GREENOUGH, HORATIO

born Sept. 6, 1805, Boston, Mass., U.S. died Dec. 18, 1852, Somerville, Mass. neoclassical sculptor and writer on art. He was one of the first American artists to receive a national commission. Urged by his wealthy family and by the painter Washington Allston to study art, Greenough, after graduation from Harvard, went to Italy in 1825 for two years. He made a second trip in 1828, and this time he remained until a year before his death. Greenough is best known for his toga- and sandal-clad statue of George Washington, based on the statue of Zeus at Olympia by the ancient Greek sculptor Phidias. Commissioned by Congress in 1832, it was designed to stand in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol, but depicting a national hero in seminudity aroused such controversy that the statue was removed to the Smithsonian Institution. Greenough's importance in the 20th century largely rests upon his few brief essays on art in which he outlined the functional relationship between architecture and decoration. These theories were influential in the development of functionalism in modern architecture. Originally entitled The Travels, Observations, and Experience of a Yankee Stonecutter (1852), these essays were reissued in 1947 under the title Form and Function. Horatio's younger brother, Richard Saltonstall Greenough (1819-1904), was also a sculptor. His most famous work is a statue of Benjamin Franklin in front of Boston City Hall.