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25-624: Four statues of lions by sculptor Roland Hinton Perry , known as the Perry Lions, are placed in pairs at both ends of the bridge. On July 3, 2003, the Taft Bridge was added to the National Register of Historic Places . The Classical Revival bridge was built from 1897 to 1907. It was designed by engineer George S. Morison and architect Edward Pearce Casey. Construction was overseen by U.S. Army engineer Henry C. Newcomer . It

50-608: A heavy mobile podium on which the model was posed each week by a quarreling agora of tousle-headed youths." The early success of the Académie was also secured by the famous and respected artists whom Rodolphe Julian employed as instructors: Adolphe William Bouguereau (1825–1905), Henri Royer , Jean-Paul Laurens , Gabriel Ferrier , Tony Robert-Fleury , Jules Lefebvre and other leading artists of that time trained in Academic art . Eventually, Académie Julian students were granted

75-604: A painted iron eagle with its wings spread. A replica of the Bairstow eagles is seen in a World War I monument in Middletown, Delaware . Roland Hinton Perry Roland Hinton Perry (January 25, 1870 – October 27, 1941) was an American sculptor and painter. Perry was born in New York City to George and Ione (Hinton) Perry, and entered the École des Beaux Arts in 1890 at the age of 19. At 21, he studied at

100-704: A period of time, reflected the teachings of Académie Julian. In 1989, on the occasion of the exhibition at the Shepherd Gallery, in Manhattan, devoted to the Academie Julian in Paris as it existed between 1868 and 1939, John Russell wrote: By my count, more than 50 nationalities were represented at the school during its glory years. To be at the Academie Julian was to be exposed to a kind of white magic that seems to have worked in almost every case. What

125-433: A whole is one of the first cast concrete bridges in the country) and were installed in 1907. In 1964 the lions were restored and weatherproofed by Washington-based sculptor Renato Luccetti , although this restoration proved to be less than entirely successful. When a major rehabilitation of the bridge began in 1993, the lions, which were in very bad condition, were removed for further restoration. They are currently stored in

150-406: Is an arch bridge with unreinforced concrete arches and a reinforced concrete deck. The total length of the bridge is 274.5 meters (901 ft). It has been called an "engineering tour de force " and the largest unreinforced concrete structure in the world. In 1931, the bridge was renamed in honor of U.S. President William Howard Taft , who frequently walked the bridge while Chief Justice of

175-694: The Académie Julian and Académie Delécluse in Paris and focused on sculpture, the medium in which he would achieve the most artistic success. After returning to the United States, Perry received a commission to sculpt a series of bas-reliefs for the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., in 1894. The following year, he was commissioned to create the Court of Neptune Fountain in front of

200-640: The German military administration forced the school to close. In 1946 some of the studios were sold. For his services to the arts, Rodolphe Julian, described by the Anglo-Irish novelist and critic George Moore as a kind of Hercules, dark-haired, strong, with broad shoulders, short legs, a soft voice and all the charm of the Midi was awarded the Legion of Honour . The artist records still extant are those of

225-887: The New Amsterdam Theater in New York City, (1903), statues of Dr. Benjamin Rush in Washington and of General George S. Greene at Gettysburg Battlefield (both 1904), the Perry Lions on the Connecticut Avenue Bridge in Washington (1906), a figural group atop Lookout Mountain in Chattanooga, Tennessee (1907), the John B Castleman Monument (1913), and a monument to the Thirty-Eighth Infantry in Syracuse, New York (1920). Perry

250-729: The Secessionist art movement in Germany and the Vienna Secession in Austria. It was followed and fully articulated by the Nabis , an avant-garde movement that participated in paving the way to modern art in 1888–1889. Over time, Académie Julian opened schools in other locations. In addition to the original school at Passage des Panoramas, studios were at no. 5 Rue de Berri in the 8th arrondissement , no. 31 Rue du Dragon in

275-535: The École des Beaux-Arts were accepted by the new Académie Julian. Foreign applicants who had been deterred from entering the Ecole des Beaux Arts by a vicious French language examination were welcome at the Académie Julian. Men and women were trained separately, and women participated in the same studies as men, including drawing and painting of nude models. "Human exchange went forward in an atmosphere that

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300-483: The 6th arrondissement, no. 51, rue Vivienne in the 2nd arrondissement for female student artists, overseen by painter Amélie Beaury-Saurel , Julian's spouse. Subsequent faculty included former students ( Edgar Chahine , for example). Académie Julian remained open during World War I , albeit with a lesser number of students. By contrast during World War II , after the 1941 exhibition Vingt jeunes peintres de tradition française considerations on " degenerate art " by

325-489: The Académie Julian as: "A huge room, lighted from above, and smelling strongly of turpentine; tobacco-smoke, sweat and garlic, for the models were mostly children of the South. A room plastered to the full height of a man's reach with palette scrapings whose many colours mingled to make a warm grey background, hung with the prize studies of decades of concourse , furnished with a huge Godin stove, and tall grass-plaited stools, and

350-627: The Académie Julian in 1868 at the Passage des Panoramas , as a private studio school for art students. The Académie Julian not only prepared students for the exams at the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts , but offered independent alternative education and training in arts. "Founded at a time when art was about to undergo a long series of crucial mutations, the Academie Julian played host to painters and sculptors of every kind and persuasion and never tried to make them hew to any one particular line". In 1880, women who were not allowed to enroll for study to

375-539: The Air Rights Tunnel on southbound I-395 . The sculptures were finally found to be beyond restoring. The United States Commission of Fine Arts worked with the city in the late 1990s to oversee the production of the replacement lions that now sit on the bridge. The sculptor Reinaldo Lopez-Carrizo of Professional Restoration produced molds based on the existing sculptures and photographs, and used them to cast new concrete lion sculptures that were installed on

400-658: The Library's main building, now known as the Thomas Jefferson Building . The success of this work in Washington led to other commissions including a design for the statue of Commonwealth on top of the dome of Pennsylvania's new Capitol Building in 1905. He also created the spandrels on the temporary Dewey Arch in New York City (1899), Thompson Elk Fountain standing in the Plaza Blocks of downtown Portland, Oregon (1900), interior reliefs for

425-676: The United States . During early planning for the Washington Metro in the 1960s, the Red Line was slated to run across the bridge to connect Dupont Circle and Woodley Park. Instead, the metro was built underground. Between 2010 and 2022, half of the 26 people in the District of Columbia who died as a result of suicide on bridges died on Taft Bridge. In 2023 the District Department of Transportation began planning for

450-535: The bridge in July and August 2000. The same molds were used to cast bronze lions installed at the main pedestrian entrance to the National Zoo farther north on Connecticut Avenue in 2002. The white lion in the lobby of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts is a quarter-size replica from that effort. Twenty-four lampposts are equally spaced along both sides of the Taft Bridge. Created by sculptor Ernest Bairstow in 1906,

475-473: The installation of new safety barriers on Taft Bridge. The bridge is "guarded" by four large male lions , two on each end of the bridge (each about 7 ft. x 6 ft. 6 in. x 13 ft.). Two of the lions rest on all fours with their heads tilted upwards and mouths slightly open while the other pair lie with their eyes closed, apparently sleeping. They were originally designed and sculpted by Roland Hinton Perry in 1906 out of cast concrete (the bridge as

500-412: The lampposts are composed of concrete bases (about 5 feet high, 8 inches deep and four feet wide) with painted iron lampposts (about 17 feet high and 4 wide) set in them. The pedestals are decorated with garland and a fluted column featuring acanthus leaves at the top and bottom. Above the leaves is a horizontal bracket with two globes hanging from each side of the column. Each lamppost is topped with

525-513: The right to compete for the Prix de Rome , a prize awarded to promising young artists. and participate in the major "Salons" or art exhibitions . In the late 19th century the term L'art pompier had entered the scene as a derisive term for the traditional academic art espoused by the Académie's instructors. As a result, the Académie Julian embraced a more liberal regime pushing a less conservative, more sincere approach to art which corresponded to

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550-555: Was a private art school for painting and sculpture founded in Paris , France, in 1867 by French painter and teacher Rodolphe Julian (1839–1907) that was active from 1868 through 1968. It remained famous for the number and quality of artists who attended during a great period of effervescence in the arts in the early twentieth century. After 1968, it integrated with the École supérieure de design, d'art graphique et d'architecture intérieure (ESAG) Penninghen. Rodolphe Julian established

575-665: Was a member of the Grand Central Art Galleries and the National Sculpture Society . Many of his paintings are displayed at the Detroit Museum of Art . Perry's cousin was the sculptor Clio Hinton Bracken , and the two shared studio space for a time. Perry died in New York City on October 27, 1941, at the age of 71. Acad%C3%A9mie Julian The Académie Julian ( French pronunciation: [akademi ʒyljɑ̃] )

600-534: Was collegial, easygoing and mutually supportive. It nurtured some of the best artists of the day". Académie Julian became popular as fertile ground with French as well as foreign students from diverse backgrounds from all over the world, from the United Kingdom , Canada, Hungary, and particularly the United States ; French art critic Egmont Arens wrote in 1924 that American art, at least for

625-559: Was learned there stayed forever with alumnus and alumna, and it related as much to the conduct of life as to the uses of brush and chisel. – in The New York Times , John Russell: "An Art School That Also Taught Life", 19 March 1989. The South African painter Strat Caldecott (1886–1929) worked and studied at the Académie Julian in preparation for his admission to the Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts. He vividly described

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