The Thomas Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress is one of the more significant public structures in American architecture, due for the most part to its wealth and quality of decoration, including an extensive sculptural program executed in 1894-97. The architects entrusted the program to a committee of three prominent sculptors, J. Q. A. Ward, O. L. Warner, and Augustus Saint-Gaudens. Nearly one hundred individual works were commissioned from thirty sculptors. In spirit they affirm the Enlightenment belief in public access to knowledge being essential to a democratic society and in style the tenets of the American Renaissance, an essentially conservative style that looked to antiquity and the Italian Renaissance to establish continuity with the traditions of the past.