Mort Künstler: Declaration of Independence

Artist: Mort Künstler
1931 -
Nationality: American
Artwork Year: 1986
Image Size: 14 by 12 inches
Overall Size: 20 by 17.5 inches
Medium: Acrylic on Cold Press Illustration Board

The Founding Fathers brought forth a new nation; Thomas Jefferson was their spokesman. This might have been surprising in another young man of thirty-three, but then everything was surprising about Mr. Jefferson: his learning, his wisdom, his versatility and -- as John Adams put it -- his "peculiar felicity of expression." Jefferson wrote the Declaration standing up at his desk in the second floor parlor of a German bricklayer named Graff; he "turned neither to book nor pamphlet" and completed it in two weeks. After two hundred years it remains the root document of American democracy. For not only out of "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind" did it declare the causes for separation from Great Britain, but it set forth, with incomparable succinctness, the philosophy which animated this new experiment in history. The most memorable -- and still most vital -- statement of that philosophy is the "self-evident" truth that "all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights ... Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness." In a way, that marvelous phrase covers the whole of life, the whole of society and government. Jefferson left it to future generations to spell out its particular meanings. "Each age," Robert Frost said, "will have to reconsider it," just as each age has to reconsider the meaning of all those famous terms in the rest of the Preamble.

This artwork was originally published on the Fleetwood® Commemorative Cover for Epic Events in American History series issued in 1985.

Artwork Copyright © 1986 Unicover Corporation. All Rights Reserved under United States and international copyright laws. You may not reproduce, distribute, transmit, or otherwise exploit the Artwork in any way. Images of the Artwork may be watermarked and/or digitally watermarked. Any sale of the physical original does not include or convey the Copyright or any right comprised in the copyright.

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