Landing & Sargent Murals (Mezzanine)

The Sargent Murals

  • The John Singer Sargent murals were commissioned in the early 1920s. They were intended to memorialize the men of Harvard who gave their lives in World War I.
  • The mural on the left is titled Death and Victory "and depicts the death march of a soldier heralded by two trumpeting figures flying overhead, as he carries the figures of Victory and Death on a mythic battlefield."*
  • The mural on the right is titled The Coming of the Americans and "depicts waves of soldiers marching onto European shores greeted by personifications of the alliance: France, Belgium, and Great Britain.”*

 *Dini, Jane. “The Art of Selling War: Sargent’s World War I Murals for Harvard University.” Harvard University Art Museums Bulletin 7, no. 1 (1999).