Study for 'Instruments of Power' & 'Deep South'
Thomas Hart Benton American
Not on view
This double-sided study unites the most and the least industrial scenes in the mural, America Today, also in the Museum’s collection (2012.478a–j). It blocks out the key elements of Instruments of Power–a train, an airplane, a combustion engine, a zeppelin, and a dam–in shades of white, gray, and black. Accentuated with a few color tests around the perimeter, the composition relates closely to the final panel. In the mural, though, Benton enlarged the train and used elongated brushstrokes to show the shaft and pistons of the engine in motion.
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