Louis Schaettle, born Chicago, IL - The State as Arbitrator for Industry, Education and the Military (study for - ca. 1916 - T-Shirt

A semicircular allegorical study in watercolour and gouache, this design shows a seated judge weighing competing claims on a balance while workers, a warrior and a laurel-crowned woman gather around him.

Visual Elements & Composition

The arch-shaped lunette frames the scene, with a bearded judge in a red robe at the centre holding a balance whose two pans hang level. Olive green and cream take up most of the picture, with brick red, sky blue and ochre picking out the robes, tunics and tools. A kneeling worker in a golden loincloth rests beside an anvil and hammer, a younger figure in blue holds a rolled scroll, and a helmeted warrior stands behind them with a raised sword. On the right, a woman in white extends a hand toward the scales beside a classical pedestal. A patterned band borders the whole arch.

Meaning & Symbolism

The arrangement places the arbiter between competing interests, and the scales mark the point of decision. The hammer and anvil stand for industry, the scroll for learning and the sword for military force, the three interests named in the title. The crowned figure presents the outcome as honour and reward. Louis Schaettle, born in Chicago, painted this study around 1916 as a preparatory design for a lunette in a public building. Its allegory belongs to the early twentieth-century mural programmes that presented civic institutions as ordered and impartial, and the seated judge expresses the idea of the state as a neutral power that weighs each group before it acts.

Carrying the Arbiter Across the Chest

A lunette is built to be read as a whole from a distance, but this tee brings the full arch onto the front of the body, so the judge sits at the centre of the chest and the workers, warrior and laurel-crowned figure arrange themselves around him as you move. The curve of the frame follows the natural shape of the shoulders, keeping the balance at eye level in every view.