Vision of Peace

Inside a working civic building in downtown Saint Paul, a 36-foot figure of white onyx turns slowly on its base beneath a gold-leaf ceiling. Vision of Peace stands in Memorial Hall, the main hall of Saint Paul City Hall and Ramsey County Courthouse, which the Minnesota Historical Society calls the most striking room in the building. Its walls are deep blue, almost black, Belgian marble carved with the names of Ramsey County war dead from the First World War onward.

The building commissioners chose the Swedish sculptor Carl Milles for the hall. According to MNopedia, he came back with a design after three earlier proposals were rejected. The City of Saint Paul says Milles, a pacifist, was deeply impressed by a Native American ceremony he witnessed in Ponca City, Oklahoma, and that his statue shows five Native Americans seated around a fire holding pipes, with a "god of peace" rising from the smoke. The city adds that Milles saw no connection between Native American spirituality and his own vision.