"This is the most ass-o-centric painting I've ever seen."

Say I, viewing this NYT article "Thomas Hart Benton Masterwork Goes to Met."

The photo at the link is only one panel of said masterwork, which is called "America Today."

I've got nothing against it. It's pretty cool.

The 10 panels — most of them seven and a half feet high and of varying widths — depict a panoramic sweep of rural and urban life on the eve of the Great Depression....

Benton received no fee for the commission. “I did it for nothing, just expense money,” he said. “But it led to eight other murals which paid me very well, so it was a good thing for me.” Its critical success became the impetus for the Works Progress Administration mural programs of the later 1930s.