraising for the statue had begun in 1882. The committee organized a large number of money-raising events. dell xps m1710 battery As part of one such effort, an auction of art and manuscripts, poet Emma Lazarus was asked to donate an original work. She initially declined, stating she could not write a poem about a statue. At the time, she was also involved in aiding refugees to New York who had fled anti-Semitic pogroms in eastern Europe. These refugees were forced to live in conditions that the wealthy Lazarus had never experienceddell xps m1530 battery. She saw a way to express her empathy for these refugees in terms of the statue.[74] The resulting sonnet, "The New Colossus", including the iconic lines "Give me your tired, your poor/Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free", is uniquely identified with the Statue of Liberty and is inscribed on a plaque in the museum in the base. dell xps m1330 battery