Monica Sandu ‘24
Staff Editor
At the intersection of Brown and Hunton Andrews Kurth Halls lies a hidden gem of the law school. The Clark Hall Murals aren’t hard to miss, but they can be criminally easy to overlook.
Though currently the home of UVA’s Department of Environmental Sciences, Clark Hall was originally constructed in 1932 to house the Law School.[1] The murals we see today are reproductions of the 1934 originals created for Clark Hall by famed American muralist Allyn Cox.[2] Clark Hall is listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP), and its Memorial Library—home of the original murals—is “one of the Commonwealth’s most significant 20th-century architectural interiors.”
As described by the NRHP: “[T]he three large panels in color depict a passage from the 18th book of the Iliad. . .The primitive trial over the blood-price of a slain man. . .Opposite, on the east wall [in three panels], is Moses delivering the Tablets of the Law to the Children of Israel.” In short, the murals represent scenes in the development of civil and moral law, respectively.
I see these murals as the descendants of Baroque art, and in particular, French Academy history painting. The Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture[3] held near-complete control over artistic production in the pre-Revolutionary regime. History paintings, the most prestigious genre, were massive works often containing dozens of figures arranged across a flat and highly organized visual plane, depicting scenes from either religion or antiquity. Foremost among these académiciens was Nicolas Poussin, who founded the school of French classicism, with strong figure drawing, use of distinct primary colors, and highly-ordered horizontal organization of figures across a canvas in relation to a central action.
The Poussiniste influence is reflected by the central positioning of both Moses and Achilles in the Clark Hall Murals, as well as the subject matter itself. Furthermore, the figures’ nudity—doubtless among the first things many people notice—arises from this same tradition. The focus on the solidity of the underdrawings emphasized the physical expression of emotion via the human body itself.[4] Furthermore, history paintings, like the murals we see, almost always depict a snapshot in time, where the audience are onlookers into a moment interrupted, yet with subjects unbothered by our presence.
Overall, the Clark Hall Murals, both in their original form and in the homage that we find within the Law School today, are definitely worth checking out. Spend some time tracing the behavior of the characters, make order out of the cacophony of bodies and color, and appreciate a small slice of UVA’s long artistic—and legal—tradition.
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ms7mn@virginia.edu
[1] Where the Law School would remain until 1974, when it moved to North Grounds.
[2] There’s a short biography of Allyn Cox next to the murals themselves; I’d suggest checking it out if you’re interested.
[3] Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture.
[4] As opposed to facial expressions and softer colors found in the work of artists like Peter Paul Rubens and the later Baroque and Rococo movements.