MISS MANISTEE IS RECEIVING HOMAGE
BEAUTEOUS LADY APPEARS IN MURAL DECORATION
City's Most Important Art Treasure Is Now Open To Public
Inspection — Our History To This Time
Depicted On Canvas
The space left on the face of the vault in the First National Bank was filled Saturday afternoon with a painting executed by Frederick Winthrop Ramsdell. The painting is the most important decorative feature of a very beautiful and rich bank interior and is fortunately located so that it focuses the eye of the visitor the moment he enters the bank lobby.
The decoration is a symbolic representation of Manistee and the men who have made her what she is. The city is glorified as a beautiful young woman of sweet but stately mien, seated on a sort of throne, with the representatives of the characteristic workers of this region doing homage to their divinity.
The scene is placed in the open air with a bright and sunny sky. The figures in the foreground are placed in a cool and softened light. In the middle ground lies a strip of water suggestive of the upper harbor, and on the far shore are lumber piles, smoke stacks, salt derricks, and other characteristic features of our industrial landscape. On the other side of the water are two moored schooners, their spars and cordage cutting the sky to the right of the central figure.
The workers are divided into groups to the right and left. At the extreme left appear the first two Indians in buckskin and feathers, one standing erect and one kneeling. Next stands erect a burly voyageur with helmet and musket, his whiskered face suggesting the brave men of the French Exploration. The fourth figure is that of a sturdy river driver wearing a blouse of wonderful red and holding a pevee.
On the right hand side are the first two artisans, then a boom worker with a pike pole, and finally an axeman clad in a checkered Mackinaw.
Serene between these two groups sits Miss Manistee, her head surrounded with a golden aureole. In her left hand reposes the typical civic key of salt crystals, while her right hand supports a twig of pine. Her glorious throat is bared and her filmy garments are bound across her bosom with a rich broidered braid. Heavier drapery of purple velvet reaches the floor.
The whole effect is one of rare richness. The story is told simply and almost joyously, and so cleverly are the dominating colors repeated in the frame, the tiling of the vault, its brass door, and the decorations of the interior generally, that it seems that the entire room must have been expressly created as a setting for this picture.
Mr. Ramsdell has done Manistee a notable service in this beautiful decoration and to many people it will doubtless long stand for the highest attainment of this art. No person should refrain from enjoying its beauty any longer than circumstances may require.
Information from the Manistee News Advocate
Monday, April 12, 1989
Courtesy of the Manistee County Historical Museum