The City of Domes : a walk with an architect about the courts and palaces of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, with a discussion of its architecture, its sculpture, its mural decorations, its coloring and its lighting, preceded by a history of its growth
by John D. Barry · English · Gutenberg #3151 · 292,910 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The City of Domes : a walk with an architect about the courts and palaces of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, with a discussion of its architecture, its sculpture, its mural decorations, its coloring and its lighting, preceded by a history of its growth
Author: John D. Barry
Release date: April 1, 2002 [eBook #3151]
Most recently updated: January 8, 2021
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3151
Credits: This etext was produced by David A. Schwan
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CITY OF DOMES : A WALK WITH AN ARCHITECT ABOUT THE COURTS AND PALACES OF THE PANAMA-PACIFIC INTERNATIONAL EXPOSITION, WITH A DISCUSSION OF ITS ARCHITECTURE, ITS SCULPTURE, ITS MURAL DECORATIONS, ITS COLORING AND ITS LIGHTING, PRECEDED BY A HISTORY OF ITS GROWTH ***
Ver.12.12.00*END*
This etext was produced by David A. Schwan <davidsch@earthlink.net>
The City of Domes
A Walk with an Architect About the Courts and Palaces of the Panama
Pacific International ExposItion with a Discussion of Its Architecture -
Its Sculpture - Its Mural Decorations Its Coloring - And Its Lighting -
Preceded by a History of Its Growth
by John D. Barry
To the architects, the artists and the artisans and to the men of
affairs who sustained them in the cooperative work that created an
exposition of surpassing beauty, unique among the expositions of the
world.
Contents
Chapter
Preface
Introduction
I. The View from the Hill
II. The Approach
III. In the South Gardens
IV. Under the Tower of Jewels
V. The Court of the Universe
VI. On the Marina
VII. Toward the Court of the Four Seasons
VIII. The Court of the Four Seasons
IX. The Palace of Fine Arts from across the Lagoon
X. The Palace of Fine Arts at Close Range
XI. At the Palace of Horticulture
XII. The Half Courts
XIII. Near Festival Hall
XIV. The Palace of Machinery
XV. The Court of the Ages
XVI. The Brangwyns
XVII. Watching the Lights Change
XVIII. The Illuminating and the Reflections
Features that Ought to he Noted by Day
Features that Ought to be Noted by Night
Index
Illustrations
"The Pioneer Mother"
Design of the Exposition made in 1912
Site of the Exposition before Construction was Begun
Fountain of Youth
Fountain of El Dorado
Court of the Universe
"Air" and "Fire"
"Nations of the West" and "Nations of the Fast
"The Setting Sun" and "The Rising Sun"
"Music" and "Dancing Girls
"Hope and Her Attendants"
Star Figure; Medallion Representing "Art"
California Building
Spanish Plateresque Doorway, in Northern Wall
Eastern Entrance to Court of Four Seasons
Night View of Court of Four Seasons
Portal in Court of Four Seasons
The Marina at Night
Rotunda of the Palace of Fine Arts
Altar of Palace of Fine Arts
"The Power of the Arts"
Italian Fountain, Dome of Philosophy
"The Thinker"
"Aspiration"
"Michael Angelo"
Italian Renaissance Towers
"The End of the Trail"
Colonnade in Court of Palms
"Victorious Spirit"
Entrance to Palace of Horticulture
Night View of the Palace of Horticulture
Festival Hall at Night
"The Pioneer"
Fountain of Beauty and the Beast
Entrance to Palace of Varied Industries
Group above Doorway of Palace of Varied Industries
Avenue of Palms at Night
Avenue of Progress at Night
Arcaded Vestibule in Entrance to Palace of Machinery
"Genii of Machinery"
"The Genius of Creation"
Tower in Court of the Ages
Fountain of the Earth
"The Stone Age"
"Fruit Pickers"
Entrance to Court of the Ages, at Night
"The Triumph of Rome"
"The Thirteenth Labor of Hercules"
Preface
In the main, this volume consists of articles originally published in
the San Francisco BULLETIN. It includes material gathered from many
visits to the Exposition grounds and from many talks with men concerned
in the organization and the building and ornamentation. The brief
history that forms the Introduction gives an account of the development.
For me, as, I presume, for most people, the thing done, no matter how
interesting it may he, is never so interesting as the doing of the
thing, the play of the forces behind. Even in the talk with the
architect, where the finished Exposition itself is discussed, I have
tried to keep in mind those forces, and wherever I could to indicate
their play.
The dialogue form I have used for several reasons: it is easy to follow;
it gives scope for more than one kind of opinion; and it deals with the
subject as we all do, when with one friend or more than one we visit the
Exposition grounds. It has been my good fortune to he able to see the
Exposition from points of view very different from my own and much
better informed and equipped. I am glad to pass on the advantage.
The Exposition is generally acknowledged to be an achievement
unprecedented. Merely to write about it and to try to convey a sense of
its quality is a privilege. I have valued it all the more because I know
that many people, not trained in matters of architecture and art, are
striving to relate themselves to the expression here, to understand it
and to feel it in all its hearings. If, at times, directly or in
indirectly, I have been critical, the reason is that I wished, in so far
as I could, to persuade visitors not to swallow the Exposition whole,
but to think about it for themselves, and to bear in mind that the men
behind it, those of today and those of days remote, were human beings
exactly like themselves, and to draw from it all they could in the way
of genuine benefit.
Though the volume is mainly devoted to the artistic features associated
with the courts and the main palaces, I have included, among the
illustrations, pictures of the California Building, both because of its
close relation to California and because it is in itself magnificent,
and of two notable art features, the mural painting by Bianca in the
Italian Building, and "The Thinker", by Rodin, in the court of the
French Pavilion.
Introduction
The First Steps
In January, 1904, R. B. Hale of San Francisco wrote to his
fellow-directors of the Merchants' Association, that, in 1915, San
Francisco ought to hold an exposition to celebrate the opening of the
Panama Canal. In the financing of the St. Louis Exposition, soon to
begin, Mr. Hale found a model for his plan. Five million dollars should
be raised by popular subscription, five million dollars should be asked
from the State, and five million dollars should be provided by city
bonds.
The idea was promptly endorsed by the business associations.
From their chairmen was formed a board of governors. It was decided that
the exposition should be held, and formal notification was given to the
world by introducing into Congress a bill that provided for an
appropriation of five million dollars. The bill was not acted on, and it
was allowed to die at the end of the session.
Soon after formulating the plan for the exposition Mr. Hale changed the
date from, 1915 to 1913, to make it coincide with the four hundredth
anniversary of the discovery by Balboa of the Pacific.
In 1906 came the earthquake and fire. The next few years San Franciscans
were busy clearing away the debris and rebuilding. It was predicted that
the city might recover in ten years, and might not recover in less than
twenty-five years.
Nevertheless, in December, 1906, within nine months of the disaster, a
meeting was held in the shack that served for the St. Francis Hotel, and
the Pacific Ocean Exposition Company was incorporated.
In three years the city recovered sufficiently to hold a week's
festival, the Portola, and to make it a success.
Two days afterward, in October, 1909, Mr. Hale gave a dinner to a small
group of business men, and told of what had been done toward preparing
for the Exposition. They agreed to help.
Shortly afterward a meeting was held at the Merchants' Exchange. It was
decided that an effort should at once be made to raise the money and to
rouse the people of San Francisco to the importance of the project of
holding the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco in
1915.
As many as twenty-five hundred letters were sent to business men, asking
if they favored the idea of holding an exposition. Out of about eight
hundred replies only seven were opposed. Presently there were signs of
enthusiasm, reflected in the newspapers.
A committee of six representative business men was appointed and the
announcement was made that the committee should be glad to hear from
anyone in the city who had suggestions or grievances. It was determined
that every San Franciscan should have his day in court.
Later the committee of six appointed a foundation committee of two
hundred, representing a wide variety of interests.
The committee of two hundred chose a committee of three from outside
their number.
The committee of three chose from among the two hundred a directorate of
thirty. The thirty became the directorate of a new corporation, made in
1910, the Panama-Pacific International Exposition Company.
Financing
The Panama-Pacific Company two local millionaires, W. H. Crocker and W.
B. Bourn, started financially with twenty-five thousand dollars each.
They established the maximum individual subscription. They also secured
forty subscriptions of twenty-five thousand dollars each. Then followed
the call for a mass meeting. Before the meeting was held the business
men of the city were thoroughly canvassed. The Southern Pacific and the
Union Pacific together subscribed two hundred and fifty thousand
dollars. There were many other large subscriptions from public-service
organizations.
On the afternoon of the meeting there was a crowd in the Merchants'
Exchange Board Room. The announcement of the subscriptions created
enthusiasm. In two hours the amount ran up to more than four million
dollars. During the next few years they were increased to about
$6,500,000.
Meanwhile, the State voted a tax levy of five million dollars, and San
Francisco voted a bond and issue of the same amount, and by an act of
the Legislature, in special session, the counties were authorized to
levy a small tax for county Participation, amounting, in estimate, to
about three million dollars.
Recognition From Congress
Next came the task of securing from Congress official recognition of San
Francisco as the site of the International Exposition in celebration of
the Panama Canal.
Headquarters were established in Washington. Presently serious
opposition developed. Emissaries went from San Francisco to Washington
singly and in delegations. Stress was laid on San Francisco's purpose
not to ask for an appropriation from the national government. There were
several cities in competition - Boston, Washington, Baltimore and New
Orleans. New Orleans proved the most formidable rival. It relied on the
strength of of a united Democracy and of the solid South.
In the hearings before the Congressional Committee it was made plain
that the decision would go to the city with the best financial showing.
As soon as the decision was announced New Orleans entered into generous
cooperation with San Francisco.
The Exposition was on the way.
Naming the President.
The offer of the presidency of the Exposition Company was made to a
well-known business man of San Francisco, C. C. Moore. Besides being
able and energetic, he was agreeable to the factions created by the
graft prosecution of a half dozen years before. Like the board of
directors, he was to serve without salary. He stipulated that in the
conduct of the work there should be no patronage. With the directors he
entered into an a agreement that all appointments should be made for
merit alone.
Choosing the Site
The choice of site was difficult. The sites most favored were Lake
Merced, Golden Gate Park and Harbor View. Lake Merced was opposed as
inaccessible for the transportation both of building materials and of
people, and, through its inland position, as an unwise choice for an
Exposition on the Pacific Coast, in its nature supposed to be maritime.
The use of the park, it was argued, would desecrate the peoples
recreation ground and entail a heavy cost in leveling and in restoring.
Harbor View and the Presidio had several advantages. It was level. It
was within two miles or walking distance of nearly half the city's
inhabitants. It stood on the bay, close to the Golden Gate, facing one
of the most beautiful harbors in the world, looking across to Mount
Tamalpias and backed by the highest San Francisco hills. Of all the
proposed sites, it was the most convenient for landing material by
water, for arranging the buildings and for maintaining sanitary
conditions.
After a somewhat bitter public controversy the Exposition directors, in
July, 1911, announced a decision. It caused general surprise. There
should be three sites: Harbor View and a strip of the adjoining
Presidio, Golden Gate Park and Lincoln Park, connected by a boulevard,
specially constructed to skirt the bay from the ferry to the ocean.
That plan proved to be somewhat romantic. The boulevard alone, it was
estimated, would cost eighteen million dollars.
Harris D. H. Connick, the assistant city engineer was called on as a
representative of the Board of Public Works, and asked to make a
preliminary survey of Harbor View. He showed that, of the proposed
sites, Harbor View would be the most economical. The cost of
transporting lumber would be greatly reduced by having it all come
through the Golden Gate and deposited on the Harbor View docks. The
expense of filling in the small ponds there would be slight in
comparison with the expense of leveling the ground at the park.
A few weeks later Harbor View and the Presidia was definitely decided on
as the site, and the only site.
For months agents had been at work securing options on leases of
property in Harbor View, covering a little more than three hundred
acres, the leases to run into December 1915. Reasonable terms were
offered and in one instance only was there resort to condemnation. The
suit that followed forced the property owner, who had refused fifteen
hundred dollars, to take nine hundred dollars. President Moore was
tempted to pay the fifteen hundred dollars, but he decided that this
course would only encourage other property owners to be extortionate.
Some trouble was experienced with the Vanderbilt properties, part of
which happened to be under water. After considerable negotiating and
appeals to the public spirit of the owners, it was adjusted. About seven
hundred thousand dollars was paid for leases and about three hundred
thousand dollars for property bought outright.
The Director of Works
While President Moore was looking for the man he wanted to appoint as
head of the board of construction, Harris D. H. Connick called to
suggest and to recommend another man. Later the president offered
Connick the position as director of works.
Connick had exactly the qualifications needed: experience, youth,
energy, skill and executive ability. He hesitated for the reason that he
happened to be engaged in public work that he wished to finish. But he
was made to see that the new work was more important. He removed all the
buildings at Harbor View, about 150, and he filled in the ponds, using
two million cubic yards of mud and sand, and building an elaborate
system of sewers. The filling in took about six months. On the last day
mules were at work on the new land. And within a year the ground work
and the underground work was finished.
The Architects
Meanwhile, President Moore asked for a meeting of the San Francisco
Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, with more than 250
members. He explained that his purpose was to have them, select twelve
representatives from whom he should himself appoint five to act as an
architectural board. When the board was formed with Willis Polk at its
head, it included John Galen Howard, Albert Pissis, William Curlett, and
Clarence R. Ward. This board was dissolved and an executive council
composed of Polk, Ward and W. B. Faville was put in charge. Later it
gave way to a commission consisting of W. B. Faville, Arthur Brown,
George W. Kelham, Louis Christian Mullgardt, and Clarence R. Ward, of
San Francisco; Robert Farquhar, of Los Angeles; Carrere & Hastings,
McKim, Mead & White, and Henry Bacon, of New York, When it had completed
the preliminary plans the board discontinued its meetings and G. W.
Kelham was appointed Chief of Architecture.
The Block Plan
At the first meeting President Moore explained that, at the St. Louis
Exposition, according to wide-expressed opinions, the buildings had been
too far apart. He favored maximum of space with minimum of distance. The
architects first considered the conditions they had to meet, climate and
physical surroundings. They were mainly influenced by wind, cold and
rain.
The result was that for the Protection of visitors, they agreed to
follow what was later to be generally known, as the block plan, the
buildings arranged in, four blocks, joined by covered corridors and
surrounded by a wall, with three central courts and two half-courts in
the south wall. It had been developed in many talks among the
architects. Valuable suggestions came from Willis Polk and from E. H.
Bennett, of Chicago, active in the earlier consultations. The plan
finally accepted was the joint work of the entire commission.
Twelve buildings were put under contract, each designed to illustrate an
epoch of architecture, ranging from the severity of the early classic to
the ornate French renaissance of to-day.
The Architecture
From the start it was realized that, vast as the Exposition was to be,
representing styles of architecture almost sensationally different, it
must nevertheless suggest that it was all of a piece. The relation of
San Francisco to the Orient provided the clue. It was fitting that on
the shores of San Francisco Bay, where ships to and from the Orient were
continually plying, there should rise an Oriental city. The idea had a
special appeal in providing a reason for extensive color effects. The
bay, in spite of the California sunshine, somewhat bleak, needed to be
helped out with color. The use of color by the Orientals had abundantly
justified itself as an integral part of architecture. The Greeks and the
Romans had accepted it and applied it even in their statuary. It was,
moreover, associated with those Spanish and Mexican buildings
characteristic of the early days of California history.
The General Arrangement
The general arrangement of the Exposition presented no great
difficulties. The lay of the land helped. Interest, of course, had to
center in the palaces and the Festival Hall, with their opportunities
for architectural display. They naturally took the middle ground. And,
of course, they had to be near the State buildings and the foreign
pavilions. The amusement concessions, it was felt, ought to be in a
district by themselves, at one end. Equally sequestered should be the
livestock exhibit and the aviation field and the race track, which were
properly placed at the opposite end. There would undoubtedly be many
visitors concerned chiefly, if not wholly, with the central buildings.
If they chose, they could visit this section without going near the
other sections, carrying away in their minds memories of a city ideal in
outline and in coloring.
Construction
As soon as the plans were decided on, the architects divided the work
and separated. Those who had come from a distance went home and in a few
months submitted their designs in detail. A few months later they
returned to San Francisco and the meetings of the architectural board
were resumed. Soon the modifications were made and the practical
construction was ready to begin. Incidentally there were compromises and
heartburnings. But limitations of funds had to be considered. Finally
came the question of the tower, giving what the architects called "the
big accent." There were those who favored the north side for the
location. Others favored the south side. After considerable discussion
the south side was chosen. At one of the meetings, Thomas Hastings did
quick work with his pencil, outlining his idea of what the tower should
be. Later, he submitted an elaborate plan. It was rejected. A second
plan was rejected, too. The third was accepted. It cost five hundred
thousand dollars.
Designs for two magnificent gateways, to be erected at the approaches to
the Court of the Ages and the Court of the Four Seasons were considered.
They had to be given up to save expense.
Clearing The Land
The task of clearing the land was finished in a few months. In addition
to the government reserve, the Exposition had seventy-six city blocks.
They represented two hundred parcels of land, with 175 owners, and
contained four hundred dwellings, barns and improvements. Most of the
buildings were torn down. A few were used elsewhere. Precautions were
taken to re-enforce with piles the foundations of the buildings and of
the heavy exhibits.
The director of works became responsible for the purchase of all the
lumber to be used in building. It was bought wholesale, shipped from the
sawmills and delivered to the sites. So there was a big saving here,
through the buying in bulk and through reduced cost in handling and
hauling. The first contracts given out were for the construction of the
palaces. An estimate was made of the exact number of feet available for
exhibits and charts were prepared to keep a close record on the progress
of the work. Incidentally, other means of watching progress consisted of
the amounts paid out each month. During the earlier months the
expenditures went on at the rate of a million a month. Every three weeks
a contract for a building would be given out. The same contractors
figured on each building. From the start it was understood that the work
should be done by union men. The chief exceptions were the Chinese and
the Japanese. The exhibitors had the privilege of bringing their own
men. In all about five thousand men were employed, working either eight
or nine hours a day. During the progress of the work there were few
labor troubles.
One wise feature of the planning lay in the economy of space. It
succeeded in reaching a compactness that made for convenience without
leading to overcrowding. Great as this Exposition was to be, in its
range worthy to be included among the expositions of the first class, it
should not weary the visitors by making them walk long distances from
point to point. In spite of its magnitude, it should have a kind of
intimacy.
Choice of Material
There were certain dangers that the builders of the Exposition had to
face. One of the most serious was that buildings erected for temporary
use only might look tawdry. It was, of course, impracticable to use
stone. The cost would have been prohibitive, and plaster might have made
the gorgeous palaces hardly more than cheap mockeries.
Under the circumstances it was felt that some new material must be
devised to meet the requirements. Already Paul E. Denneville had been
successful in working with material made in imitation of Travertine
marble, used in many of the ancient buildings of Rome, very beautiful
in texture and peculiarly suited to the kind of building that needed
color. He it was who had used the material in the Pennsylvania Station,
New York, in the upper part of the walls. After a good deal of
experimenting Denneville had found that for his purpose gypsum rock was
most serviceable. On being ground and colored it could be used as a
plaster and made to seem in texture so close to Travertine marble as to
be almost indistinguishable. The results perfectly justified his faith.
As the palaces rose from the ground, making a magnificent walled city,
they looked solid and they looked old and they had distinct character.
Moreover, through having the color in the texture, they would not show
broken and ragged surfaces.
The Color Scheme
For the color-effects it was felt that just the right man must be found
or the result would be disastrous. The choice fell on Jules Guerin, long
accepted as one of the finest colorists among the painters of his time.
He followed the guidance of the natural conditions surrounding the
Exposition, the hues of the sky and the bay, of the mountains, varying
from deep green to tawny yellow, and of the morning and evening light.
And he worked, too, with an eye on those effects of illumination that
should make the scene fairyland by night, utilizing even the tones of
the fog.
The Planting
There was no difficulty in finding a man best suited to plan the
garden that was to serve as the Exposition's setting. For many years
John McLaren had been known as one of the most distinguished
horticulturists in this part of the world. As superintendent of Golden
Gate Park he had given fine service. Moreover, he was familiar with the
conditions and understood the resources and the possibilities. Of course
a California exposition had to maintain California's reputation for
natural beauty. It must be placed in on ideal garden, representing the
marvelous endowment of the State in trees and shrubs and plants and
flowers and showing what the climate could do even with alien growths.
The first step that McLaren took was to consult the architects. They
explained to him the court plan that they had agreed on and they gave
him the dimensions of their buildings. Against walls sixty feet high he
planned to place trees that should reach nearly to the top. For his
purpose he found four kinds of trees most serviceable: the eucalyptus,
the cypress, the acacia and the spruce. In his search for what he wanted
he did not confine himself to California. A good many trees he brought
down from Oregon. Some of his best specimens of Italian cypress he
secured in Santa Barbara, in Monterey and in San Jose. He also drew
largely on Golden Gate Park and on the Presidio. In all he used about
thirty thousand trees, more than two-thirds eucalyptus and acacia.
Preparing the Landscape
Two years before the Exposition was to open McLaren built six
greenhouses in the Presidia and a huge lath house. There he assembled
his shrubs, his plants, and his bulbs. In all he must have used nearly a
million bulbs. From Holland he imported seventy thousand rhododendrons.
From Japan he brought two thousand azaleas. In Brazil he secured some
wonderful specimens of the cineraria. He even sent to Africa for the
agrapanthus, that grew close to the Nile. Among native flowers he
collected six thousand pansies, ten thousand veronicas and five thousand
junipers, to mention only, a few among the multitude a flowers that he
intended to use for decoration. The grounds he had carefully mapped and
he studied the landscape and the shape and color of the buildings
section, by section.
The planting of trees consumed many months. The best effects McLaren
found he could get by massing. He was particularly successful with the
magnificent Fine Arts Palace, both in his groupings and in his use of
individual trees. About the lagoon he did some particularly attractive
planting, utilizing the water for reflection. There was a twisted
cypress that he placed alone against the colonnade with a skill that
showed the insight and the feeling of an, artist. On, the water side,
the Marina, he used the trees to break the bareness of the long
esplanade. And here and there on the grounds, for pure decoration, he
reached some of his finest effects with the eucalyptus, for which he
evidently had a particular regard. As no California Exposition would be
complete without palm trees, provision was made for the decorative use
of palms along of the main walks.
About two weeks before the opening, the first planting of the gardens
was completed, the first of the three crops to be displayed during the
Exposition. The flowers included most of the spring flowers grown here
in California or capable of thriving in the California spring climate.
In June they were to be re-placed with geraniums, begonias, asters,
gilly-flowers, foxglove, hollyhocks, lilies and rhododendrons. The
autumn display, would include cosmos and chrysanthemums and marguerites.
The Hedge
As the work proceeded, W. B. Faville, the architect, of Bliss and
Faville, made a suggestion for the building of a fence that should look
as if it were moss-covered with age. The result was that developing the
suggestion McLaren devised a new kind of hedge likely to be used the
world over. It was made of boxes, six feet long and two feet wide,
containing, a two-inch layer of earth, held in place by a wire netting,
and planted with South African dew plant, dense, green and hardy and
thriving in this climate. Those boxes, when piled to a height of several
feet, made a rustic wall of great beauty, Moreover, they could be
continuously irrigated by a one-inch perforated line of pipe. In certain
lights the water trickling through the leaves shimmered like gems. In
summer the plant would produce masses of small purple flowers.
McLaren found his experiment so successful that he decided to build a
hedge twenty feet high, extending more than a thousand feet. He also
used the hedge extensively in the landscape design for the Palace of
Fine Arts.
The Sculptors
The department of sculpture was placed under the direction of one of the
most distinguished sculptors in the country. Karl Bitter, of New York,
whose death from an automobile accident took place a few weeks after the
Exposition opened. He gathered around him an extraordinary array of
co-operators, including many of the most brilliant names in the world of
art, with A. Stirling Calder as the acting chief, the man on the ground.
Though he did not contribute any work of his own, he was active in
developing the work as a whole, taking special pains to keep it in
character and to see that, even in it its diversity, it gave the
impression, of harmony.
Calder welcomed the chance to work on a big scale and to carry out big
ideas. With Bitter he visited San Francisco in August, 1912, for a
consultation with the architectural commission. Minutely they went over
the site and examined the architectural plans. Then they picked the
sculptors that they wished to secure as co-operators.
In December, 1912, Bitter and Calder made another visit to San Francisco
for further conferring with the architectural commission, bearing
sketches and scale models. Bitter explained his plans in detail and
asked for an appropriation. He was told that he should be granted six
hundred thousand dollars. The amount was gradually reduced till it
finally reached three hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars.
It was at this period that Calder submitted his plan for the Column of
Progress. He had worked it out in New York and had the scale models made
by MacNeil and Konti. It won the approval of McKim, Mead & White, who
declared that it made an ideal feature of the approach from the bay side
to their Court of the Universe, then called the Court of the Sun and
Stars.
The next few months of preparation in New York meant getting the
sculptors together and working out the designs. The first meeting of the
sculptors took place in January, 1913, in Bitter's studio, with a
remarkable array of personages in attendance, including D. C. French,
Herbert Adams, Robert Aitken, James E. Fraser, H. A. MacNeil, A. A.
Weinman, Mahonri Young, Isidore Konti, Mrs. Burroughs and several
others. In detail Bitter explained the situation in San Francisco and
outlined his ideas of what ought to be done. Already Henry Bacon had
sent in his design for his Court of the Four Seasons and sculptors were
set to work on its ornamentation, Albert Jaegers, Furio Piccirilli, Miss
Evelyn Beatrice Longman and August Jaegers, a time limit being made for
the turning in of their plans.
Developing the Sculpture
In June, 1913, Calder returned to San Francisco to stay till the
Exposition was well started. On the grounds he established a huge
workshop. Then he began the practical developing of the designs, a great
mass, which had already been carefully sifted. Hitherto, in American
expositions the work had been done, for the most part, in New York, and
sent to its destination by freight, a method costly in itself and all
the more costly on account of the inevitable breakage. San Francisco,
by being so far from New York, would have been a particularly expensive
destination. From every point of view it seemed imperative that the work
should be done here.
In a few weeks that shop was a hive of industry, with sculptors,
students of sculpture front the art schools, pointers, and a multitude
of other white-clad workers bending all their energies toward the
completion on time of their colossal task. A few of the sculptors and
artisans Calder had brought from New York. But most of the workers he
secured in San Francisco, chiefly from the foreign population, some of
them able to speak little or no English.
The modeling of the replicas of well-known art works were, almost
without exception, made in clay. Most of the original work was directly
modelled in plaster-staff used so successfully throughout the
Exposition. For the enlarging of single pieces and groups the pointing
machine of Robert Paine was chosen by Calder. It was interesting to see
it at work, under the guidance of careful and patient operators, tracing
mechanically the outlines and reproducing them on a magnified scale. For
the finishing of the friezes the skill of the artist was needed, and
there Calder found able assistants in the two young sculptors, Roth and
Lentelli, who worked devotedly themselves and directed groups of
students.
In all the sculpture Calder strove to keep in mind the significance of
the Exposition and the spirit of the people who were celebrating. With
him styles of architecture and schools were a minor consideration, to
be left to the academicians and the critics. He believed that sculpture,
like all other art-forms, was chiefly valuable and interesting as human
expression.
The Decorative Figures
Less successful on the whole than the blending of sculpture and
architecture were the individual figures designed to be placed against
the walls. Some of them were extremely well done. Others were obvious
disappointments. The unsophisticated judgment, free from Continental
bias, might have objected to the almost gratuitous use of nudity. For a
popular exhibition, even the widely-traveled and broad-minded art
lover might have been persuaded that a concession to prejudice could
have been made without any great damage to art.
In the magnificent entrance to the grounds it was deemed fitting that
the meaning of the Exposition should be symbolized by an elaborate
fountain. So in the heart of the South Gardens there was placed the
Fountain of Energy, the design of A. Stirling Calder, the athletic
figure of a youth, mounted on a fiery horse, tearing across the globe,
which served for pedestal, the symbolic figures of Valor and Fame
accompanying on either side. The work, as a whole suggested the triumph
of man in overcoming the difficulties in the way, of uniting the two
oceans. It made one of the most striking of all the many fountains on
the grounds, the dolphins in the great basin, some of them carrying
female figures on their backs, contributing to an effect peculiarly
French.
The Column of Progress
The Column of Progress, suggested by Calder and planned in outline by
Symmes Richardson, besides being beautiful symbol and remarkably
successful in outline, was perhaps the most poetic and original of all
the achievements of the sculptors here. It represented something new in
being the first great column erected to express a purely imaginative and
idealistic conception. Most columns of its kind had celebrated some
great figure or historic feat, usually related to war. But this column
stood for those sturdy virtues that were developed, not through the
hazards and the excitements and the fevers of conquest, but through the
persistent and homely tests of peace, through the cultivation of those
qualities that laid the foundations of civilized living. Isidore Konti
designed the frieze typifying the swarming generations, by Matthew
Arnold called "the teeming millions of men," and to Hermon A. MacNeil
fell the task of developing the circular frieze of toilers, sustaining
the group at the top, three strong figures, the dominating male, ready
to shoot his arrow straight alit to its mark, a male supporter, and the
devoted woman, eager to follow in the path of advance.
The Aim of the Sculptors
It was evidently the aim of the sculptors to express in their work, in
so far as they could, the character of the Exposition. And the breadth
of the plans gave them, a wide scope. They must have welcomed the chance
to exercise their art for the pleasure of the multitude, an art
essentially popular in its appeal and certain to be more and more
cultivated in our every-day life. Though this new city was to be for a
year only, it would surely influence the interest and the taste in art
of the multitudes destined to become familiar with it and to carry away
more or less vivid impressions.
The sculpture, too, would have a special advantage. Much of it, after
the Exposition, could be transferred elsewhere. It was safe to predict
that the best pieces would ultimately serve for the permanent adornment
of San Francisco - by no means rich in monuments.
Mural Painting
It was felt by the builders of the Exposition that mural decorating
must be a notable feature.
The Centennial Exposition of '76 had been mainly an expression of
engineering. Sixteen years later architecture had dominated the
Exposition in Chicago. The Exposition in San Francisco was to be
essentially pictorial, combining, in its exterior building,
architecture, sculpture and painting.
When Jules Guerin was selected to apply the color it was decided that he
should choose the mural decorators, subject to the approval of the
architectural board. The choice fell on men already distinguished. all
of them belonging to New York, with two exceptions, Frank Brangwyn of
London, and Arthur Mathews, of San Francisco. They were informed by
Guerin that they could take their own subjects. He contented himself
with saying that a subject with meaning and life in it was an asset.
In New York the painters had a conference with Guerin. He explained the
conditions their work was to meet. Emphasis was laid on the importance
of their painting with reference to the tone of the Travertine. They
were instructed, moreover, to paint within certain colors, in harmony
with the general color-scheme, a restriction that, in some cases, must
have presented difficult problems.
The preliminary sketches were submitted to Guerin, and from the sketches
he fixed the scale of the figures. In one instance the change of scale
led to a change of subject. The second sketches were made on a larger
scale. When they were accepted the decorators were told that the final
canvases were to be painted in San Francisco in order to make sure that
they did not conflict with one another and that they harmonized with the
general plan of the Exposition. Nearly all the murals were finished in
Machinery Hall; but most of them had been started before they arrived
there.
Painting For Out-Doors
Some concern was felt by the painters on account of their lack of
experience in painting for out-of-doors. There was no telling, even by
the most careful estimate, how their canvases would look when in place.
Color and design impressive in a studio might, when placed beside
vigorous architecture, become weak and pale. Besides, in this instance,
the murals would meet new conditions in having to harmonize with
architecture that was already highly colored. Furthermore, no two of the
canvases would meet exactly the same conditions and, as a result of the
changes in light and atmospheric effects, the conditions would be subject
to continual change. Finally, they were obliged to work without precedent.
It was true that the early Italians had done murals for the open air,
but no examples had been preserved.
That the painters were able to do as well as they did under the
limitations reflected credit on their adaptability and good humor. The
truth was they felt the tremendous opportunity afforded their art by
this Exposition. They believed that in a peculiar sense it testified to
the value of color in design. It represented a new movement in art, with
far-reaching possibilities for the future. That some of them suffered as
a result of the limiting of initiative and individuality, of
subordination to the general scheme, was unquestionable. Some of the
canvases that looked strong and fine when they were assembled for the
last touches in Machinery Hall became anaemic and insignificant on the
walls. Those most successfully met the test where the colors were in
harmony with Guerin's coloring and where they were in themselves strong
and where the subjects were dramatic and vigorously handled. The
allegorical and the primitive subjects failed to carry, first because
they had little or no real significance, and secondly because the spirit
behind them was lacking in appeal and, occasionally, in sincerity.
In one regard Frank Brangwyn was more fortunate than the other painters.
His murals, though intended to be displayed in the open air, were to
hang in sequestered corners of the corridors running around the Court of
the Ages, the court, moreover, that was to have no color. Besides, there
were no colors in the world that could successfully compete against his
powerful blues and reds.
The Lighting
The lighting of the Exposition, it was determined, should be given to
the charge of the greatest expert in the country. Several of the leading
electric light companies were consulted. They agreed that the best man
was Walter D'Arcy Ryan, who had managed the lighting at the
Hudson-Fulton Celebration and at the Niagara Falls Exposition. Mr. Ryan
explained his system of veiled lighting, with the source of the light
hidden, and made plain its suitability to an Exposition where the
artistic features were to be notable, and where they were to be
emphasized at night, with the lighting so diffused as to avoid shadows.
After his appointment as director of illuminating he made several visits
to San Francisco, and a year before the opening of the Exposition, he
returned to stay till the close. His plan of ornamenting the main tower
with large pieces of cut glass, of many colors, to shine like jewels,
created wide-spread interest on account of its novelty. It was generally
regarded as a highly original and sensational Exposition feature.
Watching the Growth
As the building went on the San Franciscans gradually became alive to
the splendor. Each Sunday many thousands would assemble on the grounds.
About a year before the date set for the opening an admission fee of
twenty-five cents brought several thousands of dollars each week. On the
Sundays when Lincoln Beachey made his sensational flights there would
often be not less than fifty thousand people looking on.
The Walled City
If there were any critics who feared that the walled city might present
a certain monotony of aspect they did not take into account the Oriental
luxuriance of the entrances, breaking the long lines and making splendid
contrast of design and of color. Those entrances alone were worth minute
study. Besides being beautiful, they had historic significance.
Furthermore, the long walls were broken by artistically designed windows
and by groups of trees running along the edge. Within the walls, in the
splendidly wrought courts, utility was made an expression, of beauty by
means of the impressive colonnades, solid rows of columns, delicately
colored, suitable for promenading and for protection against rain.
From the hills looking down on the bay the Exposition began to seem
somewhat huddled. But the nearer one approached, the plainer it became
that this effect was misleading. On the grounds one felt that there was
plenty of room to move about in. And there was no sense of incongruity.
Very adroitly styles of architecture that might have seemed to be alien
to one another and hostile had been harmoniously blended. Here the color
was a great help. It made the Exposition seem all of a piece.
The War
In the summer of 1914 the Exposition received what for a brief time,
looked like a crushing blow in the declaration of war. How could the
world be interested in such an enterprise when the great nations of
Europe were engaged in what might prove to be the most deadly conflict
history?
The directors, in reviewing the situation, saw that, far from being a
disadvantage in its effect on their plans, the war might be an
advantage. In the first place, it would keep at home the great army of
American travelers that went to Europe each year. With their fondness
for roaming, they would be almost certain to be drawn to this part of
the world. And besides, there were other travelers to be considered,
including those Europeans who would be glad to get away from the alarms
of war and those South Americans who were in the habit of going to
Europe. Furthermore, though the Exposition had been designed to
commemorate the services of the United States Army in building the
Panama Canal, it was essentially dedicated to the arts of peace. It
would show what the world could do when men and nations co-operated.
The Department of Fine Arts
Meanwhile, the war was upsetting the plans for the exhibits, notably the
exhibit of painting and sculpture.
When John E. D. Trask, for many years director of the Pennsylvania
Academy of Fine Arts, was appointed Director of the Fine Arts Department
at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, he had made a careful
survey of the field he had to cover. It virtually consisted of the whole
civilized world. After arranging for the formulation of committees in
the leading cities of the East and the Middle West to secure American
work, he made a trip to Europe, visiting England, France, Holland,
Sweden, Germany, Hungary, Austria and Italy. With the exception of
England and Germany, the governments were sympathetic. The indifference
of those two countries was at the time was not quite comprehensible.
There might have been several explanations, including the threat of war.
There were also those who said that England and Germany had entered into
a secret alliance against this country for the purpose of minimizing the
American influence in commerce, soon to be strengthened by the opening
of the Panama Canal. Wherever the truth lay, the fact remained that both
countries maintained their attitude of indifference. Individual English
and German artists and organizations of artists, however, showed a
willingness to co-operate.
Through emissaries, mainly unofficial, Americans of influence, Trask
drew on the resources of all Europe. He also entered into negotiations
with China and Japan, both of which countries, with their devotion to
art, as might have been expected, co-operated with enthusiasm. The
display at the Fine Arts Palace promised to make one of the greatest
international exhibits in history, if not the greatest.
At the outbreak of the war it looked as if the whole of Europe might
become involved and it might be impossible to secure anything that could
properly be called a European art exhibit. Meanwhile, the space reserved
for the European exhibitors must he filled. It happened that, at the
time, Trask was in the East. He quickly put himself into personal
communication with the New York artists, who had been invited to send
three or four works, and he asked them to increase the number. He also
arranged with his committee for the securing of a much larger number of
American pictures. Under the circumstances he was bound to rely on the
discretion of his juries. The result was that he had to take what came.
It included a large number of excellent works and others of doubtful
merit.
An Emissary to France and Italy
Meanwhile, during the few months after the outbreak of war, the art
situation in Europe began to look more hopeful. It seemed possible that
some of the nations concerned in the war would be persuaded to
participate. Captain Asher C. Baker, Director of the Division of
Exhibits, was sent on a special mission to France, sailing from New York
early in November. The United States collier "Jason" was then preparing
to sail from New York with Christmas presents for the children in the
war zone, and the secretary of the navy had arranged with the Exposition
authorities that, on the return trip, the ship should be used to carry
exhibits from Europe. The first plan was that the exhibits should come
only from the warring nations; it was later extended to include other
nations.
In Paris Captain Baker found the situation discouraging. The first
official he saw told him that, under the circumstances, any
participation of France whatsoever was out of the question: France was
in mourning, and did not wish to celebrate anything; if any Frenchman
were to suggest participation he would be criticised; furthermore, Albert
Tirman, at the head of the French committee that had visited San
Francisco the year before to select the site of the French Pavilion, had
come back from the front in the Vosges and was hard at work in the
barracks of the Invalides, acting as an intermediary between the civil
and military authorities.
Then Captain Baker appealed to Ambassador Myron T. Herrick. Although the
ambassador was enthusiastic for the Exposition, he said that, in such a
crisis, he could not ask France to spend the four hundred thousand
dollars set apart for use in San Francisco. Captain Baker said: "Don't
you think if France came in at this time a wonderfully sympathetic
effect would be created all over the United States?" The ambassador
replied, "I do." "Wouldn't you like to see France participate?" The
ambassador declared that he would. "Will you say so to Mr. Tirman?" The
ambassador said, "Willingly."
A week later Baker and Tirman were on their way to Bordeaux to see
Gaston Thomson, Minister of Commerce. They made these proposals: The
exhibits should be carried by the Jason through the canal to San
Francisco; the building of the French Pavilion should be undertaken by
the Division of Works of the Exposition, on specification to be cabled
to San Francisco of the frame work, the moulds for the columns and
architectural ornaments to be prepared in France and shipped by express;
the French committee of organization was to work in France among
possible exhibitors; a statement was to be made to the ministry of what
each department of the government could do in sending exhibits and what
exhibits were ready; a statement should come from the Minister of Fine
Arts as to how much space he could occupy and how many paintings could
be secured for the Palace of Fine Arts; a complete representation of the
Department of Historical Furniture and Tapestries, known as the Garde
Meuble, was to be made for the pavilion.
In the interview with the Minister of Commerce Baker argued that,
without France, an Exposition could not be international, and that the
participation of France at this time, with her flag flying in San
Francisco, would be like winning a battle before the world. It would
show the people of the United States France's gratitude for the money
sent the wounded and the suffering, and would warm the hearts of the
American people.
Thomson responded with enthusiasm, and soon the government became
enthusiastic. Several thousand dollars were spent in cabling; Henri
Guillaume, the distinguished French architect, experienced in many
expositions, was sent out. When the Jason stopped at Marseilles it took,
on board one of the most remarkable collections of art treasures ever
shipped to a foreign country, the finest things in one of the world's
great storehouses of treasure, including even the priceless historical
tapestries, and a large collection of French paintings for the Fine Arts
Palace, gathered by the French committee after great labor, due to the
absence of many of the painters in the war.
When Captain Baker left France he had accomplished far more for the
Exposition than he realized himself. Reports of his success in securing
French participation preceded him to Italy and helped to prepare the
way. The Italians listened to his proposition, all the more willingly
because France had been won over. Besides, he had a warm supporter in
Ernesto Nathan, ex-Mayor of Rome, who had paid an extended visit to San
Francisco and had become an enthusiastic champion of the Exposition. In
a few days he had made arrangements that led to the collection of the
splendid display of Italian art, shipped on the Vega, together with many
commercial exhibits. Captain Bakers work in France and in Italy,
accomplished within three weeks, was a triumph of diplomacy.
Foreign Participation in General
Germany was not to be completely over-shadowed by France notwithstanding
previous indifference on the part of the government. German
manufacturers wished to be represented, and they actually received
governmental encouragement. Austrians, not to be outdone by Italy,
unofficially came in. In fact, despite the war, every country had
some representation, England and Scandinavia and Switzerland included,
even if they did not have official authority.
There are those who maintain that, in spite of criticism, the Fine Arts
Department is now making a better showing than it could have made if
there had been no war. American collectors, with rare canvases, were
persuaded to help in the meeting of the emergency by lending work that,
otherwise, they would have kept at home. It was thought that many of the
Europeans would be glad to send their collections to this country for
safe keeping during war time. But such proved not to be the case. A good
deal of concern was felt about sending the treasures on so long a
journey, subject to the hazards of attack by sea. Furthermore, from the
European point of view, San Francisco seemed far away.
Looking for Art Treasures
A short time after Captain Baker sailed from New York another emissary
went abroad for the Exposition, J. N. Laurvik, the art critic. A few
weeks before Mr. Laurvik had returned from Europe, where he had
represented the Fine Arts Department, looking for the work of the
artists in those countries that were not to participate officially. At
the time of the outbreak he was in Norway and he had already secured the
promise of many collections and the co-operation of artists of
distinction. His report of the situation as he left it persuaded the
authorities that, in spite of the difficulties, he might do effective
work.
When Laurvik arrived in Rome he found that Captain Baker had already
prepared for his activities. Ernesto Nathan was devoting himself heart
and soul to the cause. But the Italian authorities, for the most part,
were absorbed in the questions that came up with the threat of war.
Working with the committee, and aided by Ambassador Thomas Nelson Page,
Laurvik quickly made progress. He secured magnificent canvases by the
President of the French Academy in Rome, Albert Besnard, painted, for
the most part, in Benares, with scenes on the Ganges, and a collection
of pieces by the Norwegian sculptor, Lerche.
Notable Collections
From Rome Laurvik went to Venice, where he was greatly helped by the
American consul, B. H. Carroll, Jr. Though the International Exhibit
held in Venice every two years had closed several months before, many of
the works of art were still there, their owners, either afraid or unable
to take them away and yet concerned about their being so close to the
scene of war. It was the general concern that enabled Laurvik to secure
some of his finest material. Together with the Italian work, he arranged
to have shipped here on the Jason, Norwegian and Hungarian paintings and
fifty canvases by the man regarded as the greatest living painter in
Finland, Axel Gallen-Kallela. He also made a short journey from Venice
to the home of Marinetti, the journalist, poet and leader of the.
Italian Futurist painters, who, after much persuading, promised to send
fifty examples of the work done by the ten leaders in his group.
On leaving Venice Laurvik started for Vienna. In spite of the war, he
was promised support by the Minister of Art. Unfortunately, the art
societies fell to quarreling, and gave little or no help. Then Laurvik
appealed to the artists themselves. In Kakosha, one of the best known
among the Austrian painters, he found an ally. The collection he made in
Vienna included several of Kakosha's canvases, lent by their owners, and
a large number of etchings.
The Hungarian Collection
In Hungary Laurvik had a powerful friend in Count Julius Andrassy, a
man, of wealth and influence, the owner of one of the newspapers
published in Budapest. From, his own collection of Hungarian art
Andrassy made a large contribution and he inspired other collectors to
do likewise. The getting together of the material was full of
difficulties. Much of it had been taken away for safekeeping. The
museums were all closed and some of their treasures were buried in the
ground. Already the Russians, during their raid on the Carpathian
Mountains, had possessed themselves of rare art works, some of the best
canvases cut from the frames and carried off by the officials. Among the
sufferers was Count Andrassy himself, who lost valuable heirlooms from
one of his country estates, including several Titians. In spite of that
experience, Andrassy, refused to hide his possessions. He preferred the
risk of losing them to showing fear, perhaps helping to start a panic.
The Hungarian collection came near missing the Jason. It was
mysteriously held up in the train that carried it through the Italian
territory to Italy, arriving in Genoa three days after the Jason was
scheduled to so sail from there. But the Jason happened to be delayed
three days, too.
By the German steamer, the "Crown Princess Cecilie," it happened that an
interesting collection of German Paintings, after being exhibited in the
Carnegie Institute of Pittsburgh, was started on the way to Germany; but
the war caused the ship to return to an American port. After a good deal
of negotiating the canvases were secured for the Exposition and taken
off the ship.
On the opening day of the Exposition it was found that the Palace of
Fine Arts, far from having too little material, had too much. Not only
were China and Japan and several of the European nations well
represented, but on the way were many art works that there would not be
room for. The consequence was that a new building had to be erected. It
was finished in July and it became known as the Fine Arts Annex.
I
The View From the Hill
"The best way to see the Exposition, in my opinion," said the architect,
"is to stand on the top of the Fillmore Street hill and look down. Then
you will find out what the architects were up to. The finest point of
observation would be at the corner of Divisadero Street and Broadway."
The next day, as we stood at that point, the Exposition stretched out
beneath us like a city of the Orient.
"When the architects first discussed the construction they knew it was
to be looked at from these hills. So they had to have a scheme that
should hide the skylight and avoid showing lack of finish on top and
that should be pictorial and impressive from above. One of the problems
was to make the roof architectural. Now as we look down, see how
stunning the effect is - like a Persian rug."
"And the color helped there, too, didn't it?"
"Of course. And notice how skilfully the architecture and the coloring
harmonized. As the Exposition was to be built on low, flat ground, it
had to be lifted up. One way was by using the domes. The central portion
of each of those palaces was lifted above the main surface of the roof
to introduce a row of semi-circular windows to light the interior like a
church. And the domes, besides being ornamental in themselves, gave
spring to the towers. The big tower provided scope for the splendid
archway that served as an approach and set the standard for the other
arches."
It was plain enough that the top of the Exposition had not received the
praise it deserved. "Think how crude that scene would have been if it
had presented a straggling mass of roofs. And even as it is, with its
graceful lines, if it were lacking in color it would seem crude. Perhaps
it will help us to realize how unsightly most of the roofs of our houses
are, and how unfinished. There's no reason in the world why they should
be. The Greeks and the Romans had the right idea. They were very
sensitive to lack of finish. They felt the charm of decorated roofs. See
that angel down there that keeps recurring at the points of the gables.
What a pretty bit of ornamentation. The Greeks used it to suggest the
gifts of the gods coming down from heaven. 'Blessings on this house.' I
suppose the wreath in the hand used here was meant to suggest the
crowning of the work. It explains why the figure is called "Victory." By
the way, it has an architectural value in giving lightness and grace to
the roofs."
The builders, we could see, had cleverly adapted their plans to the
conditions. "The effect might so easily have been monotonous and cold,
and it might have been flat and dreary. It was a fine idea to lift the
central portion of each of those main palaces above the surfaces of the
roofs to introduce the semicircular windows in the domes. It helped to
infuse the scene with a kind of tenderness and spirituality. And see how
the two groups on top of the triumphal arches, the Orientals and the
Pioneers, contribute to the soaring effect and to the finish at the same
time. The Romans disliked bareness on the top of their arches. They
wanted life up there, the more animated the better. So they put on some
of their most dramatic scenes, like their chariot races."
The expert proceeded to point out the architectural balance of the
buildings. The severe and mighty Palace of Machinery, impressive in its
long sweep of line, at one side made a dramatic contrast with the
delicately imagined and poetic Palace of Fine Arts on the other. In
front of the walled city, between the long stretch of garden, stood two
harmonious buildings, the Palace of Horticulture, with its glorious roof
of glass, and the Festival Hall, closely related in outline, and yet
very different in detail. And the garden itself, with its dark, pointed
trees standing against the wall, and with its simplicity of design, made
an agreeable approach to the great arched entrance under the Tower of
Jewels. "Those banners down there, shielding the lights, are a stroke of
genius, both in their orange color and their shape. And those
orange-colored streamers, how they add to the spirit of gaiety. The
trees have been placed against the wall to keep it from seeming like a
long and uninteresting stretch. And observe the grace in line of the
niches between the trees. Even from here you can feel the warmth of the
color in the paths. The pink effect is made by burning the sand. Only a
man like Guerin, a painter, would have thought of that detail. I wonder
how many visitors down there know that the very sand they walk on has
been colored."
Around the Tower pigeons were flying, somehow relieving the mechanical
outlines. Was the disproportion between the great arch, forming a kind
of pedestal, and the outlines above due to mathematical miscalculation
or to the interference of the ornamentation? We finally decided that the
proportions had probably been right in the first place. But they had
been changed by the Exposition authorities' cutting the Tower down one
hundred feet, thereby saving $100,000. A matter of this kind could be
reduced almost to an exact science. Besides, though the ornamentation
interfered with the upward sweep of line, the effect of flatness was
made by those horizontal blocks which seemed to be piled up to the top.
If the outline had been clean, it would have achieved the soaring effect
so essential to an inspiring tower, creating the sense of reaching up to
the sky, like an invocation.
Thomas Hastings had a sound idea when he made that design. He wanted to
do something Expositional, exactly as Guerin did when he applied the
coloring. Now there were critics who said that the coloring was too
pronounced. It reminded them of the theater. Well, that was just what it
ought to remind them of. It had life, gaiety, abandon. The critic who
said that the orange domes provided just the right tone, and that this
tone ought to have been followed throughout, didn't make sufficient
allowance for public taste. He wanted the Exposition to be an
impressionistic picture in one key. But one key was exactly what Guerin
didn't want. His purpose was to catch the excitement in variety of color
as well as the warmth, to stimulate the mind. He succeeded in adapting
his color scheme to architecture that had breadth and dignity. At first
he expected to use orange, blue, and gold, carefully avoiding white. He
did avoid white; but he expanded his color scheme and included brown and
yellow and green. But, in that tower, Hastings did something out of
harmony with the architecture, something barbaric and crude.
Here and there the bits of Austrian cut glass were sparkling on the
tower like huge diamonds. "At times the thing is wonderfully impressive.
There's always something impressive about a mass if it has any kind of
uniformity, and here you can detect an intention on the part of the
architect. There are certain lights that have a way of dressing up the
tower as a whole, giving it unity and hiding its ugliness. And at all
times it has a kind of barbaric splendor. It might have come out of an
Aztec mind, rather childish in expression, and seeking for beauty in an
elemental way. I can imagine Aztecs living up there in a barbaric
fashion, their houses piled, one above another, like our uncivilized
apartment houses."
In studying the Tower of Jewels in detail, we decided that it was not
really so crude as it seemed on first sight. Much might be done even now
by a process of elimination. And the arch was magnificent. "In its
present condition the tower unquestionably provides a strong accent. It
has already become a dominating influence here. But it's an influence
that teaches people to feel and to think in the wrong way. It encourages
a liking for what I call messy art, instead of developing a taste for
the simplicity that always characterizes the best kind of beauty, the
kind that develops naturally out of a central idea."
From the Tower of Jewels we turned our attention to those other towers,
the four so charming in design and in proportion, Renaissance in
feeling, their simplicity seeming all the more graceful on account of
the contrast with the other tower's over-ornamentation. "I wonder what
the world would have done without the Giralda Tower in Seville? It has
inspired many of the most beautiful towers in the world. It helped to
inspire McKim, Mead and White when they built the Madison Square Tower,
and the Madison Square Tower might be described as a relative of our own
Ferry Tower, which is decidedly one of the best pieces of architecture
in San Francisco. And it's plain enough that these four towers and the
Ferry Tower are related. The top of the four towers, by the way, has a
history. It comes from the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates, the little
temple in Athens that was built by one of the successful chorus-leaders
in the competitive choral dances of the Greeks, who happened to be a man
of wealth. Afterward, when a chorus-leader won a prize, which consisted
of a tripod, it was shown to the people on that monument."
"Some critics," I said, "have complained of the coloring and the pattern
on those towers."
"They can't justify themselves, however. Though this plaster looks like
Travertine, it nevertheless remains plaster, and it lends itself to
plastic decoration. The Greeks and the Romans often used plaster, and
they did not hesitate to paint it whenever they chose. Kelham's four
towers have been criticised on account of their plastic design, which
has a good deal of pink in it. But that design provides one of the
strongest color notes in the whole Exposition, a delightful note, too.
It happens that makers of wallpaper have had the good sense to use a
design somewhat similar. But this fact does not make the design any the
less attractive or serviceable."
Between the houses on the hill we could catch glimpses of the South
Gardens between the glass dome of the Horticultural Palace and Festival
Hall. The architects rightly felt that in general appearance they had to
be French to harmonize with the French architecture on either side. In
the distance the Fountain of Energy stood out, like a weird skeleton
that did not wholly explain itself. Stirling Calder, the sculptor, must
have forgotten that the outline of those little symbolic figures perched
on the shoulder of his horseman would not carry their meaning.
Now, before our eyes, the Exposition revealed itself as a picture, with
all the arts contributing. It suggested the earlier periods of art, when
the art-worker was architect, painter and sculptor all in one.
II
The Approach
"You see," said the architect as we started down the hill, "when the
Exposition builders began their work they found the setting of the
Mediterranean here. It justified them in reproducing the art of the
Orient and of Greece and Rome which was associated with it, modified of
course to meet the special requirements. Besides, they didn't want to be
tied down to the severe type of architecture in vogue in this country."
First of all, he went on to explain, they had created a playground.
There they appealed to the color sense, strong in the Italians and the
Orientals, and weak among the people in this country, decidedly in need
of fostering, and the appeal was not merely to the intellect, but to the
emotions as well. Color was as much a part of architecture as of
painting. So, in applying the color, Guerin worked with the architects.
He never made a plan without taking them into consultation. Then, too,
Calder, acting head of the Department of Sculpture, and Denneville, the
inventor of the particular kind of imitation Travertine marble used on
the grounds, were active in all the planning. In fact, very little was
done without the co-operation of Guerin, Calder, Denneville and Kelham,
chief of the Architectural Board. In getting the Exposition from paper
to reality, they had succeeded in making it seem to be the expression of
one mind. Even in the development of the planting the architects had
their say. Here landscape gardening was actually a part of the
architecture. Faville's wall, for example, was built with the
understanding that its bareness was to be relieved with masses of
foliage, creating shadows.
Before the Scott Street entrance we paused to admire the high hedge of
John McLaren. We went close to examine the texture. The leaves of the
African dewplant were so thick that they were beginning to hide the
lines between the boxes.
"Faville realized the importance of separating the city from the rest of
the world, making it sequestered. He knew that a fence wouldn't be the
right sort of thing. So he conceived the idea of having a high, thick
wall, modeled after an old English wall, overgrown with moss and ivy. As
those walls were generations in growing, he saw that to produce one in a
few months or even a few years required some ingenuity. He set to work
on the problem and he devised a scheme for making an imitation hedge by
planting ivy in deep boxes and piling the boxes on one another. When he
submitted it to McLaren he was told that it was good except for the use
of the ivy. It would be better to use African dew plant. Later McLaren
improved on the scheme by using shallow boxes.
"Faville designed a magnificent entrance here," the architect went on,
glancing up at the three modest arches that McLaren had tried to make as
attractive as possible with his hedge. "It would have been very
appropriate. But the need of keeping down expenses caused the idea to be
sacrificed. However, the loss was not serious. As a matter of fact, in
spite of the efforts of the Exposition to persuade visitors to come in
here, a great many preferred to enter by the Fillmore Street gate.
During the day this approach is decidedly the more attractive on account
of leading directly into the gardens and into the approach to the court.
The Fillmore Street entrance, with the Zone shrieking at you at one
side, hardly puts you in the mood for the beauty in the courts. At night
the situation is somewhat different. The flaring lights of the Zone make
the dimness of the court all the more attractive."
III
In the South Gardens
Though the arrangement of the landscape might be French, these flowers
were unmistakably Californian. The two pools, ornamented with the Arthur
Putnam fountain of the mermaid, in duplicate, decidedly French in
feeling, were brilliant with the reflected coloring from both the
flowers and the buildings.
The intention at first had been to make a sunken garden here; but the
underground construction had interfered. Now one might catch a
suggestion of Versailles, except for those lamp posts. "Joseph Pennell,
the American etcher, who has traveled all over Europe making drawings,
finds a suggestion of two great Spanish gardens here, one connected with
the royal palace of La Granga, near Madrid, and the other with the royal
palace of Aranjuez, near Toledo. They've allowed the flowers to be the
most conspicuous feature, the dominating note, which is as it should be.
Masses of flowers are always beautiful and they are never more beautiful
than when they are of one color."
"And masses of shrubbery are always beautiful, too,", I said, nodding in
the direction of the Palace of Horticulture, where McLaren had done some
of his best work.
"There's no color in the world like green, particularly dark green, for
richness and poetry and mystery. It's intimately related to shadow,
which does so much for beauty in the world."
"The Fountain of Energy almost hits you in the face, doesn't it?" I
said.
"Of course. That's exactly what Calder meant to do. In a way he was
right. He wanted to express in sculpture the idea of tremendous force.
Now his work is an ideal example of what is expositional. It has a
sensational appeal. One objection to it is that it suggests too much
energy, too much effort on the part, not only of the subject, but of the
sculptor. The artist ought never to seem to try. His work ought to make
you feel that it was easy for him to do. But here you feel that the
sculptor clenched his teeth and worked with might and main. As a matter
of fact, he did this piece when he must have been tired out from
managing all the sculpture on the grounds. He made two designs. The
first one, which was not used, seemed to me better because it was
simpler in the treatment of the base. Even the figures at the base here
are over-energized, the human figures I mean. Still, in their
sportiveness and in the sportiveness of Roth's animals, they have a
certain charm. And with the streams spouting, the work as a whole makes
an impression of liveliness. But it's a nervous liveliness,
characteristically American, not altogether healthy."
The Fountain of Energy and the Tower of Jewels, we decided, both
expressed the same kind of imagination. Like the fountain, the tower
gave the sense of overstrain. "It's pretty hard to see any architectural
relation between those figures up there on the tower and the tower
itself. See how the mass tries to dominate Kelham's four Italian towers,
but without showing any real superiority."
The heraldic shields on the lamp posts near by attracted us both by
their color and by the variety and grace of their designs. How many
visitors stopped to consider their historic character? They went back to
the early history of the Pacific Coast. For this contribution alone
Walter D'Arcy Ryan deserved the highest recognition. Only an artist
could have worked out this scheme in just this sensitive and appropriate
way.
We stopped at the vigorous equestrian statue of Cortez by Charles
Niehaus at our right, close to the tower. "I always liked Cortez for his
nerve. He didn't get much gratitude from his Emperor for conquering
Mexico and annexing it to Spain. And what he got in glory and in money
probably did not compensate him for his disappointment at the end. When
he couldn't reach Charles V in any other way, he jumped up on the royal
carriage. Charles didn't recognize him and asked who he was. 'I'm the
man,' said Cortez, 'that gave you more provinces than your forebears
left you cities.' Naturally Charles was annoyed. We don't like to be
reminded of ingratitude, do we, especially by the people who think we
ought to be grateful to them? So Cortez quit the court and spent the
rest of his life in the country."
At our right we met another of the many Spanish adventurers drawn to the
Americas by the discovery of Columbus, Pizarro, who presented his
country with the rich land of Peru. It was doubtless placed here on
account of the relation between Spain and California. "Civilization is a
development through blood and spoilation," the architect remarked. "If
Pizarro hadn't been lured by the gold of the Incas we might not be here
at this moment."
The figures on the tower, insignificant when viewed from a distance, at
close range took on vigor: the philosopher in his robes, the bearer of
European culture of the sixteenth century to these shores; the Spanish
priest, typical of the early friars; the adventurer, so closely related
to Columbus; and the Spanish soldier. The armored horseman, by Tonetti,
in a row all by himself, suffering from being rather absurdly out of
place, might have won applause if he had been brought on a pedestal
close to the ground. His being repeated so often up there made an effect
almost comic. The vases and the triremes, the pieces of armor, with the
battle-axe designs on either side, the Cleopatra's needles, and the
richly-girdled globe on top, sustained on the shoulders of three
figures, were all well done. The only trouble was that they had not been
made to blend into one lightly soaring mass.
"It's curious that Hastings should have gone astray in the treatment of
the tower. He must have known the psychological effect of parallel
horizontal lines. When skyscrapers were first built in New York a few
years ago they were considered unsightly on account of their great
height. So the architects were careful to use parallel horizontal lines
in order to diminish the apparent height as far as possible. Then people
began to say that there was beauty in the sky-scrapers, and the
architects changed their policy. They built in straight parallel lines
that shot up to the sky. In this way they increased the apparent
height."
The inscriptions on the south side of the tower's base reminded us of
the Exposition's meaning, Conspicuously and properly emphasized here.
The pagan note in the architecture was indicated in the ornamentation by
the use in the design of the head of the sacred bull. And Triumphant
America was celebrated in the group of eagles.
The dark stains on the yellow columns made us see how clever Guerin had
been in his application of the coloring. In most places he had applied
one coat only, trusting to nature to do the rest. Most of all, he wished
to avoid the appearance of newness and to secure a look of age. On these
columns the smoke from the steam rollers had helped out. One might
imagine that they had been here for generations.
Here the builders had used the Corinthian column, with the acanthus
leaves varied with fruit-designs and with the human figure. "It was a
lucky day for architecture when the column came into use. It doubtless
got its start from a single beam used for support. Then the notion
developed of making it ornamental by fluting it and decorating the top.
In this Exposition three kinds of columns are used, the Doric, which the
Greeks favored, with the very simple top or capital; the Ionic, with the
spiral scroll for the capital, and the Corinthian, with the acanthus
flowing over the top, and the Composite which uses features from all the
other three."
"Do you happen to know how the acanthus design was made? Well, Vitruvius
tells the story. Anyone that wants to get a line on this Exposition
ought to read that book, or, at any rate, to glance through it and to
read parts of it pretty thoroughly. It is called 'The Architecture of
Marcus Vitruvius Pollio.' There's a good translation from the Latin by
Joseph Gwilt. It has become the architect's bible. According to
Vitruvius, the nurse of Corinthian girl who had died carried to the
girl's tomb basket filled with the things that the girl had particularly
liked. She left the basket on the ground near the tomb and covered it
with a tile. It happened that it stood over the root of an acanthus
plant. As the plant grew its foliage pressed up around the basket and
when it reached the tile the leaves were forced to bang back in graceful
curves. Callimachus, a Corinthian architect, noticed the effect and put
it into use."
IV
Under the Tower of Jewels
When we entered the arch we looked up at the magnificent ceiling used by
McKim, Mead & White, in panels, with a pictorial design beautifully
colored by Guerin. "The blue up there blends into the deeper blue of the
Dodge murals just beneath. Those murals are in exactly the right tone.
They give strength to the arch. But they are weakened by being in the
midst of so much heavy architecture. Their subjects, however, are in
harmony with the meaning of the tower. Guerin was right when he told the
mural decorators that a good subject was an asset. By studying these
murals you can get a glimpse of all the history associated with
California and with the Panama Canal. Dodge has made drama out of
Balboa's discovery of Panama and out of the union of the two oceans, a
theme worthy of a great poet. And Dodge is one of the few men
represented in the art on the grounds who have made pictorial use of
machinery. There's the discovery by Balboa, the purchase by the United
States, the presentation of the problem of uniting the two oceans, very
imaginative and pictorial, the completion of the Canal, and the crowning
of labor, with the symbolic representation of the resulting feats of
commerce suggested by the want of the winged Mercury. Dodge is dramatic
without being too individual. His murals don't call the attention away
from their surroundings to themselves. They are a part of the
architecture, as murals always should be."
On either side we found the columned niches designed by McKim, Mead and
White, each ornamented with a fountain. The back wall made a splendid
effect as it reached up toward the tower.
To the right we turned to view Mrs. Edith Woodman Burroughs' "Fountain
of Youth," lovely in the girlish beauty of the central figure, and in
the simplicity and the sincerity of the design as a whole. In some ways
the figure reminded us of the celebrated painting by Ingres in the
Louvre, "The Source," the nude girl bearing a jug on her shoulder,
sending out a stream of water. There was no suggestion of imitation,
however.
"The symbolism in the design," said the architect, "does not thrust
itself on you, and yet it is plain enough. That woman and man pushing up
flowers at the feet of the girl make a beautiful conception. The whole
fountain has an ingenuousness that is in key with the subject. Across
the way," he went on, turning to view the Fountain of El Dorado, by Mrs.
Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, "there's a piece of work much more
sophisticated and dramatic, fine in its conception and strong in
handling. No one would say offhand that it was the work of a woman; and
yet it shows none of the overstrain that sometimes characterizes a woman
artist when she wishes her work to seem masculine."
In approaching the "El Dorado" we noted the skill shown in the details
of the conception. "This fountain might have been called 'The Land of
Gold,' in plain English, or 'The Struggle for Happiness,' or by any
other name that suggested competition for what people valued as the
prizes of life. When Mrs. Whitney was asked to explain whether those
trees in the background represented the tree of life, she said she
didn't have any such idea in her mind. What she probably wanted to do
was to present an imaginative scene that each observer could interpret
for himself. These two Egyptian-looking guardians at the doors, with
the figures kneeling by them, suggest plainly enough the futility that
goes with so much of our struggling in the world. So often people
reach the edge of their goal without really getting what they want."
V
The Court of the Universe
Through the arch we passed into the neck of the Court of the Universe,
which charmed us by the warmth of its coloring, by McLaren's treatment
of the sunken garden, by its shape, by the use of the dark pointed
cypress trees against the walls, and by the sweep of view across the
great court to the Marina, broken, however, by the picturesque and
inharmonious Arabic bandstand. We glanced at the inscriptions at the
base of the tower carrying on the history of the Canal to its
completion. Then we stopped before those graceful little elephants
bearing Guerin's tall poles with their streamers. "That little fellow is
a gem in his way. He comes from Rome. But the heavy pole on his back is
almost too much for him. He's used pretty often on the grounds, but not
too often. After the Exposition is over we ought to keep these figures
for the Civic Center. They would be very ornamental in the heart of the
city."
As we walked toward the main court, the architect called my attention to
the view between the columns on the other side of the Tower of Jewels,
with the houses of the city running down the hills. "San Francisco
architecture may not be beautiful when you study individual houses. But
in mass it is fine. And, of a late afternoon, it is particularly good in
coloring. It seems to be enveloped in a rich purple haze. That color
might have given the mural decorators a hint. It would have been
effective in the midst of all this high-keyed architecture. It's easy
here to imagine that you're in one of those ancient Hindu towns where
the gates are closed at night. You almost expect to see camels and
elephants."
What was most striking in the Court was its immensity. "Though it comes
from Bernini's entrance court to St. Peter's in Rome, it is much bigger.
There are those who think it's too big. But it justifies itself by its
splendor. The use of the double row of columns is particularly happy.
The double columns were greatly favored by the Romans. In St. Peter's
Bernini used four in a row. And what could be finer than those two
triumphal arches on either side, the Arch of the Rising Sun and the Arch
of the Setting Sun, with their double use of symbolism, in suggesting
the close relation between California and the Orient, as well as their
geographical meaning? They are, of course, importations from Rome, the
Arch of Constantine and the Arch of Titus all over again, with a rather
daring use of windows with colored lattices to give them lightness and
with colossal groups of almost startling proportions used in place of
the Roman chariot or quadriga."
Originally, the intention had been to use here the name of the Court of
Sun and Stars. Then it was changed to the Court of Honor, and finally to
its present name, to suggest the international character of the
Exposition.
Those two groups represented by far the most ambitious work done by the
sculpture department. From designs by Calder, they were made by three
sculptors, Calder, Roth and Lentelli. They presented problems that must
have been both difficult and interesting to work out. First, they had to
balance each other. What figure in the Pioneer group could balance the
elephant that typified the Orient? Calder had the idea of using the
prairie schooner, associated with the coming of the pioneers to
California, drawn by great oxen.
The Oriental group doubtless shaped itself in picturesque outlines much
more quickly than the sturdy, but more homely Americans of the earlier
period. The Orientals displayed an Indian prince on the ornamented seat,
and the Spirit of the East in the howdah, of his elephant, an Arab shiek
on his Arabian horse, a negro slave bearing fruit on his head, an
Egyptian on a camel carrying a Mohammedan standard, an Arab falconer
with a bird, a Buddhist priest, or Lama, from Thibet, bearing his symbol
of authority, a Mohammedan with his crescent, a second negro slave and a
Mongolian on horseback.
The Nations of the West were grouped around that prairie wagon, drawn by
two oxen. In the center stood the Mother of Tomorrow a typical American
girl, roughly dressed, but with character as well as beauty in her face
and figure. On top of the wagon knelt the symbolic figure of
"Enterprise," with a white boy on one side and a colored boy on the
other, "Heroes of Tomorrow." On the other side of the wagon stood
typical figures, the French-Canadian trapper, the Alaska woman, bearing
totem poles on her back, the American of Latin descent on his horse,
bearing a standard, a German, an Italian, an American of English
descent, a squaw with a papoose, and an Indian chief on his pony. The
wagon was modelled on top of the arch. It was too large and bulky to be
easily raised to that great height.
The architect was impressed by the boldness of the designs and to the
spirit that had been put into them. "It's very seldom in the history of
art that sculptors have had a chance to do decorative work on so big a
scale. It must have been a hard job, getting the figures up there in
pieces and putting them together. Some of the workers came near being
blown off. Some of them lost their nerve and quit. I wonder, by the way,
if that angel on top of the prairie wagon would be there if Saint
Gaudens hadn't put an angel in his Sherman statue, and if he hadn't made
an angel float over the negro soldiers in his Robert Gould Shaw monument
in Boston. He liked that kind of symbolism. He must have got it from the
mediaeval sculptors who worked under the inspiration of the Catholic
Church."
Varying notes we found around the American group. Cleopatra's needle,
used for ornamentation, suggested Egypt and the Nile. That crenellated
parapet once belonged to military architecture: between those pieces
that stood up, the merlons, in the embrasure, the Greek and Roman
archers shot their arrows at the enemy and darted back behind the
merlons for protection. In spite of its being purely ornamental it told
its story just the same, and it expressed the spirit that still
persisted in mankind. Nowadays it was even used on churches. But
religion and war had always been associated. Besides, in an
International Exposition it was to be expected that the art should be
international. How many people, when they looked at Cleopatra's needle,
knew how closely it was related to the newspapers and historical records
of today? The Egyptians used to write on these monuments news and
opinions of public affairs. The Romans had a similar custom in
connection with their columns. On the column of Trajan they not only
wrote of their victories, but they pictured victorious scenes in stone.
The little sprite that ran along the upper edge of the court in a row,
the star-figure, impressed me as making an unfortunate contrast with the
stern angel, repeated in front of each of the two arches. My criticism
brought out the reply that it was beautiful in itself and had its place
up there. "These accidental effects of association are sometimes good
and sometimes they're not. Here I can't see that they make a jarring
effect. In the first place, a Court of the Universe ought to express
something of the incongruity in our life. Ideally, of course, it isn't
good in art to represent a figure in a position that it's hard to
maintain without discomfort. But here the outlines are purely decorative
and don't suggest strain. In my judgment that figure is one of the
greatest ornaments in the court. It gives just the right note."
The two fountains in the center of the sunken garden were gaily throwing
their spray into the air. The boldness of the Tritons at the base
represented a very different kind of handling from the delicacy of the
figure at the top of each, the Evening Sun and the Rising Sun, both
executed with poetic feeling. In the Rising Sun, Weinmann had succeeded
in putting into the figure of the youth life, motion and joy. Looking at
that figure, just ready to spread its wings, one felt as if it were
really about to sweep into the air. Though the Evening Sun might be less
dramatic, it was just as fine. "It isn't often that you see sculpture of
such imaginative quality," said the architect.
Those great symbolic figures by Robert Aitken, at once giving a reminder
of Michael Angelo, impressed me as being perfectly adapted to the Court,
and to their subjects, Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. But my companion
thought they were too big. He agreed, however, that they were both
original and strong. There was cleverness in making the salamander, with
his fiery breath and his sting, ready to attack a Greek warrior,
symbolize fire. Under the winged girl representing air there was a
humorous reference to man's early efforts to fly in the use of the
quaint little figure of Icarus. Water and earth were more conventional,
but worked out with splendid vigor, the two figures under earth
suggesting the competitive struggle of men. "I remember Aitken in his
beginning here in San Francisco. Though he often did poor stuff,
everything of his showed artistic courage and initiative. Even then
anyone could see there was something in him. Now it's coming out in the
work he has contributed to this Exposition. The qualities in these four
statues we shall see again when we reach the fountain that Aitken made
for the Court of Abundance. They are individual without being eccentric.
Compare these four figures with the groups in front of the two arches,
by Paul Manship, another American sculptor of ability, but different
from Aitken in his devotion to the early Greek. When Manship began his
work a few years ago he was influenced by Rodin. Then he went to Rome
and became charmed with the antique. Now he follows the antique method
altogether. He deliberately conventionalizes. And yet his work is not at
all conventional. He manages to put distinct life into it. These two
groups, the 'Dancing Girls' and 'Music,' would have delighted the
sculptors of the classic period."
Under the Arch of the Rising Sun two delicate murals by Edward Simmons
charmed us by their grace, their lovely coloring, by the richness of
their fancy and by the extraordinary fineness of their workmanship.
"There's a big difference of opinion about those canvases as murals. But
there's no difference of opinion in regard to their artistic merit. They
are unquestionably masterpieces. Kelham and Guerin, who had a good deal
to do with putting them up there, believe they are in exactly the right
place. But a good many others think they are almost lost in all this
heavy architecture. You see, Simmons didn't take Guerin's advice as to a
subject. Each of his two murals has a meaning, or rather a good many
meanings, but no central theme, no story that binds the figures into a
distinct unity. So, from the point of view of the public, they are
somewhat puzzling. People look up there and wonder what those figures
are doing. But to the artist they find their justification merely in
being what they are, beautiful in outline and in posture and coloring.
You don't often get such atmosphere in mural work, or such subtlety and
richness of feeling."
Both murals unmistakably showed the same hand. "There's not another man
in the country who could do work of just that kind. That group in the
center of the mural to the north could be cut out and made into a
picture just as it stands. It doesn't help much to know that the middle
figure, with the upraised arm, is Inspiration with Commerce at her right
and Truth at her left. They might express almost any symbols that were
related to beauty. And the symbolism of the groups at either end seems
rather gratuitous. They might be many other things besides true hope and
false hope and abundance standing beside the family. But the girl
chasing the bubble blown out by false hope makes a quaint conceit to
express adventure, though perhaps only one out of a million would see
the point if it weren't explained."
The opposite mural we found a little more definite in its symbolism, if
not so pictorial or charming. The figures consisted of the imaginary
type of the figure from the lost Atlantis; the Roman fighter; the
Spanish adventurer, suggesting Columbus; the English type of sea-faring
explorer, Sir Walter Raleigh; the priest who followed in the wake of the
discoverer, the bearer of the cross to the new land; the artist,
spreading civilization, and the laborer, modern in type, universal in
significance, interesting here as standing for the industrial enterprise
of today.
"Those murals suggest what a big chance our decorators have in the
themes that come out of our industrial life. They've only made a start.
As mural decoration advances in this country, we ought to produce men
able to deal in a vigorous and imaginative way with the big spiritual
and economic conceptions that are associated with our new ideals of
industry."
One feature of this court made a special appeal to the architect, the
use of the large green vases under the arches. "They're so good they're
likely to be overlooked. They blend perfectly in the general scheme.
Their coloring could not have been better chosen and their design is
particularly happy."
VI
On the Marina
Along one of the corridors we passed, enjoying the richness of the
coloring and the beauty of the great lamps in a long row, then out into
the wide entrance of the court to the Column of Progress.
"I wonder if that column would be there now," said the architect, "if
Trajan had not built his column in Rome nearly two thousand years ago.
The Christianizing of the column, by placing St. Peter on top instead of
Trajan, is symbolic of a good deal that has gone on here. But we owe a
big debt to the pagans, much more than we acknowledge."
When I expressed enthusiasm over the column the architect ran his eye
past the frieze to the top. "In the first place, that dominating group
up there ought at once to express the character of the column. But it
doesn't. You have to look twice and you have to look hard. One figure
would have been more effective. But there is a prejudice among some
sculptors against placing a single figure at the head of a column,
though the Romans often did it. But if a group had to be used it could
have been made much clearer. Now in that design MacNeil celebrated the
Adventurous Archer in a way that was distinctly old-fashioned. He made
the archer a superman, pushing his way forward by force, and by the
dominance of personality. And see how comparatively insignificant he
made the supporting figures. The relation of those three people implies
an acceptation of the old ideals of the social organization. MacNeil had
a chance here to express the new spirit of today, the spirit that honors
the common man and that makes an ideal of social co-operation on terms
of equality."
At the base we studied the figures celebrating labor. "Konti is a man of
broad social understanding and sympathy," said my companion. "But
picturesque as those figures are, they're not much more. They give no
intimation of the mighty stirring among the laborers of the world, a
theme that might well inspire the sculpture of today, one of the
greatest of all human themes."
From the Column of Progress the Marina drew us over to the seawall. "The
builders were wise to leave this space open and to keep it simple. It's
as if they said: 'Ladies and gentlemen, we have done our best. But
here's Mother Nature. She can do better.' "
To our right stood Alcatraz, shaped like a battleship, with the Berkeley
hills in the distant background. To the left rose Tamalpais in a
majestic peak.
When I mentioned that there ought to be more boats out there on the bay,
a whole fleet, and some of them with colored sails, to give more
brightness, the architect shook his head.
"The scene is typically Californian. It suggests great stretches of
vacant country here in this State, waiting for the people to come from
the overcrowded East and Middle West and thrive on the land."
Our point of view on the Esplanade enabled us to take in the sweep of
the northern wall, with its straight horizontal lines, broken by the
entrances to the courts and by the splendidly ornate doors in duplicate.
Of the design above the doorway the architect said: "It's a perfect
example of the silver-platter style of Spain, generally called
'plateresque,' adapted to the Exposition. Allen Newman's figure of the
Conquistador is full of spirit, and the bow-legged pirate is a triumph
of humorous characterization. Can't you see him walking the deck, with
the rope in his hand? It isn't so many generations since he used to
infest the Pacific. By the way, that rope, which the sculptor has made
so realistic and picturesque at the same time, reminds me that a good
many people are bothered because the bow up here, on the Column of
Progress, has no string. The artistic folk, of course, think that the
string ought to be left to the imagination."
In the distance, to the west, we commented on the noble outlines of the
California Building, an idealized type of Mission architecture, a little
too severe, perhaps, lacking in variety and warmth, but of an impressive
dignity. The old friars, for all their asceticism, liked gaiety and
color in their building.
As we were about to start back to the Court of the Universe the
architect reminded me of the two magnificent towers, dedicated to Balboa
and Columbus, that had been planned for the approach to the Court of
Four Seasons and the Court of Ages from the bay side, but had been
omitted to save expense. They would have given the Marina a far greater
splendor; but they would have detracted from its present simplicity.
VII
Toward the Court of Four Seasons
"There are critics," I remarked, as we walked back to the Court of the
Universe, on the way to the Court of Four Seasons, "who say that the
entrance courts ought to have been placed on the other side that the
Exposition ought to have been turned round."
"They don't understand the conditions that the architects had to meet.
That plan was considered; but when it was pointed out that the strongest
winds here blow from the south and southwest, it was seen that it would
not be feasible. Besides, the present arrangement has the advantage of
leading the people directly to one of the most beautiful bays in the
world. The only bays at all like it that I know anything about are the
Bay of Palermo and the Bay of Naples. The view of the Exposition from
the water is wonderfully fine. It brings out the charm of the straight
lines. All things considered, the architects did an uncommonly fine job
in making the courts run from the Esplanade."
Under the star figures, among the sculptured flowers' surrounding the
head of the sacred bull, birds were nestling. We wondered if those birds
were really fooled by those flowers or whether, in these niches, they
merely found a comfortable place to rest. "There's an intimate relation,
by the way, between birds and architecture. It's said that the first
architectural work done in the world consisted in the making of a bird's
nest. Some critics think that architecture had its start in the making
of a bird's nest. Have you ever watched birds at work on their nests? If
you have, you must know that they go about the job like artists. In our
profession we like to insist, you know, that there's a big difference
between architecture and mere building. In its truest sense architecture
is building with a fine motive. It's the artistic printing press of all
ages, the noblest of the fine arts and the finest of the useful arts. I
know, of course," the architect went on, "that there's another tradition
not quite so flattering. It makes the architect merely the worker in the
rough, with the artistic finish left to the sculptors. But the outline
is nevertheless the architect's, the structure, which is the basis of
beauty. Even now a good many of the great French buildings are roughed
out in this way, and finished by the sculptors and the decorators."
Under the western arch, leading to the inner court that united the Court
of the Universe with the Court of the Four Seasons, we found the two
panels by Frank Vincent Du Mond. Their simple story they told plainly
enough, the departure of the pioneers from the Atlantic border for the
Far West on the Pacific. In the panel to the right we saw the older
generation saying farewell to the younger, and on the other side we saw
the travelers arriving in California and finding a royal welcome from
the Westerners in a scene of typical abundance, even the California bear
showing himself in amiable mood. "That bear bothered Du Mond a good
deal. He wasn't used to painting bears. It isn't nearly as life-like as
those human figures."
What I liked best about the murals was their splendor of coloring, and
their pictorial suggestiveness and vigor of characterization. Perhaps
there was a little too much effort on the part of the painter to suggest
animation. But why, I asked, had Du Mond made most of the faces so
distinctively Jewish?
My question was received with an exclamation of surprise. Yes, the
strong Jewish types of features were certainly repeated again and again.
Perhaps Du Mond happened to use Jewish models. It hardly seemed possible
that the effect could have been intentional.
When I pointed to one of the figures, a youth holding out a long bare
arm, and remarked that I had never seen an arm of such length, my
criticism brought out an unsuspected principle of art. "The Cubists
would say that you were altogether too literal. They are making us all
understand that what art ought to do is to express not what we merely
see with our eyes, but what we feel. If by lengthening that arm, the
painter gets an effect that he wants, he's justified in refusing to be
bound by the mathematical facts of nature. Art is not a matter of strict
calculation, that is, art at its best and its purest. It's a matter of
spiritual perception. All the resources of the artist ought to be bent
toward expressing a spiritual idea and making it alive and beautiful
through outline and color."
"But how about the mixture of allegory and realism that we see in these
murals and in so much of the art here? Don't you find it disturbing?"
"Not at all. There's no reason in the world why the allegorical and the
real should not go together, provided, of course, they don't grossly
conflict and become absurd. What the artist is always working for is the
effect of beauty. If a picture is beautiful, no matter how the beauty is
achieved, it deserves recognition as a work of art. In these murals Du
Mond has tried to reach as closely as he could to nature without being
too literal and without sacrificing artistic effect. He has even
introduced among his figures some well-known Californians, a Bret Harte,
in the gown of the scholar, and William Keith, carrying a portfolio to
suggest his painting."
In that inner court we noticed how cleverly Faville had subordinated the
architecture so that it should modestly connect the great central
courts. McLaren was keeping it glowing on either side with the most
brilliant California flowers. The ornamental columns, the Spanish
doorways, and the great windows of simple and yet graceful design were
all harmonious, and Guerin and Ryan had helped out with the coloring.
VIII
The Court of the Four Seasons
As we entered the Court of the Four Seasons the architect said: "If I
were to send a student of architecture to this Exposition, I should
advise him to spend most of his time here. Of all the courts, it
expresses for me the best architectural traditions. Henry Bacon frankly
took Hadrian's Villa for his model, and he succeeded in keeping every
feature classic. That half dome is an excellent example of a style
cultivated by the Romans. The four niches with the groups of the
seasons, by Piccirilli, screened behind the double columns, come from a
detail in the baths of Caracalla. The Romans liked to glimpse scenes or
statuary through columns. Guerin has applied a rich coloring, his
favorite pink, and McLaren has added a poetic touch by letting garlands
of the African dew plant, that he made his hedge of, flow over from the
top. See how Bacon has used the bull's head between the flowers in the
ornamentation, one of the most popular of the Renaissance motives. And
he has introduced an original detail by letting ears of corn hang from
the top of the columns. Those bulls up there, with the two figures,
carry the mind back to the days when the Romans made a sacrifice of the
sacred bull in the harvest festivals. This Thanksgiving of theirs they
called 'The Feast of the Sacrifice.' "
Crowning the half dome sat the lovely figure of Nature, laden with
fruits, by Albert Jaegers. On the columns at either side stood two other
figures by Jaegers, "Rain," holding out a shell to catch the drops, and
"Sunshine," with a palm branch close to her eyes. At each base the
figures of the harvesters carried out the agricultural idea with
elemental simplicity in friezes that recalled the friezes on the
Parthenon. Here, on each side of the half-dome, we have a good example
of the composite column, a combination of the Corinthian and the Ionic,
with the Ionic scrolls and the acanthus underneath, and with little
human figures between the two.
What we liked best about this court was its feeling of intimacy. One
could find refreshment here and rest. Much was due to the graceful
planting by John McLaren. His masses of deep green around the emerald
pool in the center were particularly successful. He had used many kinds
of trees, including the olive, the acacia, the eucalyptus, the cypress,
and the English laurel.
We lingered in front of these fountains, admiring the classic grace of
the groups and the play of water over the steps. We thought that
Piccirilli had been most successful with his "Spring." "Of course, it's
very conventional work," said the architect, "but the conventional has
its place here. It explains just why Milton Bancroft worked out those
murals of his in this particular way. He wanted to express the elemental
attitude of mind toward nature, the artistic childhood of the race."
When we examined the figures of the Piccirilli groups in detail, we
found that they possessed excellent qualities. They carried on the
traditions of the wall-fountains so popular in Rome and often associated
with water running over steps. The figures were well put together and
the lines were good. All of the groups had the surface as carefully
worked out. In "Spring" the line of festooning helped to carry on the
line leading to the top of the group. There was tender feeling and fine
workmanship in "Summer," with the feminine and masculine hands clearly
differentiated. "The men of today have a chance to learn a good lesson
from Rodin," said the painter. "He is teaching them what he himself may
have learned from the work of Donatello and Michael Angelo, the
importance of surface accentuation, the securing of the light and shade
that are just as necessary in modelling as in painting. In these groups
there is definite accentuation of the muscles. It makes the figures seem
life-like. The work reminds me of the figure of The Outcast, by the
sculpter's brother, Attilio Piccirilli, that we shall see in the
colonade of the Fine Arts Palace. So many sculptors like to secure these
smooth, meaningless surfaces that excite admiration among those people
who care for mere prettiness. It is just about as admirable as the
smoothing out of character lines from a photograph. But the Piccirillis
go at their work like genuine artists."
Those murals we were inclined to regard as somewhat too simple and
formal. "After all," said the architect, "it's a question whether this
kind of effort is in the right direction. So often it leads to what
seems like acting in art, regarded by some people as insincerity. At any
rate, the best that can be said of it is that it's clever imitation. But
here it blends in with the feeling of the court and it gives bright
spots of color. Guerin has gone as close to white as he dared. So he
felt the need of strong color contrasts, and he got Bancroft to supply
them. And the colors are repeated in the the other decorations of the
court. It's as if the painter had been given a definite number of colors
to work with. In this matter of color, by the way, Bancroft had a big
advantage over the old Roman painters. Their colors were very
restricted. In this court they might have allowed more space for the
murals. They're not only limited in size, but in shape as well. Bancroft
used to call them his postage-stamps.
In the entrance court we found Evelyn Breatrice Longman's "Fountain of
Ceres," the last of the three fountains done on the grounds by women,
and decidedly the most feminine. "Mrs. Longman hasn't quite caught the
true note," the architect remarked. "The base of the fountain is
interesting, though I don't care for the shape. But the figure itself is
too prim and modish. Somehow I can't think of Ceres as a proper old
maid, dressed with modern frills. The execution, however, shows a good
deal of skill. The frieze might be improved by the softening of those
sharp lines that cut out the figures like pasteboard. And these women
haven't as much vitality as that grotesque head down near the base,
spouting out water." The architect glanced up and noticed the figure of
"Victory" on one of the gables, so often to be seen during a walk over
the grounds. "There's more swing to that figure than to the one here,
and yet there's a certain resemblance between them. They both show the
same influence, the Winged Victory of Samothrace. Of course, Miss
Longman has purposely softened the effect on account of the mildness of
her subject. But she might have been more successful with her draperies
if she had followed the suggestions in the Winged Victory more closely.
There the treatment of the draperies is magnificent. Both the Greeks and
the Romans were very fond of this type of figure. And it's often found
among the ruins of Pompeii, which kept so close to Rome in its artistic
enterprise."
The need of separating the entrance to the Court of the Four Seasons
from Ryan's display of scintillators on the imitation of Morro Castle at
the edge of the bay, had given John McLaren a chance to create another
of these deep green masses that surrounded the pool. It shut the court
off from the rest of the world and deepened the intimacy, leaving,
however, glimpses of the bay and the hills beyond.
IX
The Palace of Fine Arts From Across the Lagoon
In returning to the Court of the Four Seasons, we started along another
of those inner courts, made charming by those Spanish doorways and by
the twisted columns, a favorite of the Romans, evidently borrowed from
the Orientals. "All through the Exposition," the architect remarked, "we
are reminded of the Oriental fondness for the serpent. Some people like
to say that it betrays the subtlety and slyness of the Oriental people.
But they admired the serpent chiefly because, in their minds, it
represented wisdom, the quiet and easy way of doing things, a little
roundabout perhaps, but often better than the method of opposition and
attack."
Before us, looking down as if from an eminence, stood, the Palace of
Fine Arts. The architect reminded me of the clever planning that had
placed this magnificent conception in so commanding a position, looking
down into the courts, on what he called "the main axis."
"It's the vision of a painter who is also a poet, worked out in terms of
architecture. Maybeck planned it all, even to the details. He wanted to
suggest a splendid ruin, suddenly come upon by travelers, after a long
journey in a desert. He has invested the whole place with an atmosphere
of tragedy. It's Roman in feeling and Greek in the refinement of its
ornamentation. That rotunda reminds one of the Pantheon in Rome. Those
Corinthian columns, with the melancholy drooping of the acanthus and the
fretwork and the frieze, by Zimm, are suggestive of Greece. Maybeck says
that his mind was started on the conception, 'The Island of Death,' by
Boecklin, the painting that the German people know so well as the
'Todteninsel,' and by 'The Chariot Race,' of Gerome."
The architect went on to say that the resemblance was remote and chiefly
interesting as showing how a great artist could carry a suggestion into
an entirely new realm. The Boecklin painting merely suggested the
general scope of the work, and the chariot race gave the hint for that
colonnade, which Maybeck had made so original and graceful by the use of
the urns on top of groups of columns with the figure of a woman at each
corner. He had used that somewhat eccentric scheme on account of its
pictorial charm. All through the construction Maybeck had defied the
architectural conventions; but he had been justified by his success.
My attention was directed to a group of columns at the end of the
colonnade. "There's just a hint of the Roman Forum over there. Perhaps
it's accidental. Perhaps it's developed from a picture way down in
Maybeck's consciousness. However, the idea of putting two columns
together in just that way comes from the French Renaissance. The great
French architect, Perrault, used it in the Louvre. In the competition he
won out over Bernini, who is living again in the Court of the Universe.
It gives great architectural richness."
People had wondered what McLaren had meant to indicate by the high
hedges he had made over there with his dew plant. He had merely carried
out the designs put into his hands. Maybeck had intended the hedge to be
used as a background for willow trees that were to run up as high as the
frieze, in this way gaining depth. Through those trees the rotunda was
to be glimpsed. Willow trees, with overhanging boughs, were also to be
planted along the edge of the lagoon, the water running under the leaves
and disappearing.
In the lagoon swans were swimming and arching their long necks. "The old
Greeks and Romans would have loved this scene, though they would, of
course, have found alien influences here," said the architect. "They
would have enjoyed the sequestration of the Palace, its being set apart,
giving the impression of loneliness. The architects were shrewd in
making the approach long and circuitous."
"They might have done more with the water that was here before they
filled in," I said. "It offered fine chances."
"Yes, and they thought of them and some ambitious plans were discussed.
But the expense was found to be prohibitive."
At that moment a guard, in his yellow uniform with brass buttons, came
forward with a questioning lady at his side. They stood so close to us
that we could not help hearing their talk.
"What are those women doing up there?"
The guard looked at the urns, surmounting the columns. "They're supposed
to be crying," he said.
"What are they crying about?"
The guard looked a little embarrassed. "They are crying over the sadness
of art," he said. Then he added somewhat apologetically, "Anyway, that's
what the lecturer told us to say."
The lady appealed to us for information. "What this gentleman says is
true," remarked the authority at my side. "The architect intended that
those figures should express something of the sadness of life as
reflected in art."
"Oh," said the lady, as if she only half understood.
Then she and the guard drifted away.
"Those people have unconsciously given us a bit of art criticism,
haven't they? One of the most pictorial notes in this composition of
Maybeck's is the use of these figures. But it's also eccentric and it
puzzles the average looker-on who is always searching after meanings,
according to the literary habit of the day, the result of universal
reading. Perhaps the effect would have been, less bewildering if those
urns were filled with flowers as Maybeck intended they should be. Then
the women would have seemed to be bending over the flowers. The little
doors were put into the urns so that the man in charge of the flowers
could reach up to them. But this item of expense was included among
the sacrifices."
The coloring of the columns had been a subject of some criticism. The
ochre columns were generally admired; but the green columns were
considered too atmospheric to give the sense of support. And that
imitation of green marble directly under the Pegasus frieze of Zimm's,
near the top, had been found to bear a certain resemblance to linoleum.
But in applying, the colors Guerin had worked with deliberate purpose.
The green under the frieze was really a good imitation of marble, and
the shade used on the column suggested the weather-beaten effect
associated with age.
"There are columns that, in my opinion, have more beauty than those
Maybeck used. But that's a matter of taste. In themselves those columns
are fine and they blend into impressive masses. That altar under the
dome, with the kneeling figure, only a great artist could have conceived
in just that way. Ralph Stackpole, the sculptor of the figure, worked it
out in perfect harmony with Maybeck's idea. To appreciate his skill one
ought to get close and see how roughly it has been modeled in order that
the lines should be clear and yet give an effect of delicacy across the
lagoon. And those trees along the edge of the lagoon, how gracefully
they are planted, in the true Greek spirit. The lines in front of the
rotunda are all good, as they run down to the water's edge. And how
richly McLaren has planted the lagoon. He has given just the luxuriance
that Maybeck wanted."
The Western Wall
We turned to get the effect of the western wall looking out on this
magnificence. "Faville has done some of his finest work there. All over
the Exposition he has expressed himself; but as his name is not
connected with one of the great courts we don't hear it very much. When
he tackled the Western Wall he had one of the hardest of his problems.
There was a big expanse to be made interesting and impressive, without
the aid of towers or courts. It was a brilliant idea to break the
monotony with those two splendid Roman half-domes."
The figure of "Thought" on the columns in front of the Dome of Plenty
and repeated on the Dome of Philosophy started the architect talking on
the subject of character and art. "Only a sculptor with a very fine
nature could have done that fellow up there. In that design Stackpole
shows the qualities that he shows in the kneeling girl at the altar in
the rotunda across the lagoon and in his figure of the common laborer
and the little group of artisans and artists that we shall see on the
doorway of the Varied Industries. They include fineness and cleanness of
feeling, reverence and tenderness. This particular figure is one of
three figures on the grounds that stand for virtually the same subject,
Rodin's "Thinker," in the courtyard of the French Building, and Chester
Beach's "Thinker," in the niches to the west and east of the tower in
the Court of the Ages. They are all different in character. Stackpole's
gives the feeling of gentle contemplation. That man might be a poet or a
philosopher or an inventor; but a man of the kind of thought that leads
to action or great achievement in the world - never. You can't think of
him as competing with his whole heart and soul in order to get ahead of
other men. However, it would be an achievement just to be that type and
it's a good type to be held up to us for our admiration, better than the
conventional ideal of success embodied in the Adventurous Bowman, for
example."
The proportions of the domes we could see at a glance had been well
worked out. Earl Cummings' figure of the Youth had a really youthful
quality; but there was some question in our minds as to the wisdom of
repeating the figure in a semi-circle. "After all," the architect
remarked, "in this country art owes some concession to habit of mind. We
are not trained to frankness in regard to nudity. On the contrary, all
our conventions are against it. But our artists, through their special
professional training, learn to despise many of our conventions and they
like to ignore them or frankly show their contempt for them."
That elaborate Sienna fountain was well adapted to the Dome of Plenty,
though it was by no means a fine example of Italian work, with its
design built up tier on tier. "It's the natural expression of a single
idea that leads to beauty, isn't it? The instant there's a betrayal of
effort, the charm begins to fade."
There was no criticism to be made, however, of the Italian fountain in
the Dome of Philosophy, the simplest of all the fountains, and one of
the most beautiful, the water flowing over the circular bowl from all
sides. "It makes water the chief feature," said the architect
approvingly, "which is the best any fountain can do. Is there anything
in art that can compare for beauty with running water? This fountain
comes from Italy and these female figures, above the doorway, with books
in their arms, are by one of the most interesting of the sculptors
represented here, Albert Weinert. We'll see more work of his when we get
to the Court of Abundance."
At sight of the curious groups in the niches I expressed a certain
disappointment. It seemed to me that, in the midst of so much real
beauty, they were out of key. But the architect had another point of
view. "They are worth while because they're different," he said. "They
ought not to be considered merely as ornaments. They have an
archaeological interest. They are related to those interesting studies
that Albert Durer used to make, and they are full of symbolism. When
Charles Harley made them he knew just what he was doing. The male figure
in 'The Triumph of the Fields' takes us back to the time when harvesting
was associated with pagan rites. The Celtic cross and the standard with
the bull on top used to be carried through the field in harvest time.
The bull celebrates the animal that has aided man in gathering the
crops. The wain represents the old harvest wagon. That head down there
typifies the seed of the earth, symbol of the life that comes up in the
barley that is indicated there, bringing food to mankind. The woman's
figure, unfortunately, is too small for the niche, 'Abundance.' The horn
of plenty on either side indicates her character. She's reaching out her
hands to suggest her prodigality. The head of the eagle on the prow of
the ship where she is sitting, gives the idea an American application,
suggesting our natural prosperity and our reason for keeping ahead in
the march of progress. In one sense, those figures represent a
reactionary kind of sculpture. Nowadays the sculptors, like the
painters, are trying to get away from literal interpretations. They
don't want to appeal to the mind so much as to the emotions."
X
The Palace of Fine Arts at Close Range
The path leading to the northern end of the colonnade attracted us. It
brought us to the beautiful little grove of Monterey cypress that
McLaren had saved from the old Harbor View restaurant, for so many years
one of the most curious and picturesque of the San Francisco resorts,
one of the few on the bay-side. Though the architect frankly admired
Paul Bartlett's realistic "Wounded Lion," the pieces of sculpture set
out on the grass bothered him somewhat. He couldn't find any
justification for their being there. He wanted them, as he said, in a
setting. "I think I can see what the purpose was in putting them here,
to provide decoration that would be unobtrusive. But some of these
pieces, like Bartlett's, stand out conspicuously and deserve to be
treated with more consideration. Besides, there's always danger of
weakening a glorious conception like Maybeck's by putting too many
things into it, creating an artistic confusion."
We began to see how the colonnade in Gerome's painting had worked its
influence. It was easy to imagine two chariots tearing along here,
between the columns, after the ancient fashion. And those bushes, to the
right, rising on the lower wall, between the vases, surely had the
character of over-growth. They carried out Maybeck's idea of an
abandoned ruin.
The architect pointed to the top of the wall: "The little roof-garden on
the edge of the upper wall gives the Egyptian note in the architecture
that many people have felt and it is emphasized by the deep red that
Guerin has applied, the shade that's often found in Egyptian ruins."
Above the main entrance of the palace we saw Lentelli's "Aspiration,"
that had been the cause of so much criticism and humorous comment during
the first few weeks of the Exposition. "Lentelli had a hard time with
that figure. It drove him almost to distraction. Perhaps a genius might
have solved the problem of making the figure seem to float; but I doubt
if it could have been solved by anyone. The foot-rest they finally
decided to put under it didn't help the situation much."
Directly in front of "Aspiration," on its high pedestal, stood Charles
Grafly's monumental statue of "The Pioneer Mother." "I suppose the
obvious in sculpture has its place," the architect remarked, "and this
group will appeal to popular sentiment. Its chief value lies in its
celebrating a type of woman that deserves much more recognition than she
has received in the past. Most of the glory of the pioneer days has gone
to the men. The women, however, in the background, had to share in the
hardships and often did a large part of the work. It's a question in my
mind whether this woman quite represents the vigorous type that came
over the plains in the prairie schooner. However, just as she is, she is
fine, and she has a strong hand that looks as if it had been made for
spanking. I wonder why the sculptor gave her that kind of head-covering.
She might have appeared to better advantage bare-headed. The children
are excellent. Observe the bright outlook of the boy and the timid
attitude of the girl. There's a fine tenderness in the care the girl is
getting from her mother and from the boy, too, suggesting dawning
manhood. Altogether, the group has nobility and it's worthy of being a
permanent monument for San Francisco. By the way, there's the old Roman
idea of the decorative use of the bull's head again, at the base of the
group. It has a very happy application here. It reminds us of the oxen
that helped to get the Easterners out to California in the old days
before the railroads. A good many of them must have dropped in their
tracks and left their skulls to bleach in the sun."
The other ornamental design we found very appropriate and direct, as we
studied the pedestal. There was the ship that used to go round the horn,
with the torches that suggested civilization, and, at the back of the
pedestal, the flaming sun that celebrated the Golden Gate.
In the rotunda we found Paul Bartlett, represented again by the
equestrian statue of Lafayette, in full uniform, advancing sword in the
air. It unquestionably had a magnificent setting, though it suffered by
being surrounded by so many disturbing interests. "The director of the
Fine Arts Department cared enough about this figure to have it
duplicated for the Exposition. It's a good example of the old-fashioned
heroic sculpture, where the subjects take conventional dramatic
attitudes."
The ceiling of the rotunda displayed those much-discussed murals by
Robert Reid. Up there they seemed like pale reflections. "You should
have seen them when they were in Machinery Hall. Then they were
magnificent. But the instant they were put in place it was plain that
the effect had been miscalculated. At night, under the lighting, they
show up better. Judged by themselves, apart from their surroundings,
they are full of inspiration and poetry. Only a man of genuine feeling
and with a fine color-sense could have done them. But in all this
splendor of architecture they are lost."
On examining them in detail we found that they covered an
extraordinarily wide range of fancy, graceful and dramatic, even while,
save in one panel, they showed an indifference to story-telling. One
group celebrated "The Birth of European Art," with the altar and the
sacred flame, tended by a female guardian and three helpers, and with a
messenger reaching from his chariot to seize the torch of inspiration
and to bear it in triumph through the world, the future intimated by the
crystal held in the hands of the woman at the left. Another, "The Birth
of Oriental Art," told the ancient legend of a Chinese warrior who,
seated on the back of a dragon, gave battle to an eagle, the symbol
relating to man's seeking inspiration from the air. "Ideals in Art"
brought forward more or less familiar types: the Madonna and the Child,
Joan of Arc, Youth and Beauty, in the figure of a girl, Vanity in the
Peacock, with more shadowy intimations in two mystical figures in the
background, the tender of the sacred flame and the bearer of the palm
for the dead, and the laurel-bearer ready to crown victory. "The
Inspiration in All Art" revealed the figures of Music, Architecture,
Painting, Poetry and Sculpture. Four other panels glorified the four
golds of California, gold, wheat, poppies and oranges, a happy idea,
providing opportunities for the splendid use of color.
"It's a pity those murals couldn't have been tried out up there and then
taken down and done over," said the architect. "But sometime they will
find the place where they belong, perhaps in one of our San Francisco
public buildings. They're too good not to have the right kind of
display."
"The Priestess of Culture," by Herbert Adams, one of the best-known of
American sculptors, eight times repeated, we felt, had its rightful
place up there and blended into the general architectural scheme. But
some of the other pieces of statuary might have been left out with
advantage.
Through the columns we caught many beautiful vistas. And those groups of
columns themselves made pictures. "What is most surprising about this
palace is the way it grows on you. The more familiar you are with it the
more you feel the charm. Maybeck advises his friends to come here by
moonlight when they can get just the effect he intended. In all the
Exposition there's no other spot quite so romantic. It might have been
built for lovers."
XI
At the Palace of Horticulture
At the Palace of Horticulture the architect said: "Here is the Mosque of
Ahmed the First, taken from Constantinople and adapted to horticulture
and to the Exposition. It has a distinct character of its own. It even
has temperament. So many buildings that are well proportioned give the
impression of being stodgy and dull. They are like the people that make
goodness seem uninteresting. But here is use that expresses itself in
beauty and adorns itself with appropriate decoration."
When I mentioned that some people found this building too ornate, the
architect replied:
"There's an intimate and appropriate relation between the ornament and
the architecture. Personally I shouldn't care to see just this kind of
building in the heart of the city, where you'd have it before your eyes
every day. But for the Exposition it's just right. And how fitting it is
that the splendid dome should be the chief feature of a building that is
really an indoor garden and that the most prominent note of the coloring
should be green, nature's favorite and most joyous color. Some joker,"
he went on, "says that this Exposition is domicidal. He expresses a
feeling a good many people have here, that there are too many domes. But
I don't agree. The domes make a charming pictorial effect, and they
harmonize with the general spirit of the architecture. And as for this
dome, it is one of the greatest in the world. See how cleverly the
architects, following the spirit of the French Renaissance, have used
those ornamental shafts. The only criticism that can be made on them is
that they serve no architectural purpose, which ought, of course, always
to be intimately associated with use. Instead of growing from the nature
of the building, they are put on from outside. Now, in the mosque they
were very important in their service. They were the minarets where the
Muezzins used to stand in order to call the faithful to prayer. Those
minarets up there, carrying on the dome motive, on the corners of the
walls of the main palaces are much closer to the old idea."
Our talk turned to the subject of domes in general. The idea had come
from the bees, from the shape of their hives. Prehistoric man used for a
dwelling-place a hut shaped like a hive, as well as an imitation of a
bird's nest. In formal architecture, the dome showed itself early. The
Greeks knew it; but they didn't use it much. The greatest users of the
dome were the Byzantines. It was all dome with them. The first important
dome was built in Rome in the second century, to crown the Pantheon. Of
all the domes in the world the most interesting historically was St.
Peter's, the work of several architects. It was the inspiration of the
dome of St. Paul's in London, built by the English architect, Sir
Christopher Wren. Architecturally the most interesting of the domes was
Brunelleschi's, built for the Florence Cathedral in the fifteenth
century, known throughout the world by the Italian name for Cathedral,
the Duomo.
It was in connection with the Duomo that the architect reminded me of
the celebrated story about Brunelleschi. When the Florentine church
authorities decided to build the Duomo they were puzzled as to how so
mighty a dome should be developed. So they invited the architects to
appear before them in competition, and to present their ideas. One
architect, Donatello, explained that, if he secured the commission, he
should first build a mound of earth, and over it he would construct his
dome. But the authorities replied that there would be great labor and
expense in taking the earth out. He said that he would put coins into
the earth and, by this means, he would very quickly have the earth
removed by the people. When Brunelleschi was asked how he would build
his dome he said: "How would you make an egg stand on end?" They didn't
know how, and he showed them, by taking a hard-boiled egg and pressing
it down at one end, an idea like the one that occurred to Christopher
Columbus about fifty years later.
The Palace of Horticulture as an illustration of French Renaissance
architecture fascinated this observer, in spite of its
overelaborateness. "It's marvelous to think of what the Renaissance
meant throughout Europe," he said, "and how it showed itself in art
through the national characteristics. French Renaissance and Italian
Renaissance, though they have qualities in common, are very different.
And you'll find marked differences even in the Renaissance art of the
Italian cities, such as Rome and Florence and Venice. But the
Renaissance showed that no matter how far apart the people of Europe
might have been they were all stirred by a great intellectual and
spiritual movement. It was like a vast moral earthquake. It meant the
rediscovery and the joyous recognition of the relation of the past to
the present and the meaning of the relation for mankind. It led to a new
kind of self-emancipation and individualism. It created art-forms that
have stamped themselves on the work all over these grounds. In a sense
it was a declaration of artistic independence."
"Is there really such a thing as independence in art?" I ventured to
ask.
The architect began to smile. "I'm afraid there isn't much independence.
If there were this Exposition would not be quite so intimately related
to Europe and the Orient. But wait till we get into Mullgardt's Court of
the Ages. Then you'll find an answer to your question."
At this palace the architect found much to speculate on. "Here is one of
the few buildings in the whole Exposition done in what might be called
the conventional exposition spirit. I like it immensely as an exposition
building, but I should hate it as a public building that I had to see
every day. It's too fantastic. In this place it serves its purpose. But
it might fit into a setting like the Golden Gate Park, where it would be
close to nature. Now this Exposition is very different from most of the
enterprises of the kind that have taken place in Europe. It is probably
the most serious exposition ever known, with the possible exception of
the one in Chicago. If it were in a great European capital, for example,
it would mainly express the spirit of gaiety. But the builders here,
though they have been gay in their use of color, have been tremendously
serious in purpose. They have worked largely for the sake of education."
The use of green on the building was unquestionably one of the most
successful features of the coloring, particularly when it suggested, as
it so often did, old copper. "To me the deeper green that Guerin uses is
the more charming shade, far more charming, for instance, than the light
green applied to Festival Hall. And the suggestion of green in the dome
is altogether delightful. But it's a pity they didn't use another kind
of glass. When people criticise Ryan for not doing more with his
lighting effects-in this dome they evidently don't know that a mistake
was made when the glass was sent and Ryan could do very little with it.
In order to carry out his original plans Ryan would have to apply a coat
of varnish to the interior of the dome, a rather expensive process.
However, it may be done later."
Returning to the South Gardens
From where we stood we could get a good view of those green columns in
the Tower of Jewels, occasionally criticised as being too atmospheric to
give the sense of support. "Those columns were colored by Guerin to get
an effect of contrast. That shade was one of the first of the shades he
experimented with. He tried it out on the sashes in Machinery Hall. The
French landscape painters used it a good deal in outdoor scenes, on
trellises, for example. It made a pleasing effect against the deeper
tones of the grass and foliage. The notion that it isn't suited to
columns seems to me unwarranted. As a matter of fact, there are several
kinds of green stone that have often been successfully used for columns
in architecture, like malachite and Connemara marble. The Bank of
Montreal has some magnificent Connemara columns. Of course, the use up
there is theatrical, exactly as Guerin intended it to be. People seem to
forget that Guerin got his earlier training as a scene painter. He was
recognized as one of the greatest scene painters of his time. He
deliberately undertook to make this Exposition a great spectacle, and he
ought to be judged according to what he tried to do. It seems to me that
his success was astonishing. He created a picture that was spectacular
without being garish or cheap and that harmonized with the dignity and
the splendor of the architecture. One explanation of his success lies in
his being so fond of the Orient, where the architects have worked in
color as far back as we can go. Every chance he makes a trip to the
Orient and he comes back with a lot of Oriental canvases that he has
painted there. Only a lover of the Orient would have dared to put that
orange color on the domes. See what a velvety look he got, almost
wax-like. He was careful not to apply, in most instances, more than one
coat of paint. He wanted it to sink in and to become weathered. He knew
that nature was the greatest of all artists, always trying to remove the
shiny appearance of newness and to give seasoning."
As we looked up toward the center of the South Garden the white globes
on the French lamp posts caught the architect's eye. "Don't you remember
how cheap they looked on the first days?" he said. "The trouble was that
they were too white. They seemed cold and raw. So they were sprayed with
a liquid celluloid to soften them into their present ivory hue. The
change shows how important detail is, and how carefully Guerin's
department has worked. While the construction was going on there was one
remark that often used to be heard, 'It will never be noticed,' and a
most foolish remark it was. It showed that the people who made it were
lacking in imagination. Millions of eyes have been watching the details
of this Exposition and very little has escaped notice."
A great crowd was pouring out of the afternoon concert in Festival Hall.
The architect, as he looked on, remarked: "It's like being in Paris,
isn't it? Or, perhaps, it's more like being in a lovely old French
provincial city, where the theater is the chief architectural monument.
It's hard for me to understand why the French have encouraged that kind
of architecture for their theaters and opera houses. It seems so
unrelated to sound, which ought to give the clue to the building. The
use of the word festival here is a little old-fashioned and misleading.
It doesn't mean what we usually consider festivity. It is essentially a
concert hall, and the architecture ought to suggest concentration of
sound by being built in a way that shall make such concentration
inevitable. But this kind of building is obviously related to
dissipation of sound. No wonder the acoustics turned out bad and the
interior had to be remodeled."
XII
The Half Courts
In front of the Court of Palms we stopped to admire James Earl Fraser's
"End of the Trail," the most popular group of sculpture in the
Exposition. "It deserves all its popularity, doesn't it? It's finely
imagined and splendidly worked out. The pony is excellent in its
modeling and the Indian is wonderfully life-like."
At our side a man and a woman were standing, the man more than six feet
tall, with broad shoulders and a face that had evidently seen a good
deal of weather. "I've known fellers just like that Indian," we heard
him say, "up in Minnesota. He might be a Blackfoot after a couple of
days' tusselling with the wind and the rain in the mountains. I've seen
'em come into town all beat out. The man that made that statue knew his
business. An' I guess he knew what he was doing when he called it 'The
End of the Trail."'
When the visitor had passed, the architect said: "The symbolism gets
them all, doesn't it; and the realism, too? But Fraser couldn't have
expressed so much if he hadn't put a lot of heart into his 'Work. He
really felt all that the Indian represented, as a human being and as a
representative of a dying race."
"The Court of Palms" captured us both, by its shape, by the splendor of
the Ionic columns, by the loveliness of its detail, by its coloring and
by that charm of its sunken garden. "You can feel here the mind that
developed those four Italian towers. It shows the same balanced
judgment, and skill and taste. The two towers here, though they stand at
either end of the court, and make a beautiful ornamentation, are really
a part of the wall. They help to give it dignity and variety. And how
artistically the palms have been used here. They can be among the least
graceful of plants; but here they are really decorative. And those
laurel trees at the side of the main doorway make fine ornamental notes.
The sculptured vases, too, are wonderfully graceful."
Above the doorways we found the three murals that gave further
distinction to this court and enriched the coloring. In "Fruits and
Flowers" Childe Hassam had done one of his purely decorative pictures,
without a story, contenting himself with graceful pictures and delicate
color scheme. Charles Holloway made "The Pursuit of Pleasure" frankly
allegorical, the floating figure of the woman pursued by admiring
youths. Over the main doorway Arthur Mathews had also painted an
allegory, "Victorious Spirit," the Angel of Light, with wide-spread
wings of gold, standing in the center and keeping back the spirit of
materialism, represented by a fiery horse driven by his rider with
brutal energy. "Observe how successfully Mathews has chosen his colors.
These deep purples help to bring out the splendor of those golden tones.
This canvas is unquestionably one of the best of all the murals. It
shows that in Mathews San Francisco has a man of remarkable talent, one
of the great mural painters of the country."
On the way to the second half-court we had a chance to see the South
Wall at close range, with its rich ornamented doorways, its little
niches and fountains devised to make it varied and gay. Those little
elephant heads were another sign of Faville's careful attention to
ornamental detail. And the coloring gave warmth to the background,
contrasting with the deep green of the planting.
At the Court of Flowers we met Solon Borglum's "Pioneer, too old to be
typical, different from the man in lusty middle age or in youth who came
to California in the early days. But it justified itself by suggesting
perhaps the greatest of the pioneers in old age, one who had grown with
the community, the poet, Joaquin Miller. "It's Miller sure enough," said
the architect, "even if the likeness isn't close. But why those military
trappings on the horse? Like the rest of the pioneers, Joaquin was a man
of peace."
The Court of Flowers we thought well named, both for its planting,
McLaren at his best, and for its Italian Renaissance decoration, with
that pretty pergola opening out on the scene, Calder's Oriental "Flower
Girl" decorating the spaces between the arches. And those lions by
Albert Laessle were a fine decorative feature. The fountain, "Beauty and
the Beast," by Edgar Walter, of San Francisco, was one of the most
original and decorative pieces of sculpture we had seen. The figure of
the girl standing on the coils of the beast was remarkably well done and
the water flowing over the bowl, with the pipes of Pan glimpsed
underneath, made a charming picture. There was a whimsical and a
peculiarly French suggestion in the use of the decorative hat and
sandals on the nude figure. In detail those two towers at the end were
slightly different from the other two. Like the others they served as a
decoration of the wall, breaking the long lines."
XIII
Near Festival Hall
At close view we found the Festival Hall more interesting than it had
seemed at a distance. It unquestionably had something of the elegance
associated with the best French architecture. But, unlike most of the
buildings here, it did not develop out of a central idea. Much of its
ornamentation seemed put on from the outside.
Of all the domes this dome impressed us as being the least interesting.
It did not even justify itself as being a means of giving abundant
light. "This kind of architecture doesn't really belong in this country;
but it seems to be making its way. Observe the waste of space involved.
However, the curving arches on either side are rather charming. And the
architect has succeeded in putting into the whole structure a certain
amount of sentiment. In fact, throughout the whole Exposition you feel
that the architects haven't worked merely for money or for glory. They
have appreciated the chance of doing something, out of the commonplace."
The sculpture by Sherry Fry was evidently executed with the idea of
festivity in mind, the "Bacchus" and "The Reclining Woman" and two
"Floras" decorated with flowers, and "Little Pan," and "The
Torch-bearer" reproduced above each of the smaller domes. But, somehow,
those figures did not quite indicate the real character of the building,
intended for concerts and lectures and conventions, rather serious
business. The coloring, too, of the statues, was disappointing, the dull
brown being out of key with the light green of the domes.
"In the smaller concert room upstairs, Recital Hall," said the
architect, "there is some very fine stained glass; two windows, and on
the landing of the north stairway there's a third window, all done by
the man who has been called the Burne-Jones of America, Charles J.
Connick, of Boston. Instead of being hidden away there, they ought to
have been put in the Fine Arts Building. They represent something new in
the way of stained glass, and they have a wonderful depth and
brilliancy."
As we drew near the Avenue of Progress we saw the magnificent doorway of
the Varied Industries, overladen with ornamentation. "It was clever of
Faville to put that doorway just in this spot where it would be seen by
the crowds that entered by Fillmore Street. It comes from the Santa Cruz
Hospital, in Toledo, Spain, built by the Spanish architect, De Egas, for
Cardinal Mendoza, one of the most famous portals in Europe. The
adaptation has been wonderfully done by Ralph Stackpole, with those
figures of the American workman carrying a pick at either side and the
semicircular panel just above the door and the group on top. That panel
is one of the finest pieces of sculpture in the Exposition. It has
tenderness and reverence. It's the kind of thing the mediaeval sculptors
who worked on religious themes would have been enthusiastic over. See
how simple it is, just a group of workers, with the emblems of their
work, the women spinning with the lamb close by, the artist and the
artisan, and the woman with the design of a vessel's prow in her hands,
suggesting commerce. The single figure in the center is the intelligent
workman who works with his hands and knows how to work, too. The group
on top is a very pretty conception, the Old World Handing Its Burden to
the Younger World, with its suggestions of the European people coming
over here and raising American children."
XIV
The Palace of Machinery
On reaching the Avenue of Progress we found ourselves at the gayest
corner of the Exposition, with two fine vistas of the two avenues. To
our right stood the massive Palace of Machinery, one of the largest
buildings in the world, so successfully treated by the architect that it
did not give the faintest suggestion of being cumbersome or monotonous.
"It's the Baths of Caracalla in Rome," said the architect, "adapted by a
master. Those three gables above the main entrance are taken directly
from the baths. See how simple the ornamentation is and yet how
satisfying. The building as a whole is a perfect example of old Roman
architecture, feeling its way toward the big architectural principles
that are in vogue today, among others the economical principle involved
in the counteracting of thrusts. If the Roman Emperor who was nicknamed
Caracalla on account of the hooded military tunic that he made
fashionable in his day hadn't built those baths we should probably not
have the glorious Pennsylvania station in New York, that some of the
architectural authorities consider the most important building of its
kind built in this country. Although the work here is all concrete,
Clarence Ward, the architect, says that with care, it could last
hundreds of years."
Now we were struck by those vigorous-looking figures, by Haig Patigian,
that stood on top of the Sienna columns all evidently designed to
express the power of machinery. At the entrance the reliefs of the
columns were in the same spirit and, as one might have surmised, by the
same sculptor working out the meaning of the buildings in designs that
kept the contour of the columns, strong and well-modeled.
"There's distinctive character in this building," said the architect.
"It actually conveys the sense of tremendous energy, and by the simplest
means. And inside, Ward has done something new and interesting."
When we entered we found the supports of the roof left bare. Instead of
being unsightly, they had a kind of beauty and impressiveness. "Observe
the magnificence of the spaces here on the floor and up to the ceiling.
Some one asked Ward if all this height were necessary. He said it
wasn't; but he wanted it for pictorial effect, to carry out the feeling
of massiveness and splendor."
In the great figures that stood on the columns in front of the Palace of
Machinery the architect found a theme for a discourse on the human
figure as the chief inspiration of art. "It is possible that we shall
change our minds on that subject," he remarked. "Already the world is
showing a tendency to get away from the worship of the body. Ever since
the Christian era, of course, the physical has been deprecated. We may
come to see that the body is useful as it develops and serves the
spiritual, that is, as it subordinates itself. The marvel is that the
pagan tradition has persisted so long in spite of the Christian
influence. This Exposition shows how strong it remains."
"But what would you have in place of the human figure as the inspiration
of art?" I asked.
"Oh, there are plenty of things that might take its place. Flower themes
are just as beautiful in decoration as the shapes of men and women. I
can conceive of the time when it will be considered uninteresting and
commonplace to have human bodies used as a means of aesthetic display.
The self-glorification in it alone becomes wearying. We are gradually
learning that the best we can do in life is to forget about ourselves
and our old bodies. There are even those who go so far as to look
forward to the time when we shall escape from our bodies altogether. It
would be interesting, by the way, to get the point of view of a very
spiritual Christian Scientist on the display here. I suppose that it
would see good in the tendency to reach finer and nobler conceptions of
art according to our present understanding."
Then the architect proceeded to discuss the artistic superiority of the
Japanese. Though they used the human figure in their art, they did not
play it up, after the habit of the Western world. They did not make it
seem to be of supreme importance. They conventionalized and subordinated
it to outline and color. The use of the nude they never cultivated.
Their attitude toward the body was characterized by discretion and
modesty, qualities that they showed in their dress. You would never see
a Japanese woman, for example, wearing a dress that conspicuously
brought out the lines of her figure.
"On the other hand," the architect went on, "there's no doubt we've
become absurdly prudish in this country. We're afflicted with shame of
the body which, in itself, is unhealthy. If art can help us to get back
to a more normal attitude it will do a big service. All the more reason
then why it should keep within reasonable bounds."
XV
The Court of the Ages
As we turned from the Avenue of Progress toward the Court of the Ages
the architect said: "The workmen about here call this inner court 'Pink
Alley,' not a bad name for it, though its real name is the Court of
Mines. Throughout the Exposition Guerin shows that he is very fond of
pink, probably on account of its warmth. He has been criticised for
using it so much on the imitation Travertine for the reason that there
is no stone of exactly this color. And yet there is pink marble. But
even if there weren't any pink stone in the world, Guerin would be
justified in his use of the color for purely decorative purposes, just
as he was justified in using it on his four towers."
Inside the Court of the Ages the architect drew a long breath.
"In this court we architects feel puzzled. We think we can read new
architectural forms like a book, and find that they are saying things
repeated down the ages. But we can't read much here. In that lovely
round arch there are hints of Gothic, and yet it is not a Gothic arch.
Throughout the treatment there are echoes of the Spanish, and yet the
treatment is not Spanish. The more one studies the conception and the
workmanship the more striking it grows in originality and daring.
Mullgardt has succeeded in putting into architecture the spirit that
inspired Langdon Smith's poem 'Evolution,' beginning 'When you were a
tadpole and I was a fish.' In the chaotic feeling that the court gives
there is a subtle suggestiveness. The whole evolution of man is
intimated here from the time when he lived among the seaweed and the
fish and the lobsters and the turtles and the crabs. Even the straight
vertical lines used in the design suggest the dripping of water. When
you study the meaning of the conception you find an excuse for Aitken in
flinging his mighty fountain into the center of all this architectural
iridescence. He caught the philosophy of Mullgardt without catching the
lightness and gaiety of the execution. In that fountain he has brought
out the pagan conception of the sun, and he has used the notion that the
sun threw off the earth in a molten mass to steam and cool down here and
to bring forth those competitions between human beings that reveal the
working of the elemental passions. Aitken is material and hard, where
Mullgardt is delicate and fine. How subtly Mullgardt has interwoven the
feeling of spirituality with all the animal forces in man. That tower
alone is a masterpiece. I know of no tower just like it in the world.
From every side it is interesting. And at night it is particularly
impressive from the Marina."
The architect went on to explain something of the court's history. "When
Mullgardt started to work out his plans he must have had in mind the
transitional character of an exposition. He knew that he could afford to
try an experiment that might have been impracticable if the court had
been intended for permanency. He evidently was determined to cast
tradition to the winds and to strike out for himself."
"I should think most architects would like to work in that way."
"The usual process is very different. As soon as an architect decides to
design a building. he first chooses a certain type of architecture; then
he saturates his mind with designs that have already been done along
that line. Out of the mass of suggestions that he receives he is lucky
if he evolves something more or less new. Often he merely re-echoes or
he actually reproduces something that he is fond of or that has happened
to catch his fancy. The chances are that Mullgardt will go down into
history for his daring here. It isn't often that a man takes a big
biological conception and works it out in architecture with such
picturesqueness. It's never intrusive and yet it's there, plain enough
for anyone to see who looks close. It represented a magnificent
opportunity and Mullgardt was big enough to get away with it."
Then the architect told me the human story behind all this beauty as we
wandered back into the center of the court and stood there. "Notice the
incline," he said, "from the entrances? It reminds me that Mullgardt had
originally intended to have the floor of the court like a sunken garden.
And remember that the name expresses the original idea. The Court of
Abundance, that it is wrongly called, would have applied much better to
the Court of Four Seasons. Well, after the notion came to Mullgardt to
suggest in the court the development of man from the life of the sea to
his present state as a thinking being, less physical than spiritual, he
planned to build a court that should be the center of the pageants for
the Exposition, where art should have its living representation in the
form of processions and of plays, some of them written for the purpose.
In the sunken garden there should be plenty of room for the actors to
move about, using it as a stage. There should also be room for the
sculptured caldron that was to be an architectural feature and that
later developed into Aitken's massive evolutionary fountain. For the
base of the tower there was designed a gorgeous semi-circular staircase,
which was to serve as an entrance for the actors. Around the court there
was to run an ornamental balcony, covered with a great canopy in red and
gold, making an effect of Oriental magnificence. The people were to
watch the spectacles from the balcony and from between the arches. In
addition to the main tower, very like the present tower, but to contain
a great pipe organ, there were to be two others, in the corner at right
angles, to be called echo towers. The music of the organ was to be
transmitted to the echo towers by wires and the echoes were to serve as
a sort of accompaniment. The effect, if it had been managed right, would
have been stunning."
"Mullgardt has kept the spirit of the pageant in his court," I said.
"Just as it is it would make an ideal setting, particularly for pageant
with music, opera, for example."
"Of course," said the architect. "But the music ought not to come as it
does now, from a band. It ought to come from the orchestra. Violins
belong there. Put brass never!"
"Well, what happened to the pageant scheme?"
"Oh, when Mullgardt showed the preliminary sketches it was ruled out as
too expensive. Then he removed the balcony and the staircase and, in
place of the staircase, he introduced a cascade, keeping the rest of the
court as it had been before. His idea was to use the water in the
cascade only in a suggestive way. It was to be almost completely hidden
by vines, after the manner of Shasta Falls, and to symbolize the
mysterious appearance and disappearance of water that came from - one
didn't know where. But that scheme was rejected, too, as too expensive.
However, Mullgardt accepted the situation. He was so interested that he
worked out himself many of the details that most architects would have
left to subordinates. He really cared enough to make the whole effect as
close to perfection as he could. Everything he did he had a reason for
doing. Not one thing here did he use gratuitously. He evidently doesn't
agree with the idea that, in architecture, beauty is its own excuse for
being; he wants to make it useful, too."
Then I was initiated into the details of the workmanship. "Observe how
the ideas in the structure of the walls of the court are carried on in
the ornamental details and in the tower." The primitive man and
primitive woman repeated in a row along the upper edge had been finely
conceived and executed by Albert Weinert. And the nobility of outline in
the tower was sustained by the three pieces of sculpture in front made
by Chester Beach. That top figure some people believed to be Buddhistic
in feeling. But it belonged to no particular religion. It stood for the
Spirit of Intelligence. The ornamentation on the head was not an
aureole, as bad been reported, but a wreath of laurel, symbolic of
success. The group beneath was mediaeval, depicting mankind struggling
for the light, expressed in the torches, through those conflicts that so
pitifully came out of the aspirations of the soul, expressed in
religion. The lowest group showed humanity in its elemental condition,
related to the animal, close to the beasts. So, to be followed in
sequence, the groups ought to be studied from the lowest to the highest,
and then the eyes should be able to catch the meaning of the lovely
ornamentation, crowning the tower, the petals of the lily, emblem of
spirituality, the arrow-like spires above expressing the aspirations of
the soul.
On the sides of the tower the symbolism was consistently maintained, war
and religion marking the progress of man toward the state indicated by
the single figure of The Thinker.
"And, speaking of the soul," the architect went on, "Observe these great
clusters of lights that illuminate this court and the approach on the
other side of the tower. They look like stars, don't they? And the
intention evidently is to use them for their star-like character. But
there is history behind them. They are like the monstrance used in the
Catholic Church, to hold the sacred host, the wafer that is accepted by
the faithful as the body and blood of Jesus Christ. Since the sixteenth
century it has been used by the church, a beautiful emblem, made of gold
and designed to suggest the prayer of the sun, the Spirit of God in
radiance. Its use here helps to give the court its ecclesiastical
character."
As we made our way toward the Marina we noted how much the court gained
by its general freedom from color. In the colonnade, to be sure, Guerin
had been particularly successful with the shade of blue. But he would
have done better if he had omitted the color, in fact all color, from
the niches in the tower.
Viewed from the Marina, the entrance to the court proved to be a vision
of loveliness. There was only one intrusive note to jar the harmony, the
coarse sea figure by Sherry Fry, presumably Neptune's, Daughter,
standing in the center, with a great fish at her feet, plainly out of
place here, in spite of the court's celebration of the sea as the source
of human life.
XVI
The Brangwyns
We lingered in the colonnade to view the eight mural decorations by
Frank Brangwyn, of London. In front of The Bowmen we found a friend, a
gifted woman painter, fairly bursting with enthusiasm. "What delights me
in Brangwyn," she said, "is his artistic courage. He dares to put down
just what he feels. This sturdy figure in the foreground, for example,
peering through the trees, how many other painters would have allowed
him to turn his back on the spectator? And yet how interesting he is and
how alive."
"Some of those heads strike me as curious," I remarked. "That fellow
closest to the center, just about to let his arrow fly, seems to have no
head to speak of."
"Sometimes he's careless with his drawing. And yet he can draw
magnificently, too. He evidently had a purpose in making so many of the
heads in these murals almost deformed. He wanted to suggest that these
types were in no way mental. They were wholly physical. Notice the care
he has lavished on their muscular bodies, their great shoulders and
legs."
"It doesn't seem like English work, does it?" said the architect.
"No, there's something almost Oriental about it both in the feeling and
the coloring. And there's the Pagan love of the elemental life."
"But what a chance Brangwyn had to do something new with this
magnificent subject," the architect went on. "At last, after centuries
of effort, men are actually conquering the air. They've learned to fly.
They've become birds. Now why didn't Brangwyn give us a pictorial
expression of that miracle? Why didn't the artist have as much sense as
the man of affairs who pays Art Smith to come out here and fly before
the multitude?"
I argued that Brangwyn preferred to deal with antique themes - they were
so much more pictorial.
The architect interrupted with some impatience. "But that's exactly what
they're not. In my opinion Whistler was perfectly right when he said
that if a mural decorator couldn't make modern life pictorial he didn't
know his business. Flying through the air is only one of many wonders in
the life of today that cry out for expression in art; but you scarcely
catch a note of them here."
"For example?" said the painter.
"Industry - our great machines, the new power they bring into the world,
the change in industrial relations and social and moral ideals. Now in
these murals, Brangwyn has simply repeated himself and he hasn't by any
means done his best work. And I question whether his observation is so
accurate as you admirers of his try to make it appear. Look at the way
those fellows are holding their bows - with the left hand, presumably
for the pictorial effect of the composition. Well, let that point pass.
One fellow has shot his arrow. The other is holding his arrow between
the fore finger and the middle finger. Well, it won't go very far. The
Indians know better. They let the arrow rest on the thumb to give it
plenty of freedom to fly. One of those bows, by the way, has no string.
Brangwyn probably thought it wouldn't be missed."
As we looked at the other panels the architect conceded that the points
the painter raised for Brangwyn, the brilliant use of color; the
dramatic grouping and the fineness of characterization, were true
enough. "But he's too monotonous. Though his groups are of different
periods, some of them ages apart, they're all essentially alike and the
figures are even dressed alike. I'm perfectly willing to make allowance
for artistic convention. But why should an artist limit himself
unnecessarily when he has all the ages to draw on? Why should he neglect
the present, the greatest of all the ages?"
"Ah, I'm afraid you're too literal said the painter. "You want to limit
a genius to rules."
We turned from The Bowmen to study in detail the second illustration of
Air, much more modern and yet charmingly old-fashioned, the windmill and
the little mill high in the background, the group of naked boys flying
kites, the toilers and their children, going home as fast as they could,
fighting the wind, their picturesque draperies flying around them.
The architect was impressed. "He's caught the feeling of the
thunderstorm, hasn't he?" he said.
"And he's brought out all the picturesqueness and the color and the
majesty and even the humor," said the painter. "See how wonderfully be
has composed the picture, what pictorial use he has made of every
detail. The background of the clouds and the rain, the dark blues and
the green and the pink; and the kites catching some of the color, and
the lovely color of the mill and of the grass dried by the sun. And see
that figure up there on the steps, all windblown and rushing under
cover. It's all beautiful and yet there's not one face or figure there
that would be considered beautiful by the painter who works for
prettiness. He has no interest whatever in what the average mural
decorator considers beautiful. And yet he sees beauty everywhere and he
makes it felt. How pictorially he has used those purple flowers in the
foreground at the base of the composition. And observe their relation to
the purple clouds on top. And then what character he has put into those
active figures, particularly in this queer little boy, naked except for
the purple drapery flying from his waist. He has caught something of the
fantastic spirit that you often see in children."
In nearing the two panels illustrating Water we had a chance to see how
dexterously Brangwyn could manage his design without perspective, which
would have made a hole in the wall. Those women with jars on their heads
stood against a sky none the less lovely because it was flat. It was
exquisite in its varieties of blue and white and green. That sturdy
fellow lifting a heavy jar was actually working and working hard. "And
how splendidly Brangwyn has modeled the figure with his back turned to
us," the painter exclaimed. "What a stroke of genius it was that a
yellow handkerchief of just that shade should hang from his neck. And
the figures in the companion panel drawing their nets, they are putting
their heart and soul into their work and they are having a good time,
too. And this man here in the corner, with the purple shadows on his
bare back, lifting his net, he's evidently had a big catch. He's holding
the net in a way that shows it's heavy. And how decorative those men in
the background are, with the baskets on their heads. Brangwyn loves to
use figures in this attitude. They are interesting and picturesque and
dramatic at the same time."
"But they're too conscious," the architect insisted, "too posed.
"Remember, they're not paintings," the painter insisted. "They're formal
decorations."
In the panel representing the elementary use of Fire we were all struck
by Brangwyn's daring and fine treatment of the ugly. Nearly every face
was almost grotesque. And yet every face was appealing for the simple
reason that it expressed attractive human qualities. Two, a man and a
woman, had noses ridiculously large. The group of men in the center of
the background, at the base, around the fire, had apparently started the
fire by rubbing sticks together. One was intently leaning forward, as if
in the act of blowing. Among the figures behind the group stood a man
with an infant in his arms, vividly characterized by the unseeing eyes.
That infant was instantly singled out by the painter.
"Brangwyn is very wonderful in his observation of children. He has a
quality that is almost maternal. Observe the difference between the
expression in the face of that baby and the expression in the face of
that little boy to the left of the fire-makers. How intently he is
looking on as he leans against the brown jar. He shows all the interest
of a boy just learning how to do things."
The kiln charmed us, too, though we regretted that it did not explain
itself quite so spontaneously as most of the other panels. "But
symbolism ought not to be too obvious, you know," the painter argued.
"There's a certain charm in vagueness. It makes you feel your way toward
a work- of art. The more you think about this panel the more you find
there. To me it suggests the relation between fire and the abundance of
the earth. See how cleverly, in each case of these two panels, Brangwyn
has used smoke, first as a thin line, breaking into two lines as it goes
up and interweaving, and then as a great flowing wreath, dividing the
panel in two parts without weakening the unity."
For composition we decided that the two Earth panels were among the most
remarkable of all. With satisfaction I heard Brangwyn compared by the
painter to a great stage manager. "When I look at these groupings, I am
reminded of Forbes-Robertson's productions of plays." Now we could see
how brilliantly the decorator had planned in securing his effects of
height by starting his group of figures close to the top of the canvas.
And with what skill he had used trees and vines and vegetables and
fruits, both for design and for coloring. "He has always been mad about
apples and squashes," said that feminine voice. "In nearly every picture
here you will find not one squash only, but several squashes. He loves
them for their color and their shape. And how wonderful he makes the
color of the grape. He suggests the miracle of its deep purple."
We admired the painter's pictorial use of shadow on those powerful and
scantily draped figures and the animation he put into the bodies of the
wine-pressers. And down there in a corner he had perfectly reproduced
the attitude and facial expression of the worker at rest, holding out
his cup for a drink. "There's another of those queer and interesting
children. But oh, most wonderful of all is the opposite panel that ought
to be called Abundance. See that mother, holding her lusty baby. The
face is commonplace enough, but it has all motherhood in it. And the
woman behind, she looks as if she might be a mother bereft or one of
those women cheated out of motherhood."
The architect, though he still had his reservations on the subject of
the Brangwyns, conceded that they were distinctly architectural. They
blended into the spirit of the court.
The painter at once supported the opinion. "In these colonnades Guerin
has done some of his finest coloring. The blue and the red are in
absolute harmony with Brangwyn's rich tones. They must have been applied
to fit the canvases. But the marvel is that the murals should show up so
magnificently. Brangwyn painted them in London and he must have had
second sight to divine just the right scheme. Do you realize," she went
on enthusiastically, fairly losing herself in her enjoyment, "the
immense difficulties he had to contend with? In the first place, see how
huge those canvases are. Their size created all kinds of problems. To
view them right, to get a line on the detail, so to speak, would have
meant, for the average painter, walking long distances. But, in his
studio, Brangwyn could not have taken anything like accurate
measurements."
"Perhaps he painted them out of doors," the architect suggested.
"I believe the explanation is that he thought them all out and he saw
them in their places. From Mr. Mullgardt he had probably received a
complete account, with drawings, of just what the court was going to be
like. Then it lived before him and he made the murals live. His work
shows that he begins in the right place, unlike so many people who paint
from outside. He feels the qualities of the people he is going to paint.
He really loves them. He loves their surroundings. He must be very
elemental in his nature. They say he is a great, uncouth sort of a
fellow. When he first went to London he was very contemptuous of the
work done by the academicians. It must have seemed to him, a good deal
of it, effeminate and trifling. Can't you see how those murals show that
he is a man clear through? They are masculine in every detail."
"And yet they have a good deal of delicacy, too, haven't they?" said the
architect. "See how atmospheric those backgrounds are. They actually
suggest nature."
"Because they are unconventional and because they are true. And yet they
are purely decorative. You wouldn't like to think of them as standing
apart in a great frame. When you go close you will see that the colors
are laid on flat. And they don't shine. For this reason they have great
carrying power. Observe The Bowmen down there in the distance. Even from
this remote end of the court it expresses itself as lovely in color and
composition. Let us walk down and see how it grows on us as we
approach."
Slowly we moved along the colonnade, the figures seeming to grow more
and more lifelike as the painter indicated their technical merits. "They
are of the earth, those men, aren't they? They are the antithesis of the
highly civilized types used by so many of the painters today. They
suggest red blood and strength of limb and joy in the natural things of
life, eating, drinking, the open air, and simple comradeship. They make
us see the wonder of outdoor living, the kind of living that most of us
have missed. What a pleasure it is to find a worker in any kind of work
trying to do a thing and actually doing it and doing it with splendid
abandon. Now if Brangwyn hadn't entered into the feelings of those
bowmen in the foreground, he couldn't have made the figure alive. And
the life, remember, isn't merely brought out by the happy use of the
flesh tints or by the play of the muscles. It's in the animating spirit.
As Brangwyn painted those fellows, he felt like a bowman. So he
succeeded in putting into his canvas the strength that each bowman put
into his bow. He isn't pretending to shoot, that sturdy fellow in front.
He is shooting, and he's going to get what he is after."
Before each of the four pairs of murals, the painter indicated to us the
happy way in which, by the deft use of the coloring, each blended into
the other, and she called my attention to the clearness of the
symbolism. So often, she remarked, the mural decorators used
compositions that seemed like efforts to hide secrets, a childish way of
working, sure to defeat itself. Brangwyn had no secrets. He was sincere
and direct. He was happy over this work. He said that he had enjoyed
doing it more than anything else he had ever done before. If these
canvases had been found in the heart of Africa they would have been
identified as coming from Brangwyn. No one else used color just as he
did, with his kind of courage. His colors were arbitrary, too. He didn't
follow nature and yet he always conveyed the spirit of natural things.
Throughout his work he showed that he was a close and subtle observer.
The sweep of rain through the air, the movement of figures and of
draperies in the wind, the expression of human effort, how wonderfully
he managed to suggest them all and to make them pictorial. But he wasn't
interested in merely an activity. He loved repose. In nearly all of
these eight canvases, so brimming with life, there were figures looking
on serenely, calmly, conveying the impression of being absolutely at
rest.
In every particular, according to the searching observer, Brangwyn was
successful, with the exception of one, his treatment of birds. He
evidently didn't know birds. If he had known them he would have loved
them, and if he had loved them he would have entered into their spirit
and he would have flown with them and he would have made them fly in his
painting. Now they merely flopped. They were just about as much alive as
the clay figures used in a shooting match. Even his highly decorative
flamingoes weren't right. They did not stand firmly on the ground. They
weren't alive. And the necks of the two flamingoes never could have met
in the curves that Brangwyn gave them. This very failure, amusing as it
was and hardly detracting from the effect of his work as a whole, was
another proof that he was an instinctive painter, who relied for his
guidance on feeling. But it was plain enough that he had chosen those
flamingoes for their color, and a right choice it was.
We could not decide which of the eight murals we liked best. Perhaps,
after all, they could not be considered apart. Though each was in itself
a unity, the eight completely expressed a big conception. And in detail
each canvas was full of delightful bits. If you closed your hand and
peered between your thumb and your fingers, you could see how
beautifully the color had been applied and how, throughout the whole
surface, the workmanship sustained itself. Never was there the sense of
faltering or of petering out. And everywhere there were expressions of
fine understanding and sympathy, in the study of a peasant mother
holding her babe, nude boys flying kites, a happy face with the lips
blowing a pipe, a muscular figure lifting a jar, all conveying abundant
life and rich coloring.
The painter finally ran away from us, apologizing for her enthusiasm.
In discussing her opinions, the architect said: "Well, I don't
altogether agree. But she may be right. She sees from the inside, which
is very different from seeing from the outside. There is a great deal of
artistic appreciation that can be felt only by the artist, by the
fellow-craftsman. No wonder we go so far astray when we criticise
aspects of art that we're only related to indirectly or not related at
all."
We walked to the Marina. From there we saw the sun, a great red ball,
sinking behind the Golden Gate.
XVII
Watching the Lights Change
"There probably never was an Exposition in a more magnificent setting,"
said the architect. "The stretch from here to the Golden Gate makes one
of the most splendid bits of scenery in the whole world. It was a good
idea on the part of the Exposition people to build the little railway
here so that visitors should get a glimpse of all the beauty. But,
ideally, the view ought to be seen from a height. The curve from here to
the Cliff House makes our foreign visitors gasp. It also makes them
wonder why our boasting over San Francisco doesn't include some of the
things we have the best excuse to boast about."
We stopped at one of the open-air restaurants, where we could eat and
watch the fading light at the same time. Then we went to the lagoon,
which the architect declared to be particularly interesting at this time
of day.
The rotunda and the colonnade began to take on a deeper mystery. Across
the surface of the water ran a faint ripple. In the background, over the
Golden Gate, the sky was turning to flame. Delicate, gray cobwebs seemed
to float in the air like veils, dusk and fog intermingled.
The light grew dim as we sauntered along the colonnade of the Palace.
Through the columns we could see the Tower of Jewels, suddenly
illuminated from inside, all in red, obscuring the sculptured figures
and giving the lines greater unity and reach.
In the red glow the Italian towers fairly leaped into the air. "It's
curious how the light makes them taller," said the architect.
Now the grounds were twinkling with a multitude of bulbs.
Presently the red light in the tower softened into white. Two of the
Italian towers grew paler, the other two retaining their brilliancy.
Ryan was putting on his colors like a painter, one over another.
We made our way back to the Marina, where the scintillators were soon to
blaze. Before we arrived they informed us of their presence by the great
feathered fan, of many colors, that rose into the sky.
"There was some opposition to the decorating of the Tower with jewels.
The architects with conservative ideas very naturally felt that
architecture which depended on its lines for beauty didn't need that
kind of ornament. But Ryan has unquestionably justified himself. The
feature has been talked about throughout the country more than any
other. See how the light falls on the tower like a great shimmering
robe. It gains by the contrast it makes with the subdued lighting
beneath."
The group on the Column of Progress stood out against the sky.
The doorways were taking on the color of gold, becoming even more
beautiful than they had been by day.
"What Ryan tried hardest to get," said the architect, "was evenness of
lighting. He wanted to bring out clearly the details of the architecture
and he succeeded."
XVIII
The Illuminating and the Reflections
That motionless steam engine, all in gray, harmonizing with the
Travertine, was furiously at work. Into the air it sent clouds of steam
that turned to red and blue and green under Ryan's magic. And up there,
at the top of the Column of Progress, we saw the Adventurous Bowman and
his companions in two groups, one reflected on the illuminated fog.
Through the smoke and the fog the bombs were shooting and breaking into
great masses of liquid fire, golden and green and pink and yellow.
"Someone says we're all children at heart," the architect remarked.
"These fireworks get more attention than all the architecture and the
art put together. But, after all, they're just about as beautiful as
anything man can make and, in the way of color, they put the artists to
shame."
We were part of the crowd that swept to the Court of the Universe, never
so splendid as at night, with the columns reflected in the pool and
Calder's star figures shining from the concealed electric bulbs. On
reaching the court itself we stood at the end of one of the corridors
and looked down. Great drops of light hung on the columns like molten
gold. "Ryan has done something very artistic and unusual there," the
architect remarked. "So far as I know nothing just like it has ever been
done before. It suggests the tongues of fire mentioned in the Scripture
that descended from Heaven."
In the sunken garden those two shafts, rising from the fountains,
looking like stone by day, had become great candles, glowing from the
base to the glass globe on top. "They're practically the sole means of
illuminating this court. The other lights are merely ornamental. So far
as I'm aware nothing just like these shafts has ever been tried in an
Exposition or anywhere else. It's a novel Expositional effect. Some
people don't like it; but most people admire it immensely. It symbolizes
the gold that first drew the multitude to this part of the world. If the
golden color had been used more extensively throughout the Exposition it
would have helped a lot. Guerin gets it at night by means of the light
that shines through the windows and Faville gets it in the light behind
those wonderful doorways of his that haven't been praised half as much
as they ought to be."
The Court of the Ages lured us along the dimly lighted inner court, the
arches taking on an even more delicate beauty in the night light. Once
within the court we found ourselves under the spell of Mullgardt's
genius. The architecture, the cauldrons sending out pink steam, the
flaming serpents, the torches on the tower, the warm lights from within
the tower, the great ecclesiastical stars, brilliant with electricity,
all carried out the idea of the earth, cast off by the sun.
In the entrance court we found the effects less magnificent but, in
their way, just as beautiful. The lighting emphasized the refinement of
the court, the rich delicacy of the ornamentation. "Mullgardt ought to
go down into history for this contribution to the Exposition," said the
architect. "He has shown that originality is still possible in
architecture."
In the Court of the Four Seasons we watched the Emerald Pool turning the
architecture into a mermaids' palace. The water flowing under the four
groups of the seasons shone from an invisible light beneath, coloring it
a rich green. "When Ryan promised to illuminate the water here without
letting the source of the light be seen, it was thought by the people it
couldn't be done." For a long time we sat in front of the lagoon where
the swans were silently floating and, and the Palace of Fine Arts was
reproduced with a deeper mystery. Now we could feel the relation between
the colonnade and Gerome's chariot race. "It would please Gerome if he
could know that he had helped to inspire so magnificent a conception,"
said the architect. "And if Boecklin could see this vision and hear that
his Island of the Dead had started Maybeck's mind thinking of it he
would probably be astonished and delighted at the same time. With his
fine understanding of the influences operating in art he would see that
his contribution did not in any way detract from Maybeck's originality.
Down the centuries minds have been influencing one another and, in this
way, adding to the sum of wisdom and beauty in the world. Now and then,
as in this instance, we can plainly see the influences at work. Behind
Boecklin and Gerome there were doubtless influences that led to their
making those two pictures, inspirations from nature or from other
artists, or both together. And this palace will doubtless inspire many
another noble conception."
"When we apply that thought to the Exposition as a whole," I said, "we
can see what a big influence it is likely to have on the art of the
country."
"It has undoubtedly had a big influence already, even though we may not
he able, as yet, to see it working. The very interest the Exposition
has, aroused in the people that come here, whether they are artists or
not, can't help being productive."
Seeing the Lights Fade
We went over to the South Gardens to see the lights change on the Tower
of Jewels, passing the half-dome of Philosophy, the stained glass of the
windows enveiling the background. They were still robing the tower in
pure white, and the hundred thousand pieces of Austrian cut glass were
shimmering. "They must have had a hard time getting those jewels
fastened on the ornamentation of the upper tiers. The wind up there is
very strong. Some of the men came near being blown off. It took pretty
expert acrobatic work to hang the jewels out on the extreme edges.
Suddenly the lights on the tower glowed into red. The tower itself
seemed to become thinner and finer in outline.
"There are people who don't like this color," said the architect. "It's
fashionable nowadays to feel a prejudice against red. But it is one of
the most beautiful colors in nature and one of nature's greatest
favorites, associated with fire and with flowers. To me the tower is
never so beautiful as it is when the red light seemed to burn from a
fire inside. See how it tends to eliminate the superfluous
ornamentation. It brings out the grace of line in the upper tiers, like
folded wings. With just a few eliminations the improvement in that tower
would be astonishing."
Presently the lights in the tower went out altogether. The four Italian
towers also grew dim. It was getting late. People were hurrying out. But
we lingered. We wished to see this city of domes as it appeared without
any lights at all, except for those that were kept burning to meet the
requirements of the law.
For an hour we roamed about the deserted place. Here and there we would
meet a belated visitor or a group of people from some indoor festivity.
The material had taken on a finer quality. It looked like stone.
Wonderful as the Exposition was by day and in the evening, it was far
more wonderful at this hour.
Now it was easy to imagine the scene as a city, with the inhabitants
asleep in their beds. But just what kind of city it was I could not make
up my mind. When I expressed this thought to the architect, he said:
"Have you ever seen David Roberts' big illustrated volumes, 'Travels in
the Holy Land'? If you haven't, look them up. Then you will see what
kind of a city this city is. It's a city of Palestine. It's Jerusalem
and Jaffa and Akka all over again."
Features that Ought to be Noted by Day
The South Gardens
Hedge. Idea suggested by W. B. Faville, of Bliss & Faville, architects,
of San Francisco, and developed by John McLaren, landscape gardener and
superintendent of the Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, to give
impression of old English wall. African dew plant grown in shallow
boxes, two inches deep, covered with wire netting.
Design of entrance at Scott Street, by Joseph J. Rankin.
South Gardens, French in character, with suggestions of Spanish.
Planting by John McLaren.
In center, "Fountain of Energy," by A. Stirling Calder, acting chief of
sculpture; French influence. Expresses triumph of energy that built the
canal. Youth on horseback, standing in stirrups, "Energy." Figures on
shoulders, "Fame" and "Valor." Figures on globe, two hemispheres;
Western, bull-man; Eastern, lioness-woman. Figures on base, sea-spirits.
Upright figure on globe, Panama. Large figures in pool, the oceans: The
Atlantic, a woman with coral in her hair, riding on back of armored
fish; North Sea, an Eskimo hunting on back of walrus; Pacific, a woman
on back of large sea lion; and South Sea, a negro on back of trumpeting
sea-elephant. Sea-maidens on dolphins' backs, in pool.
To right and left, in front of Festival Hall, and Horticultural Palace,
at ends of long pools, French fountain of "The Mermaid," figure, by
Arthur Putnam, of San Francisco.
To right, large building, Festival Hall, by Robert Farquhar, of Los
Angeles; French theatre architecture. Studied from the theatres of the
Beaux Arts style of French architecture. Details, French Renaissance
developed from the Italian influence.
To right, Press Building, designed and built by the Exposition; Harris
H. D. Connick, Director of Works.
To left, large building, Palace of Horticulture, Bakewell & Brown,
architects.
To left, Young Women's Christian Association.
French light standards, by Walter D'Arcy Ryan and P. E. Denneville.
French ornamental vases, filled with flowers, by E. F. Champney.
The wall, by Faville, w
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