Classic and Romantic Art

The museum's own guide to the dome, published in 1922, says plainly that neither the subject of this panel nor all of its figures come from tradition. Sargent made the story up. It is a contest held in the clouds. On the left a naked boy, Romantic Art, sings with his lyre under his arm, standing between the shaggy knees of the goat-legged god Pan, who has put down his pipe to listen. On the right a girl, Classic Art, half kneels beside Athena, who is setting aside her helmet, shield and spear. Between them Apollo sits as judge, one leg thrown over his tripod, holding on his hip the laurel wreath that is to be the prize. For the singing boy, Sargent drew his principal model again and again with his head raised in song. That model was Thomas McKeller, a young elevator attendant at a Boston hotel, who posed for the museum's murals for nearly ten years. In the painting Sargent gave the boy the head of a classical statue instead, and kept McKeller's open mouth.