At the end of the nineteenth century, a cosmopolitan generation of American artists turned away from the death and devastation of the Civil War and embraced life as their subject. To decorate a wave of new civic spaces being built at the time— including libraries, universities, and museums; state capitols, courthouses, and train stations; parks, squares, and world's fairs— the artists chose the human figure to embody the ideals of the age: the power of innovation over stagnation, of a stable and vibrant future over a stormy and divided past.