Opus 40: Telling An American History

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Opus 40: Telling an American History America is a country that is gifted with many different artists who specialized in many different fields. All these artists have one thing in common, and that is that you can always relate their piece of work back to the American Story or an American experience. Harvey Fite is no different. During his lifetime Harvey Fite work on a single gigantic project. He called his masterpiece “Opus 40”. The name comes from the Latin word Opus which means masterpiece and the number 40 represent the amount of time, in years, he believed it would take for him to complete it (Harvey). Fite’s project consisted of buying an abandoned quarry and transforming it into an art piece. Opus 40, the masterpiece of Harvey …show more content…
The American strength is considered that they never give up and they always work hard to accomplish their dreams. The masterpiece of Fite is a perfect representation of this American strength. We can know this is an American strength because this strength is what got the Americans out of the great depression as stated above. Harvey Fite demonstrates this strength in his work since this project is something that he worked on all by himself. This can be known since “he hand-laid each stone”, “no mortar”, “over the next 37 years as he held a full-time job as an art professor at Bard College across the Hudson River” (Hill). From the time he bought the carry to the time he died he worked on the carry day a night which demonstrate the hard work he put into his field. Another proof the was dedicated to his project and worked hard is that Fite died at the age of 72 while working on Opus 40 (Harvey). His hard work which represent the American strength can also be seen through pictures of Opus 40. For example, in one of the picture showing the many different pathways made of blue stone. You can see all the detail that went into making a small part of multiple acre masterpiece (Corbett, Louisa. To). The American people biggest strength is their hard work which is the reason why the country is where it is today, and through his work Fite perfectly demonstrate this hard

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