R: Doctor Richard Wendorf with bronze bust of Abraham Lincoln
characters in The Golden Bowl who "wound up and
started" the American protagonists on their way to
found a museum in the New World. One may speculate,
conversely, whether Dallas and John were similarly
inspired to found an American museum in the old world.
Perhaps realizing that art had been employed to schism,
they chose, through art, to tender a vision of unity and
hope following a half-century of devastating world war
and during the bleak years of the Cold War. The Prince
of Wales chose to honor them with his presence at an
inauguration. Prominent Americans and others continue
to support their legacy through the Halcyon Foundation.
However symbiotically rest the museum and its contents
in this landscape, look closely. There, just below the great
lawn, beyond Lincoln's massive bronze bust, to the far
side of the Mount Vernon Garden, very much at home
in an arboretum of American trees is a striking teepee:
there is the difference. In its iconic form and fabric, it is
the pure American presence sine qua non.
HYLAND
