Franklin Square, Washington, D.C.

John Barry, Commodore, United States Navy.
Born County Wexford, Ireland, 1745.
Died in Philadelphia, 1805.

I had just come up out of the McPherson Square Metro station, when I came upon this statue of Commodore John Barry in Franklin Square. I was on my way to a meeting to make a short budget presentation to a working group of the Biomass Research and Development Board. I had never been this way before, so when looking on my map for directions after coming up to street level, I expected the statue I saw in the distance to be one of Benjamin Franklin - but the closer I got, the more curious the form, and with each step I was sure this wasn't him. When I read the inscription, I recognized the name at once. Having a Midshipman at the U.S. Naval Academy has given me many opportunities to take in the history of the Navy. I couldn't pass up this shot - actually 20 images automatically compiled in Photoshop because there was no way to do justice to the statue's height with a single shot from my little digital camera, looking up at this great figure. Other than the automated blending feature, I haven't touched up the image. To the right side there is a little bit of cubist artist effect from a building in the distance, just beyond the boundary of the Square. It gives a little bit of an unexpected surreal effect to the photograph that I like, and which blends in with the overcast sky at 7:30 in the morning today. As I was snapping and waiting for each of the images because of the flash I used, I thought of how Michelangelo was way out ahead in his time as a sculptor. I remember in art history class that he used a technique of making the upper parts of his statues disproportionately larger to the lower parts so that the viewer from the ground looking up would have the illusion of looking at a form that was proportionate - bottom to top. The statue of Barry looks dwarfed by the base, not at all a metaphor for his stature as the founder of the United States Navy - but then again, it is not about the man, but his service.

For more information about the Barry Memorial, go to here.

There is also a nice painting of the Commodore above the first table on the right, in the furthest back section in the Galway Bay public house, on Maryland Avenue, near State Circle, in downtown Annapolis.