A new history

Commercially, the Panthéon was less successful than the new owners had hoped. Although the panorama was an impressive monument, it was also a sober and solemn work, which did not resonate with the American remembrance of the war. Whereas the First World War was a traumatic experience for France, it was a celebration-worthy event for the United States. After 1940, the panorama was crated up and abandoned for over a decade, then sold to a restaurant owner. The Panthéon finally ended up being adopted by artist Daniel MacMorris in 1956, who wanted to incorporate it in the Liberty Memorial in Kansas City, the largest memorial for the First World War in the country.

The painting was severely damaged after years of neglect, and large sections weren’t salvageable. MacMorris knew he would not have been able to exhibit the Panthéon in its entirety, and wanted to alter the painting to pay tribute to Woodrow Wilson and the League of Nations. The panorama was cut up, figures were rearranged or removed (where is the African American from 1927?), new figures were added – notably, presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman, left from the George Washington bust – and the tone of the work was much more jubilant than the original version. MacMorris also added a quote from Wilson across the top of the painting to emphasize the Wilsonian ideals that the Panthéon now celebrated: “We demand human justice . . . and peace sustained by the laws of men based on the tenets of God . . . to make the world free”.

The new Panthéon placed the United States at the center of the Great War, completely changing the narrative of the original painting and of the First World War. Furthermore, the composition was heavily influenced by the Cold War: for example, Russia didn’t make the final cut, nor did many countries from the Eastern Front. Once again, propaganda, patriotism, and memory had become intertwined, but the focus had shifted from France to the United States.