The Tower of Jewels
Imposing as the central accent of the Exposition's architecture—Its magic glow at night—A magnificent Roman arch—"Jewels" of the Tower— An historical landmark—Inscriptions, sculpture and murals—Fountains of "Youth" and "El Dorado"—An epitome of the Exposition's art.
The Tower of Jewels, Carrere and Hastings, architects, is the central structure in the Exposition architecture. (See p. 47.) It plays a triple role. In architecture it is the center on which all the other buildings are balanced. In relation to the theme of the Exposition, it is the triumphal gateway to the commemorative celebration of an event the history of which it summarizes in its sculpture, painting and inscription. Last of all, it is an epitome of the Exposition art.
Towering above everything else, it is at once the culminating point and the center of the Exposition scheme. It links the palaces of the central group, otherwise divided into two sections. Upon it rests the balance of Festival Hall and the Palace of Horticulture, of the courts, the gardens, the Palace of Machinery and the Palace of Fine Arts. It finds its own balancing structure in the Column of Progress. It is intended to be the first thing seen from afar, the point from which the eye travels to lesser things on either hand.
At night the Tower remains the center of the transformed Exposition. Under the white light of the powerful projectors, details disappear, the structure is softened into a form almost ghostly. It becomes ethereal. All its daytime glitter gone, it seems really spiritual. The jewels hung over the upper portion do not flash out a diamond brilliance, as they might have been expected to do; rather they spread the light in a soft film about the Tower. (p. 135.)
From close at hand, the arch and its flanking colonnades are truly imperial. There the ornamentation and color of the upper part are not in the eye. Up to the cornice above the arch, the mass of the Tower is magnificent in proportion and harmonious in line and color. It almost seems that the builders might have stopped there, or perhaps have finished the massive block of the arch with a triumphant mass of sculpture.
Studied from the ground underneath the Tower and around it, the arch and the two little colonnaded courts in the wings are gloriously free and spacious, with the spaciousness that the Exposition as a whole reflects, that of the sea and sky of its setting. I walked here when the ocean breeze, fresh from winter storms at sea, was sweeping through them. There is no confinement, no sense of imprisonment from the boundless depths of air outside. Something which the architect could not include in his plans has come in to make constant this increase in the sense of freedom and space. The openings of the arches, being the only free and unconfined passageways through the south facade of the palace group, provide the natural draft on this side for the interior courts. The air rushes through at all times, even when no breeze is stirring outside. This uncramped movement of air currents, far from being unpleasant, gives the same sense of open freedom that one gets on a bold headland, where the ocean winds whip the flowers and lay the grass flat.
From the court behind the Tower you see the mansioned hills of San Francisco through the colonnades like panelled strips of painting; and, looking northward, the long spaces over the bay to the great Marin hills beyond.
The jewels on the Tower give it a singularly gay and lively touch when the sun is bright and the wind blowing. The wind is seldom absent around the top of so lofty a structure, and there these bits of glass are always sparkling. At night they produce, under the strong white light of a whole battery of giant reflectors hidden on other buildings, the mystic haze that shrouds the Tower. They were a fine idea of the chief of illumination, W. D'A. Ryan, giving just a touch of brilliance to an Exposition otherwise clothed in soft tones. The jewels are only hard glass, fifty thousand of them cut in Austria for the purpose, prismatic in form, and each backed with a tiny mirror. Hung free to swing in the wind, they sparkle and dance as they catch the sun from different angles.
As the great gate to the Exposition, the Tower becomes historical in relation to the event celebrated beyond its archway. Its purpose, from this point of view, is to tell the entering visitor briefly of the milestones along the way of time up to the digging of the Canal. Its enrichment of sculpture, painting and inscription summarizes the story of Panama and of the Pacific shore northward from the Isthmus. The architect has expressed in its upper decorations something of the feeling of Aztec art. The four inscriptions on the south faces of the arches tell how Rodrigo de Bastides discovered Panama in 1501; how Balboa first saw the Pacific Ocean in 1513; how the United States began to dig the Canal in 1904, and opened it in 1915. The four on the north faces epitomize the history of California, thus honored as the state that commemorates the opening of the Canal. They speak of Cabrillo's discovery of California in 1542, of the founding of the Mission of San Francisco by Moraga, in 1776, of the acquisition of California by the United States, 1846, and its admission to the Union in 1850.
The sculpture carries out the same idea. Pizarro and Cortez sit their horses before the Tower, splendid figures of the Spanish conquerors, the one by Charles C. Rumsey, the other by Charles Niehaus. (p. 48.) Above the entablature of the supporting columns are repeated around the outer wall of the arch, Adventurer and Priest, Philosopher and Soldier, types of the men who won the Americas, all done by John Flanagan. Above the cornice, the mounted figures by F. M. L. Tonetti are those of the Spanish cavaliers, with bannered cross. The eagles stand for the Nation that built the Canal. Excellent in spirit are Flanagan's figures of the four types, especially that of the strikingly ascetic Priest. (p. 44.) Besides their symbolism, the statues fulfill a useful architectural purpose in relieving what would otherwise be the blankness of the wall. But the same cannot be as truly said of the Armoured Horsemen above. Vigorous as they are, they are not in the right place. They clutter up the terrace on which they stand. The globe on the pinnacle, with its band, signifies that now a girdle has been put around the earth.
On the side walls of the arch under the Tower, the murals by William de Leftwich Dodge tell the story of the triumphant achievement which the Exposition commemorates. On the east, the central panel pictures Neptune and his attendant mermaid leading the fleets of the world through the Gateway of All Nations. (p. 53.) On one side Labor, with its machines, draws back from the completed task, and, on the other, the Intelligence that conceived the work and the Science that made it possible, move upward and onward, while a victorious trumpeter announces the triumph. One figure, with covered face, flees from the appeal of the siren, but whom he represents, or why he flees, I cannot tell.
In the smaller panel to the left, Labor is crowned and all who served with toil are acclaimed. Its companion picture on the right represents Achievement. The Mind that conceived the work is throned, the Sciences stand at one side, while a figure crouching before the bearer of rewards points to Labor as equally worthy.
On the west side of the arch, the central panel portrays the meeting of Atlantic and Pacific, with Labor joining the hands of the nations of east and west. In the panel to the left, enlightened Europe discovers the new land, with the savage sitting on the ruins of a forgotten civilization, the Aztec once more. On the right America, with her workmen ready to pick up their tools and begin, buys the Canal from France, whose labor has been baffled.
The two lovely fountains in the wings of the Tower draw their inspiration from the days of the conquistadors. Mrs. Harry Payne Whitney's Fountain of El Dorado is a dramatic representation of the Aztec myth of The Gilded One, which the followers of Cortez, in their greed for gold, mistook for a fact instead of a fable. (p. 54.) The Fountain of Youth by Edith Woodman Burroughs finds its justification as a part of the historical significance of the Tower in the legend of that Fountain of Eternal Youth sought by Ponce de Leon. (p. 53.) The interpretation of these sculptures is set forth in the chapter on Fountains.
The Tower of Jewels epitomizes the Exposition's art. The glories of its architecture, color, sculpture, painting, and landscape gardening all find an expression here. In architecture it reflects something of almost all of the orders found in the Exposition. In the main it is Italian Renaissance, which means that the basic characters are Roman and Greek, enriched with borrowings from the Orient and Byzantium. In column and capital, in wall and arch and vaulted ceiling, it represents the architecture of the whole Exposition, and so harmoniously as to form a singular testimony to the unity of the palace scheme.
In color, from the dull soft gold of the columns of the colonnades on either wing, through the vivid hues of Dodge's allegorical murals under the arch, and the golden orange and deep cerulean blue in the vaulted recesses, up to the striking green of columns on the upper rounds of the Tower, the structure summarizes all the pigments which the master of color, Guerin, has laid upon the Exposition.
In sculpture, the conquistadors in front, the hooded Franciscans and the Spanish warriors who stand around the cornice, the corner figures on the Tower above, and, finally, the great globe on top, repeat in varied form the themes of palace, court, facade, and entrance. It has its own fountains in its own little courts.
Then, as a final touch to complete this epitome of Exposition art, the dark cypresses set in the niches on either side of the openings of the arch, gracefully express the debt the whole palace scheme owes to its landscape engineer. In the original models of the Tower, these niches were designed for vases. It was a happy thought that placed the cypresses there instead.
The Court of the Universe
Most important of the three great courts of the "Walled City"— A meeting-place of East and West—Roman in its architecture and atmosphere, suggesting the vast Piazza of St. Peter's Triumphal Arches of the Nations—Their types of the great races of Orient and Occident— Fine mural paintings by Simmons and Du Mond—Fountains of the Rising and the Setting Sun—Aitken's "Elements"—The "Column of Progress."
The court is the key to the scheme of the palace group of the Exposition. Leaving out the state and foreign quarters, and the other suburbs, and omitting the Fine Arts Palace and Machinery Hall, which, from a purely architectural standpoint, are merely balanced ornaments needed to complete the whole, the Exposition city is a palace of blank walls enclosing three superb courts.
The court is an essential element of the Oriental architecture of the Mediterranean, which provided the theme of the Exposition plan. There, however, it is the patio, the place of the siesta, the playground of the children. Here the courts have been made the chief architectural feature of the group. There the courts are private. Here they are merely hidden.
The central court at the Exposition, the largest and the most splendid, is the Court of the Universe. (See p. 63.) It is the most important, too, in the story which its sculptures tell, and in its relation to the purpose of the Exposition. Whether it is also the most beautiful is a matter about which opinions differ. Many persons admire Mullgardt's romantic Court of Ages beyond anything else, while others are in love with the calm Court of Seasons. Paradoxically, the Court of the Universe suffers from its very magnificence. It is so vast that the beholder is slow to feel an intimate relation with it. The same is true of some of the noblest sights in nature. First seen, there is something disappointing in the Grand Canyon. There is too much in the view to be comprehended until after many days. In this court, the visitor is pleased with its splendid proportions, its noble arches, its rich sculpture, the wonderful blending of its colors with those of sea and sky; but the pleasure at first is of the intellect rather than of the emotions. Like other big and really fine things, it grows on one. The sweep of its colonnades is majestic, the arches are noble monuments, the Column of Progress is inspiring, the fountains show a graceful play of water, the sculpture is big, strong, and significant; the flowers of the sunken garden are a glory long to be remembered.
The Court of the Universe is Roman in architecture, treated in the style of the Italian Renaissance. Its commanding features, the Triumphal Arches and the magnificent flanking colonnades are most Roman in spirit, their Italian decoration appearing in the medallions and spandrels of the arches, the garlands hung along the entablature of the colonnade, and the interior adornment of the vaulted corridors. The columns, including the huge Sienna shafts before the arches and the Tower of Jewels, are Roman Corinthian, with opulent capitals, though not too florid when used in a work of such vast extent. Most Roman of all is the great Column of Progress, at the north end of the court.
McKim, Mead and White of New York, the architects, had the Piazza of St. Peter's at Rome in mind when they designed this great sweep of colonnades. There, too, they borrowed from the circle of saints the idea of the repeated Star figure. The colonnade not only encloses the court but is produced along the sides of the Palaces of Agriculture and Transportation to form two corridors of almost Egyptian vastness. These two features, the arches and the colonnades, here at the center of the palace group, strike the Exposition's note of breadth. Their decoration is the key to the festal richness of all the adornment.
By day the four entrances to the court are its finest features. Nowhere in the whole Exposition is the air more gloriously free than around the lofty arch and colonnades of the Tower of Jewels. Nowhere is the sunlight purer, or the sky bluer, than over the broad approach leading up from the glancing waters of the bay, past the aspiring Column of Progress, and between the noble colonnades of the palaces on either hand. From within the court, or from the approaches on east and west, the triumphal Arches of the Nations impress one with the magnificence of their proportions, their decoration, and their color. There the Oriental hues of the Exposition are carried upward, to meet and blend with the sky, and magically to make the heavens above them bluer than they really are. (See frontispiece.)
There is little Oriental about the court, except the color and the group of the Nations of the East above the Arch of the Rising Sun. The colonnade is Corinthian, all the arches are Roman, the sculpture is classic, the paintings are romantic, mystic,—the Court of the Universe may properly hold all things. It is thus an arena for the expression of universal themes, on which the nations of the East and West look down from their lofty Arches of Triumph. With this key, the symbolism of the sculpture in the court is easy. The Stars, by Calder, stand in circle above the colonnade. The frieze below the cornices of the pavilion towers represents the Signs of the Zodiac, by Herman A. MacNeil.
The graceful figures atop the two fountain columns in the oval sunken garden are the Rising and the Setting Sun, by Adolph A. Weinmann. (p. 69.) In the east the Sun, in the strength of morning, the masculine spirit of "going forth," has spread his wings for flight; in the west, the luminary, now essentially feminine, as the brooding spirit of evening, is just alighting. The sculptural adornment of the shafts is detailed in the chapter on Fountains.
The titanic Elements slumber on the balustrade, one on either hand of the stairways leading down on north and south into the sunken area. (p. 64.) On one side, on the north, the Elemental Power holds in check the Dragon of Fire. The whole figure expresses the primitive terror of Fire, a fear that still lives in the beasts. On the other side lies Water, the roaring Ocean, kelp in his hair, Neptune's trident in his hand, by him one of his fabled monsters. On the south, eagles of the Air hover close to the winged figure of the woman, who holds up the evening star and breathes gently down upon her people. Icarus, who was the first airman, appears upon her wings. Opposite, rests Earth, unconscious that her sons struggle with her. These remarkably expressive figures are the work of Robert Aitken.
The youthful groups by Paul Manship upon the extremities of the balustrade, on either hand of the eastern and western stairways, represent Music and Poetry, Music by the dance, Poetry by the written scroll. The sculpture is archaic in type,—an imitation of Greek imitations of still earlier models.
The colossal groups on the Arches of the Nations symbolize the meeting of the peoples of the East and West, brought together by the Panama Canal, and here uniting to celebrate its completion. In the group of the Nations of the East the elephant bears the Indian prince, and within the howdah, the Spirit of the East, mystic and hidden. (p. 63.) On the right is the Buddhist lama from Tibet, representative of that third of the human race which finds hope of Nirvana in countless repetitions of the sacred formula, "Om Mani Padme Hum." Next is the Mohammedan, with the crescent of Islam; then a negro slave, and then a Mongolian warrior, the ancient inhabitant of the sandy waste, a type of those Tartar hordes which swept Asia under Tamerlane and Genghis Khan. On the left of the Indian elephant are an Arab falconer, an Egyptian mounted on a camel and bearing a Moslem standard, then a negro slave bearing a basket of fruit on his head, and a sheik from the deserts of Arabia, all representing the Mohammedans of the nearer East. Thus are figured types of the great Oriental races, the Hindoo, the Tartar, which includes the Turk and the northern Chinese; the Chinese stock of the south, the Arab, and the Egyptian. Only the Persian is omitted, and possibly the Japanese, unless that, too, is Mongol.
On the Arch of the Setting Sun, the prairie schooner is the center of the group of the Nations of the West, on the top a figure of Enterprise, the Spirit of the West. (p. 59.) On either side of her is a boy. These are the Heroes of Tomorrow. Between the oxen rides the Mother of Tomorrow. Beside the ox at the right is the Italian immigrant, behind him the Anglo-American, then the squaw with her papoose, and the horse Indian of the plains. By the ox at the left is the Teuton pioneer, behind him the Spanish conquistador, next, the woods Indian of Alaska, and lastly the French Canadian.
Three sculptors collaborated in the modeling of these groups, A.Stirling Calder, Leo Lentelli, and Frederick G. R. Roth.
Of the Mural Paintings under the Arches of the Nations, the two by Edward Simmons in the arch on the east are an allegory of the movement of the peoples across the Atlantic, while those by Frank Vincent Du Mond in the western arch picture in realistic figures the westward march of civilization to the Pacific. Historically, the picture on the southern wall of the Arch of the Nations of the East comes first. Here Simmons has represented the westward movement from the Old World through natural emigration war, conquest, commerce and religion, personifying these in types of the people who have crossed the Atlantic. On the strand, beyond which appear types of the navies of the ages, are the following: an inhabitant of the fabled Atlantis, here conceived as a savage; the Greek warrior, perhaps one of those who fared with Ulysses over the sea to the west; the adventurer and explorer, portrayed as Columbus; the colonist, Sir Walter Raleigh; the missionary, in garb of a priest; the artist, and the artisan. All are called onward by the trumpet of the Spirit of Adventure, to found new families and new nations, symbolized by the vision of heraldic shields. Behind them stands a veiled figure, the Future listening to the Past. The long period in which this movement has been in progress is expressed by the dress of the travellers.
This might be called the Material Movement to the West, for the picture opposite depicts the Ideals of that progress. Hope leads the way, though some of the Hopes, shown as bubbles, were but Illusions. Then follow Adventure, Art, Imagination, Truth, Religion, and the spirits of domestic life. Simmons' work is characterized by grace and delicacy. The pictures are pleasing as form and color alone, but without titles the allegories are too difficult for people unaccustomed to interpreting this kind of art.
Du Mond's two murals in the western arch are easier. They make a continuous story. The first chapter, on the north side, pictures the emigrant train, led by the Spirit of Adventure, leaving for the West, while the second shows the pioneers reaching the shores of the Pacific and welcomed by California. To express the many-sided development of the West, Du Mond has portrayed individuals as the types of the pioneers. Here are Junipero Serra, the priest; Anza, the Spanish captain who first trod the shores of San Francisco Bay; Joseph Le Conte, the scientist; Bret Harte, the author; William Keith, the artist; and Starr King, the divine. The energy of these men has actually outstripped the Spirit of Adventure. Du Mond's story parallels in a way that pictured by Simmons. Color and composition are both exceedingly grateful to the eye.
The Column of Progress, outside the court, commands the entire north front of the Exposition, as the Tower of Jewels does the southern. (p. 57.) Symmes Richardson, the architect, drew his inspiration from Trajan's Column at Rome, an inspiration so finely bodied forth by the designer and the two sculptors who worked with him, MacNeil and Konti, that this shaft stands as one of the most satisfying creations on the Exposition grounds. Its significance completes the symbolism of the Exposition sculpture and architecture, as the joyous Fountain of Energy at the other end of the north-and-south axis begins it. That fountain celebrates the completion of the Canal. The Tower of Jewels with its sculpture tells the historical story of the conquest of the western seas and their shores. The Court of the Universe is the meeting place of the Nations, come to commemorate the joining of East and West. From this Court, a splendid avenue leads down to the border of the Western Ocean, where stands the Column of Progress, beyond the Exposition. Both in its position and in its sculpture the column signifies that, this celebration over, human endeavor stands ready to go on to still vaster enterprises on behalf of mankind.
The figure atop this Column is the Adventurous Bowman, past human achievement behind him, seeking a new emprise in the West, whither he has loosed his arrow. At his back is a figure of Humanity, signifying the support of mankind. By his side is the woman, ready to crown his success. (p. 58.) The question has often been asked, why there is no string to the archer's bow. The sculptor properly omitted it, for, at the moment the arrow leaves the bow, the cord is vibrating far too strongly to be visible.
The cylindrical frieze below the Bowman represents the Burden Bearers. This, with the Bowman, is the work of H. A. MacNeil. The spiral of ships ascending the shaft symbolizes the upward course of man's progress. Around the base is the frieze by Isidor Konti, on three sides striving human figures, on the fourth celestial trumpeters announcing victory. The whole signifies man's progress through effort. (p. 60.)
Yet the visitor must not look for a story in all the sculpture here or elsewhere. Some of this art is merely decorative, fulfilling purposes of harmony or completeness in the general mass. The winged figures by Leo Lentelli on the columns before the Arches of the Nations are simply ornaments, relieving, with their shafts, what would otherwise be too sheer a wall in the structure. They may be angels or they may be genii. Decorative, also, are the sculptured medallions between these columns, and the Pegasi on the spandrels of the arch, the medallions done by Calder, the Pegasi by Roth.
The caryatids in pairs of male and female surmounting the balustrade of the sunken garden are merely lamp bearers. The spouting monsters in the fountain pools are but ornamental, and so are the figures in relief under the basins. Those at the base of the shafts are described in detail in the chapter on Fountains. In the decoration of the entablature of the colonnade, the skull of the ox repeated between the garlands recalls the vicissitudes of the pioneers in their long march across the continent.
The Court of the Universe, this huge Piazza of the Nations, is thus all-inclusive. Within its vast oval is room for every theme. From it lead the ways to all the Exposition. In spirit it is as cosmopolitan as the Forum under the Caesars. Its art revives for us
"The glory that was Greece,The grandeur that was Rome."
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Inscriptions in Court of the Universe
I. Arch of the Rising Sun, east side of the Court.
(a) Panel at center of attic, west side of the Arch, facing theCourt:
The Moon Sinks Yonder in the West While in the East the Glorius SunBehind the Dawn Appears. Thus Rise and Set In Constant Change ThoseShining Orbs and Regulate the Very Life of this Our World.—Kalidasa, India.
(b) Small panel at right of center, facing the Court:
Our Eyes and Hearts Uplifted Seem to Gaze on Heavens' Radiance.—Hitomaro, Japan.
(c) Small panel at left of center, facing the Court:
They Who Know the Truth are Not Equal to Those Who Love It.—Confucius, China.
(d) Panel at center of attic, east side of the Arch:
The Balmy Air Diffuses Health and Fragrance. So Tempered is theGenial Glow That We Know Neither Heat Nor Cold. Tulips andHyacinths Abound. Fostered by A Delicious Clime the Earth BloomsLike A Garden.—Firdausi, Persia.
(e) Small panel at right of center:
A Wise Man Teaches Be Not Angry. From Untrodden Ways Turn Aside.—Phra Ruang, Siam.
(f) Small panel at left of center:
He That Honors Not Himself Lacks Honor Wheresoe'er He Goes.—Zuhayr, Arabia.
II. Arch of the Setting Sun, west side of the Court.
(a) Panel at center of attic, east side of the Arch, facing the Court:
Facing West From California's Shores—Inquiring Tireless SeekingWhat is Yet Unfound—I A Child Very Old Over Waves Toward theHouse of Maternity the Land of Migrations Look Afar—Look Off theShores of My Western Sea the Circle Almost Circled.—Whitman, America.
(b) Small panel at right of center:
Truth—Witness of the Past Councilor of the Present Guide of theFuture.—Cervantes, Spain.
(c) Small panel at left of center:
In Nature's Infinite Book of Secrecy A Little I Can Read.—Shakespeare, England.
(d) Panel at center of attic, west side of the Arch:
It is Absolutely Indispensable For the United States to Effect APassage From the Mexican Gulf to the Pacific Ocean And I Am CertainThat They Will Do It—Would That I Might Live to See it But I ShallNot.—Goethe, Germany.
(e) Small panel at right of center:
The Universe—An Infinite Sphere the Center Everywhere theCircumference Nowhere.—Pascal, France.
(f) Small panel at left of center:
The World is in its Most Excellent State When Justice is Supreme.—Dante, Italy.
The Court of the Ages(Officially called "The Court of Abundance.")
An artist's dream in romantic Orientalism—Mullgardt's own title for it - His great "Tower of the Ages"—Mullgardt interprets his architectural masterpiece—Brangwyn's splendid murals, "Earth," "Air," "Fire" and "Water"—The "Fountain of Earth," by Robert Aitken, realism set amidst the romantic.
The Court of the Universe is not Oriental, the Court of the Ages is. Not in architecture, but in feeling, in the atmosphere with which the architect has invested it, this court brings to mind those brilliant lands of the Mediterranean touched by the East through the Moors. You pass under its arcades and walk out into a region of the Sun, warm, bright, dazzling. The architect, Louis Christian Mullgardt, has caught the feeling of the South,—not the rank, jungle South of the tropics; nor the mild, rich South of our own Gulf states; but the hard, brilliant, arid South of the desert. This court expresses Arizona, New Mexico, Spain, Algiers,—lands of the Sun. The very flowers of its first gardens were desert blooms, brilliant in hue, on leafless stalks. There are orange trees, but they, also, are trees of the Sun, smooth of leaf, to retain moisture.
It is a court, too, of romance. It might be a garden of Allah, with a plaintive Arab flute singing, among the orange trees, of the wars and the hot passions of the desert. It might be a court in Seville or Granada, with guitars tinkling and lace gleaming among the cool arcades. It is a place for dreams.
The architecture has been called Spanish Gothic, but, according to the architect, it "has not been accredited to any established style." We may well be content to call it simply Mullgardt. The court is an artist's dream, rather than a formal study in historic architecture; and it is the more interesting, as it is the more original, for that. Except for the central fountain, which, fine though it is as a sculptured story, is out of harmony with the filigreed arcades around it, all the sculpture in the court is, in feeling, an intimate part of the romantic architecture. This portion of the art of the court is best considered as decoration, finding its justification in the beauty it imparts to the whole. It has genuine meaning, but what that is remains inscrutable so long as the court is called that of Abundance.
Mullgardt called his creation the "Court of the Ages." He was overruled because the officials deemed the name not in accord with the contemporaneous spirit of the Exposition. They called it the "Court of Abundance." In spite of the name, however, it is not the Court of Abundance. Mullgardt's title gives a key to the cipher of the statues. Read by it, the groups on the altar of the Tower become three successive Ages of Civilization. (See p. 70.)
Tower of the Ages.—This is the most admired of all the Exposition towers, and with reason. The originality, strength and beauty of its design set it above anything else of the sort yet seen in America; and the symbolism of its sculptures, which are the work of Chester Beach, is of almost equal interest with the tower itself. At the base, on the gable above the arch, rude of face and form, with beasts low in the scale, are the people of the Stone Age. Above them is a mediaeval group, the Crusader, the Priest, the Peasant Soldier armed with a cross-bow, with similar figures on the side altars. Enthroned over all, with a crown on her brow, is Modern Civilization, expressed as Intelligence. At her feet are two children, one with an open book, symbolizing Learning; the other, a boy with a part of a machine, representing Industry. The supporting figures on the sides are the Man and Woman of the Present, sprung from the earlier types. The delicate finials rising from the summit of the tower express Aspiration.
The two shafts at the head of the court, each surmounted by a huntress with bended bow, symbolize Earth and Air. Originally they were intended as finials to the double cascade which was to have swept down to the court from the Altar of the Ages on the tower. The cascade was not built, much to the benefit of the beauty of the court, but the ornaments were suffered to remain. The giddy females who support each shaft are sufficiently romantic to be in keeping with the decoration of the court.
The three figures repeated around the top of the arcade are of a hunter dragging a deer, a woman with her offspring on her shoulder, and a primitive man feeding a pelican, all so happily expressed that they are an intimate part of the arcade on which they stand. They seem almost to have grown from their supports. These figures alone, unless we add the florid ladies of the ornamental shafts, with the rich filigree of the arcades and the tower, are all that express in any way the idea of Abundance carried in the present name of the court.
Mullgardt conceived this court as a sermon in stone. Its significance as a whole is best explained by the architect himself. He interprets the court as rising in four horizontal strata:
"The court is an historical expression of the successive Ages of the world's growth. The central fountain symbolizes the nebulous world, with its innate human passions. Out of a chaotic condition came Water (the basin), and Land (the fountain), and Light (the Sun, supported by Helios, and the electroliers). The braziers and cauldrons symbolize Fire. The two sentinel columns to the right and left of the tower symbolize Earth and Air. The eight paintings of the four corners of the ambulatory symbolize the elements of Earth, Air, Fire and Water. The central figure in the North Avenue symbolizes 'Modern Time Listening to the Story of the Ages.'
"The decorative motifs employed on the surrounding arcade are sea-plant life and its animal evolution. The piers, arches, reeds and columns bear legendary decorative motifs of the transition of plant to animal life in the forms of tortoise and other shell motifs;—kelp and its analogy to the prehistoric lobster, skate, crab and sea urchin. The water-bubble motif is carried through all vertical members which symbolize the Crustacean Period, which is the second stratum of the court.
"The third stratum, the prehistoric figures, surmounting the piers of the arcade, also the first group over the tower entrance, show earliest forms of human, animal, reptile and bird life, symbolizing the Stone Age Period.
"The fourth stratum, the second group in the altar tower, symbolizes human struggle for emancipation from ignorance and superstition, in which Religion and War are dominating factors. The kneeling figures on the side altar are similarly expressive. The torches above these mediaeval groups symbolize the Dawn of Understanding. The chanticleers on the finials surrounding the court symbolize the Christian Era. The topmost figure of the altar symbolizes Intelligence, 'Peace on Earth, Good Will Towards All,' the symbols of Learning and Industry at her feet. The topmost figure surmounting the side altar symbolizes Thought. The arched opening forming the enclosure of the altar contains alternating masks expressing Intelligence and Ignorance in equal measure, symbolizing the Peoples of the World. A gradual development to the higher forms of plant life is expressed upward in the altar tower, the conventionalized lily petal being the highest form."
This, then, is the lesson, the deepest and most spiritual attempted in any of the Exposition structures, and surely entitling the court to be called, as its creator wished, the Court of the Ages.
Brangwyn's Murals.—The mural paintings by Frank Brangwyn in the four corners of the arcades are rich, glorious in color, freighted with the opulence of the harvest, but they symbolize the four primeval elements— Earth, Air, Fire and Water. Their themes have nothing to do with Abundance. It is unfortunate that these pictures, far and away the best in the decoration of the Exposition, have been hidden in the corners of a court. The canvases are bold, free, vast as the elements they picture. They need space. When they were unpacked and hung on the walls of Machinery Hall, they were far more effective. Here they are cramped by their close quarters, and easily overlooked. People are not going in to see them as they should, and so are missing one of the chief joys of the Exposition,—the masterpieces of one of the world's greatest living painters.
These representations of the four elements glow and burn with the vivid hues of nature. All of the pictures have a setting of autumn,, that season of the year when nature puts on her dying hues, and floods the earth with color. Their rich reds, purples, yellows, browns, greens and indigoes are the hues of autumn skies, the falling leaves of hardwoods, the dense foliage of pines, colors of the harvest, of fruit and grapes, of flowers, and of deep waters. The men and women in them are primeval, too, of Mediterranean type, and garbed in the barbaric colors in which Southern folk express the warmth of their natures.
Free and vivid as is their color, the breadth of primeval liberty is not less seen in the splendid spaces of Brangwyn's pictures. The forest vistas are illimitable; the air has the freedom of the Golden Age; the skies stretch out and up to heaven.
Each set of two pictures represents one of the elements. The first of the Earth pictures in the northwest corner of the corridor is a harvest of orchard fruits, products of earth. Tall cypresses on the right enhance the vast space of sky over the orchard, the best sky in all the eight paintings. The colors are those of the rich fruits, the autumn flowers, and the garish costumes of Brangwyn's peasantry. The companion picture represents a vintage, with great purple grapes hanging among the bronzing leaves on a trellis, and yellow pumpkins and flowers underfoot. The color is in these, and in the same Southern costumes seen in the first picture.
The first of the Air pictures is as easy to read as the second is difficult. (p. 74.) In it a huge windmill stands on a height against rain-laden clouds and a glowing rainbow. The slope is covered with heavy-headed grain, and stained with vivid flowers, all bending before the swift currents of air. Laborers, men and women, hurry homeward before the wind, from their task of winnowing grain. Boys flying their kites complete the symbolism.
In the companion picture a group of archers are loosing their arrows between the boles of tall, straight hardwoods on the brink of a deep valley. Great white birds are winging outward through the tops of the trees. The distance in the sky beyond is wonderful. The color is of the gorgeous autumn leaves of hardwoods and of rich flowers.
In one of the Water pictures fishermen are drawing a net from a lake suggested by a fringe of purple, white and yellow iris. The men seem to stand on an island or a peninsula, for behind them, beyond tall trees, is a deep indigo lake. Great pregnant clouds float in the sky, and the picture glows with autumn colors.
In the other, men and women come forward with water jars to a source suggested by tall white water birds and flowers growing thick among the sedges. There are the same clouds, big with the promise of rain, and the same profusion of vivid hues.
Primitive Fire is suggested in the next pair by a thick-clustered group of peasants with hands outstretched where a thin column of smoke rises straight. Autumn skies and foliage tell of chill in the air. The colors burn in dying leaves, in the sky, in fruit and grapes. A man is bringing a burden of fagots. Men of bovine anatomy crouch before the fire, their backs arched, their cheeks bulging, as they blow it into flame. These folk are all primitive, candid in their animalism, Samsons in limb and muscle. Brangwyn's mastery of anatomy is notable, and he builds his men with every flexor showing, like a machine.
Pottery burners working around a furnace dimly suggested convey the idea of Industrial Fire in the last of the pictures. There is the same motif of cold in the sky and the fruits, intensified by the somber leafage of fir and pine.
In striking contrast with the light and ethereal quality of the allegorical murals in the arches of the Court of the Universe, these paintings are rich to the point of opulence. There is an enormous depth in them. The figures are full-rounded. The fruits, flowers and grain hang heavily on their steams. The trees bear themselves solidly. The colors, laid on with strong and heavy strokes, fairly flame in the picture.
Public auction is the fate said to be destined by the Exposition company for these wonderful pictures. It is not to be blamed for this. It is a business corporation, and these paintings are assets on which it may be necessary to realize. But if the company finds itself financially able, it should see to it that the paintings remain in San Francisco as the property of the city. Like the great organ in Festival Hall, which the Exposition has promised to install in the Civic Auditorium when the fair ends, these splendid pictures should be hung in the Auditorium as a gift to the city.
If the Exposition is not able to give them, an opportunity is presented for men of wealth to do art a great service in San Francisco. Our cities, unlike those of Europe and of South America, are not accustomed to buy works of art. Private generosity, then, must supply the deficiency.
In the northern extension of the court, beyond the tower, where the Spanish decoration is carried almost to the bayward facade of the palace group stands a massive female figure, Modern Time Listening to the Story of the Ages. Beyond it are four standards of the Sun, like two at the southern end of the pool in the main court, brilliant at night.
There remains but the central fountain, in the main court, symbolizing the Earth, done by Robert Aitken. (p. 73.) Taken by itself, this is a notable work, but it is not in keeping with the romantic spirit of the Court of Ages. Its figures are magnificently virile, but wholly realistic. Only at night, when, through clouds of rising steam, the globe of the Earth glows red like a world in the making, and from the forked tongues of the climbing serpents flames pour out on the altars set around the pool,—only then does the fountain become mystic. Even then it suggests cosmogony, mechanics, physics, which are not romantic, except in so far as there may be romance of the intellect. However, this is Aitken, not Mullgardt. The allegories of the group are detailed in the chapter on Fountains.
The Court of the Seasons
A charming bit of Italian Renaissance—Its quiet simplicity—The alcoveFountains of the Seasons, by Furio Piccirilli—Milton Bancroft's Murals- The forecourt, with Evelyn Longman's Fountain of Ceres—Inscriptions.
In The Court of the Seasons, the architect, Henry Bacon of New York, has shown us a charming mood of the Italian Renaissance. (p. 79, 80.) This court, neither too splendid to be comfortable nor too ornate to be restful, is full of a quiet intimacy. Nature's calm is here. It is a little court, and friendly. Its walls are near and sheltering. People like to sit here in the shelter of the close thickets around the still pool in the center. I notice, too, that persons hastening across the grounds come this way, and that they unconsciously slacken pace as they walk through the court.
This is the only one of the three central courts in which everything is in harmony. There is nothing obtrusive about it. The effect is that of a perfect whole, simple, complete. The round pool, smooth, level with the ground, unadorned, gives its note. The colors are warm, the massive pillars softly smooth. The trees press close to the walls, the shrubbery is dense. Birds make happy sounds among the branches. Water falls from the fountains in the alcoves, not with a roar, but with something more than a woodland murmur. These fountains touch one of the purest notes in nature. In cool, high, bare-walled alcoves the water falls in sheets from terrace to terrace, at last into a dark pool below. The sound is steady, gently reinforced by echo from the clean walls behind, and pervasive. It is a very perfect imitation of the sound of mountain waters.
Nothing in this court takes effort. The pictures and the sculpture of the alcoves and the half-dome tell their own story. Here is no elusive mysticism, no obscure symbolism to be dug out with the help of guidebooks, like a hard lesson. The treasures of the Seasons are on the surface, glowing in the face of all.
The Seasons are sheltered in the four alcoves, distinguished from each other only by the fountain groups of Furio Piccirilli and the murals by H. Milton Bancroft. Neither pictures nor statues need much explanation. The first alcove to the left of the half-dome is that of Spring. In the sculptured group of the fountain, flowers bloom and love awakens. It is a fresh and graceful composition. The murals are on the faces of the corridor arches. No one can mistake their meaning. Springtime shows her first blossoms, and the happy shepherd pipes a seasonal air to his flock, now battening on new grass. In the companion picture, Seedtime, are symbols of the spring planting.
Next comes Summer, the time of Fruition. (p. 94.) Above the fountain the mother gives the new-born child to its happy father, and the servant brings the first fruits of the harvest. This is less likable than the other groups. The posture of the mother is not a happy one. The two murals picture Summer and Fruition. Bancroft has taken athletic games as the symbol of the season. Summer is crowning the victor in aquatic sports. Conventional symbols of fruits and flowers represent Fruition.
In the group of Autumn, Providence is the central figure, directing the Harvest. She is bringing in the juice of the grape. The season is significantly represented in the full modeling of the figures and the maturity of the adults. The mural of Autumn, in the rich colors of the dying year, suggests by its symbols of wine and music, the harvest festival. Opposite, is pictured the Harvest, with the garnered crops.
Last of all is Winter, with the bare desolation of the wintry world in the melancholy fountain group. Then Nature rests in the season of conception, while a man sows, his companion having prepared the ground. In his mural of Winter, Bancroft pictures the snowy days, the fuel piled against the cold, the chase of the deer, the spinning in the long evenings. The companion piece represents the festival side of the season, when men have time to play. The Seasons are complete.
On the walls of the half-dome are two formal paintings by Bancroft, conventional but charming in their allegory. These are Bancroft's best murals. In the first, Time crowns Art, while her handmaids, Painting, Pottery, Weaving, Glass-making, Metal-working and Jewel-making, stand in attendance. In the other, Man is taught the laws of Love, Life, and Death, Earth, Fire, and Water.
On the summit of the half-dome is a group representing the Harvest, and before it, on two splendid columns, are Rain, a woman bearing the cup of the waters, and Sunshine, another with a palm branch. All three are by Albert Jaegers. At the other extremity of the court each of the two pylons is surmounted by a bull, wreathed in garlands, and led by man and maiden to the sacrifice. These groups, each called the Feast of the Sacrifice, are also by Albert Jaegers. (p. 79.) The spandrels on the arches and the female figures on the cornices are by his brother, August Jaegers.
The abundance of the Seasons is symbolized in the fruit-bearing figures that form the pilasters of the cornices of the arches, and by the fat ears of corn depending from the Ionic capitals of the columns. These types of fruitfulness have a further justification in the neighborhood of the Palaces of Agriculture and Food Products, which border the court on the north.
The eastern and western arches are exquisite in their simple proportion, and the delicate charm of the fresco of their vaulted passages. The quality of this interior decoration is enhanced by the beauty of the staff work, which throughout this court is the most successful found in the Exposition. Here this plaster is soft, rich and warm, and looks more real and permanent than elsewhere.
I prefer to consider the northern approach between the two palaces as not a part of this court. The pleasant intimacy of the court would have been enhanced if it had been cut off from this approach by an arch. Half way down the forecourt is the formal fountain of Ceres by Evelyn Beatrice Longman, which must cheer the hearts of those who would have all art draped.
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Inscriptions in Court of Seasons
(a) On arch at east side:
So Forth Issew'd the Seasons ofThe Yeare—First Lusty Spring AllDight in Leaves and Flowres.Then Came the Jolly Sommer Being DightIn A Thin Silken Cassock Coloured Greene.Then Came the Autumne All in Yellow Clad.Lastly Came Winter Cloathed All in FrizeChattering His Teeth For Cold that Did Him Chill.
—Spenser.
(b) On arch at west side:
For Lasting Happiness We TurnOur Eyes To One AloneAnd She Surrounds You Now.Great Nature Refuge of theWeary Heart And Only Balm ToBreasts That Have Been Bruised.She Hath Cool Hands For EveryFevered Brow And GentlestSilence For the Troubled Soul.
—Sterling.
The Courts of Flowers and Palms
The Court of Flowers typically Italian—Its delightful garden and fountain, "Beauty and the Beast," by Edgar Walter—Borglum's fine group, "The Pioneer"—The Court of Palms is Grecian in feeling—"The End of the Trail," by Fraser, a chapter in American history—Murals in the doorways—Arthur Mathews' "Triumph of Culture."
Recessed in the south front of the palace group, and leading back to the Court of the Seasons and the Court of the Ages, are two perfect smaller courts, each admirably living up to its name—the Court of Flowers and the Court of Palms. (See p. 85, 88, 93.) Both courts were designed by George W. Kelham. Each is a pleasant and colorful bay of sunshine facing southward between two graceful towers. One is bright with level fields of flowers, the other cool with greensward and palms set about a sunken garden. Both are calm, peaceful spots to rest and dream in the sun. Both are of the South. Here summer first unfolds her robes, and here she longest tarries.
Though at first sight these courts are much alike, they differ in feeling and effect. The Court of Flowers is Italian, the Court of Palms Grecian, though Grecian with an exuberance scarcely Athenian. Perhaps there is something Sicilian in the warmth of its decoration. When it is bright and warm, the Court of Palms is most Greek in feeling; less so on duller days.
But the Court of Flowers is Italian in all moods. With its shady balcony above the colonnade, it might be in Verona or Mantua. It is a graceful court, formal, yet curiously informal. Its paired Corinthian columns, its conventional lions by the porches and its flower girls around the balcony, its lamp standards and the sculptured fountain, go with formal gardens. The garden here is itself formal in its planting, and yet so simple, so natural, that it banishes all ceremony.
This garden is one of the best things in the truly wonderful floral show at the Exposition. The flowers are massed as we always dream of seeing them in the fields,—a dream never quite so well realized before. The areas of the court in the Exposition's opening weeks were solid fields of daffodils, thick as growing wheat, with here and there a blood-red poppy, set to accent the yellow gold of the mass. Other flowers have now replaced these in an equal blaze of color. Here, too, are free, wild clumps of trees and shrubs, close set, with straggling outposts among the flowers, as natural as those bordering grain fields in California valleys.
It is a summery court, lacking but one thing to make it ideally perfect. It ought to have crickets and cicadas in it, to rasp away as the warm afternoons turn into evening, and tree hylas to make throaty music in the still, rich-lighted night.
The statuary goes well with the court. There is a pretty, summery grace about the flower girls designed by Calder for the niches above the colonnade, and in the figures of Edgar Walter's central fountain. Here on the fountain are Beauty and the Beast, Beauty clad in a summer hat and nothing else, the Beast clothed in ugliness. (p. 100.) Never mind the story. This is Beauty, and Beauty needs no story. Four airy pipers, suggestive at least of the song of the cicada on long, hot afternoons, support the fountain figure. Around the basin of the pool is carved in low relief a cylindrical frieze of tiger, lion and bear, and, wonder of wonders, Hanuman, the Monkey King of Hindoo mythology, leading the bear with one hand and prodding the lion with the other.
Before the court The Pioneer sits his horse, a thin, sinewy, nervous figure; old, too,—as old as that frontier which has at last moved round the world. (See p. 87.) The statue, which is by Solon Borglum, is immensely expressive of that hard, efficient type of frontiersmen who, scarcely civilized, yet found civilization always dogging their footsteps as they moved through the wilderness and crossed the deserts. He is, indeed, the forerunner of civilization, sent forward to break ground for new states. This group is offset against that other fine historical sculpture, The End of the Trail, placed before the Court of Palms. As representatives of the conquering and the conquered race, the two must be studied together.
The elusive Grecian feeling of the Court of Palms comes in large part from the simple Ionic columns, and the lines of the gabled arches. Properly, this court is in the Italian Renaissance, but it is less Italian than the Court of Flowers. Like that court, it is warm and sunny, full of color and gladness. It has the same harmonious perfection, but it is more formal. Its sunken garden is bordered with a conventional balustrade and grass slopes, with marble seats by the paths. There is no fountain, only a long pool in the sunken area, and a separate raised basin at the inner end with gently splashing jets, giving out a cool and peaceful sound. Fat decorated urns, instead of lions, guard the entrances to the buildings. Italian cypresses border the court, with formal clipped acacias in boxes between the pillars of the colonnade.
The Fountain of Beauty and the Beast, which stands in the Court of Flowers, was designed to be set here, while Mrs. Harry Payne Whitney's Fountain of the Arabian Nights was to have found a place in the Court of Flowers. These two courts were planned as the homes of the fairy tales, one of Oriental, the other of Occidental lore. Many beautiful things were designed for them. The attic of the Court of Flowers, which was intended as the place of Oriental Fairy Tales, was to have carried sculptured stories from the Arabian Nights. But none of these things was done. Mrs. Whitney's fountain was modeled but never made, unfortunately, for the modeled figures are charming.
The only sculpture in the Court of Palms, aside from the "End of the Trail," which stands before it, is in the decoration of the entablature and the arches. Horned and winged female caryatids mark off the entablature into garlanded panels. All the three arches under the gables are enriched with figures of women and of children supporting a shield, conventional groups, but graceful.
"The End of the Trail," by James Earle Fraser, of New York, is a great chapter in American history, told in noble sculpture. The dying Indian, astride his exhausted cayuse, expresses the hopelessness of the Red Man's battle against civilization. (p. 86.) There is more significance and less convention, perhaps, in this than in any other piece of Exposition sculpture. It has the universal touch. It makes an irresistible appeal.
To make up for the lack of statuary in this court there are mural paintings over the entrances leading into the Palaces of Education and Liberal Arts on either hand, and into the Court of the Seasons. Of these three lunettes two add little to the beauty of the court except for the vivid touch of color which they give it. One, over the door of the Palace of Education, is entitled "Fruits and Flowers," by Childe Hassam. It is a triumph of straight line applied to the female form. Over the door of the Palace of Liberal Arts is "The Pursuit of Pleasure," ascribed to Charles Holloway. The figures are gracefully drawn, the coloring flowery. There is better quality in Arthur F. Mathews' "Triumph of Culture," over the entrance to the Court of Seasons. In color and force this comes nearer to the splendid standard set by Frank Brangwyn than anything else in the Exposition's mural decoration. Perhaps that is too faint praise, for this is a real picture. In it a victorious golden spirit, crowding aside brute force, allows the Humanities, representatives of Culture, to triumph as the guardians of Youth. The figures are human, there is strength and ease in them, and the color is a deep-toned song.
The Fountains
A characteristic and fitting feature of the Exposition—Fountain ofEnergy—The Mermaids—Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney's "El Dorado" andMrs. Burroughs' "Youth"—Rising and Setting Sun—Piccirilli's"Seasons"—Aitken's masterpiece, the Fountain of Earth—"Beauty andthe Beast."
The fountain, the spring, the well, is a characteristic note in the life and art of all lands in the Sun. The Arabians, the Moors, the Spaniards, the Italians and the Greeks loved fountains. It is less so in the North, in the regions of much rain, where water flows naturally everywhere. But nothing is so welcome in a thirsty land as a fountain. Hence there is appropriateness in the many fountains of this Exposition, which reflects in its plan the walled cities of the Orient of the Mediterranean, where fountains play in the courts of palaces, in public squares and niches in the walls; and pools lie by the mosques, and in the gardens.
Here are many kinds of fountains, from huge masses of sculpture spouting forth many powerful streams in the sun to terraced basins where water murmurs in quiet alcoves, and simple jets tinkling in summery courts. Of those fountains that have especially been dignified and adorned by sculpture there are fourteen, some single, some in pairs, with one quartet in the Court of Seasons. Their sequence from the chief gate of the Exposition follows in a way the symbolic significance of all the sculpture.
The Fountain of Energy, by A. Stirling Calder, in the center of the South Gardens before the Tower of Jewels, as a figure of aquatic triumph, celebrates the completion of the Panama Canal. (See p. 47.) Resting on a pedestal in the center of the pool, and supported by a circle of figures representing the dance of the oceans, is the Earth, surmounted by a figure of Energy, the force that dug the canal. Fame and Victory blow their bugles from his shoulders. When all the jets are playing, Energy, horsed, rides through the waters on either hand.
The band around the Earth, decorated with sea horses and fanciful aquatic figures, represents the seaway now completed around the globe. On one side a bull-man, a rather weak-chinned minotaur, stands for the strength of Western civilization; on the other, a cat-woman represents the civilization of the Eastern hemisphere. Surrounding the central figure in the pool are the four Oceans,—the Atlantic with corraled tresses and sea horses in her hand, riding a helmeted fish; the Northern Ocean as a Triton mounted on a rearing walrus; the Southern Ocean as a negro backing a sea elephant and playing with an octopus; and the Pacific as a female on a creature that might be a sea lion, but is not. Dolphins backed by nymphs of the sea serve a double purpose as decoration and as spouts for the waters.
The central figure of this fountain has been severely criticized, and with reason. The design is a beautiful one, but unfortunately not well adapted to reproduction on so large a scale. Symbolism is here carried to an extreme that spoils the simplicity which alone makes a really great work imposing. Calder had a fine idea of a figure of joyous triumph to stand as the opening symbol of the festival side of the Exposition. He deserves credit for the real beauty of his design. It is a pity that a thing so charming as a model should not have worked out well in heroic proportions.
As a fountain, though, it is splendid. The pool and its spouting figures are glorious. The play of the waters when all the jets are spouting is not only magnificent but unique. This veil of water shooting out and falling in a half sphere about the globe has not been seen before. There is a real expression of energy in the force of the leaping streams.
Mermaid Fountains, by Arthur Putnam.—At the far end of each of the lovely pools in the South Gardens is an ornamental fountain of ample basins topped by a graceful mermaid, behind whose back a fish spouts up a single jet of water. These are formal fountains, but exceedingly harmonious. Without trying to be pretentious, they achieve an effect of simple beauty. (p. 99.)
"El Dorado" and "Youth."—Within the colonnaded wings of the Tower of Jewels are two fountains which carry' out the symbolism of the days of the Spanish explorers in their themes, the Aztec myth of El Dorado, and the fabled Fountain of Youth, sought by Ponce de Leon. In their way, these are the loveliest fountains on the Exposition grounds, though they differ so from all the rest that comparison is not easy. The naive conception of the Fountain of Youth and the realistic strength of that of El Dorado lead visitors back to them again and again. They are hidden fountains, as their prototypes were hidden. Each terminates one of the two open colonnades with a central niche composition flanked on either hand by a sculptured frieze. Each is the work of a woman sculptor, and both, though very different, are far from the conventional or the commonplace.
The Fountain of El Dorado, by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, tells the story of an Aztec myth of a god whose brilliance is so dazzling that the sun is his veil, and who lives in a darkened temple lest his light destroy humanity. (p. 54.) At the center of the recessed wall are doors of the deity's shaded abode, a guardian on either side. In the friezes naked humanity moves ever onward, striving to reach the home of the god. The figures, in full relief, are splendid in their grace and vigor. Here are men and women whom nothing can hold back; here are those who must be pushed along, some who linger for love, others for worldly goods; but all, the strong and the faint, the eager and the tardy, move forward irresistibly to their destiny.
In Wait's "The Stories of El Dorado," the following account is given of this aboriginal myth of an expected Indian Messiah, El Hombre Dorado, the Gilded Man, as the Spaniards interpreted the native words,—which played a fateful part in the history of the primitive races of Spanish America:
"No words incorporated into the English language have been fraught with such stupendous consequences as El Dorado. When the padres attempted to tell the story of the Christ, the natives exclaimed 'El Dorado'—the golden. The ignorant sailors and adventurers seized upon the literal meaning, instead of the spiritual one. The time, being that of Don Quixote and of the Inquisition, accounts for the childish credulity on one side and the unparalleled ferocity on the other. The search for El Dorado, whether it was believed to be a fabulous country of gold, or an inaccessible mountain, or a lake, or a city, or a priest who anointed himself with a fragrant oil and sprinkled his body with fine gold dust, must always remain one of the blackest pages in the history of the white race. The great heart of humanity will ever ache with sympathy for the melancholy and pitiful end of the natives, who at the time of the conquest of Mexico were confidently expecting the return of the mild and gentle Quetzalcoatl,—the Mexican variant of this universal myth. * * * The Golden Hearted came from an island in the East, and to this he returned, in the legend. In all variants, he gave a distinct promise of return. This accounts for the awe inspired by Europeans in the minds of the natives, causing them everywhere to fall easy victims of the unscrupulous adventurers swarming into their country. Fate never played a more cruel prank than to have one race of men speak and act constantly from the standpoint of tradition, while the other thought solely of material gain."
Interesting, too, is Mrs. Edith Woodman Burroughs' conception of the Fountain of Youth. (p. 53.) The beautiful central figure is a girl child standing without self-consciousness by blooming primroses. Modeled faintly on the pedestal are the parents, from whose upturned faces and uplifted hands the primroses seem to spring. In the friezes, wistful old people are borne onward to Destiny in boats manned by joyous chubby children, unconscious of their priceless gift of youth to which their elders look back with so much longing.
Fountains in the Court of the Universe.—Passing through the Tower of Jewels into the great court where themes become universal under the circle of stars above the surrounding colonnade, we come to the Fountains of the Rising and the Setting Sun, by A. A. Weinmann, one at either focus of the elliptical sunken garden. In the East, the Sun, in the strength of the morning, his wings spread for flight, is springing upward from the top of the tall column rising out of the fountain. Walk toward him from the west and you get the effect of his rising. (p. 69.)
At his feet a garland of children is woven in the form of a ring at the top of the column. At the base of the shaft, just above the basin, is a cylindrical frieze in low relief, symbolizing Day Triumphant. Weinmann interprets this as the Spirit of Time, hour-glass in hand, followed by the Spirit of Light with flaming torch, while Energy trumpets the approaching day. Interwoven with these figures is an allegory of Truth with mirror and sword, escaping from the sinister power of Darkness, Falsehood shrinking from its image in the mirror of Truth, and Vice struggling in the coils of a serpent. It is not easy to read either series, or to disentangle one from the other.
In the West the Setting Sun is just alighting, with folding wings. The luminary, which in the morning was male, to represent the essentially masculine spirit, the upwardness and onwardness of opening day, has now become female in its quality of brooding evening. In fact, this same figure, which the sculptor shows in the Palace of Fine Arts, is there called by him "Descending Night."
The frieze at the base of the shaft of the Setting Sun is as difficult to interpret as the other. On it are shown the Gentle Powers of Night. Dusk folds in her cloak Love, Labor and Peace. Next are Illusions borne on the wings of Sleep, then the Evening Mists, followed by the Star Dance, and lastly, Luna, the goddess of the Silver Crescent. Luna may be recognized, for the Silver Crescent is in her hand; and, with the sequence I have just given, you may recognize the others.
The figures supporting the basins and the creatures in the pools of each fountain are merely decorative. The play of water in these fountains is joyous and delightful. The purpose of a fountain is well and adequately fulfilled.
There now remain the seven fountains of the lesser courts, connected more or less intimately in theme with their immediate surroundings.
In the Court of Seasons.—Four are in the Court of Seasons, where Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter, by Furio Piccirilli, have each its own alcove in the wall and its own play of water. These are pleasant fountains, simple and quiet. There is some feeling of lonely mountain cliffs in the plain walls behind them, hung with streamers of the maidenhair vine.
In the first alcove stands Spring with her flowers; on one side the man, in whom love awakens, on the other fresh young Flora, bringing the first offerings of the year. Next comes the alcove of Summer, the time of fruition. The mother brings her babe to its father, the laborer bears the first fruits of the harvest. (p. 94.)
Autumn follows, the time of harvest. The central figure of the fountain group is Providence. The fruits of the year are brought in, and the vintage is in progress. Last of all comes Winter, the melancholy time when the trees are bare and the bark splits with the frost. The central figure is naked Nature resting in the period of conception. On one side is bowed an old man, after preparing the ground for the seed; on the other is a strong man sowing. This is perhaps the best of the four fountain groups it expresses admirably the bleakness and sadness of the season. There is a wintry chill about it, the gloom of a dark December day. Of the others, Spring is most likable, with its conception of the seasonal impulse to love; and Autumn, for the strength of its figures and the beauty of their modeling.
In the forecourt, appropriately placed between the Palaces of Agriculture and Food Products, stands the Fountain of Ceres. (p. 79.) It is an odd fountain, with the water gushing from the mouths of satyrs set barely above the level of the ground, as though for the watering of small animals. Ceres stands above, with a wreath of cereals and a scepter of corn. The frieze pictures the dance of joyous nature.
Fountain of Earth.—In Mullgardt's Court of Ages is the Fountain ofEarth, by Robert Aitken, the most magnificently virile of all theExposition fountains, conceived of a powerful imagination and executedin strength and beauty. (p. 70, 73.)
The sculpture of the fountain must be described in three parts. Aitken's own interpretation is condensed in the following account. On the wall of the parapet at the foot of the pool, sixty feet from the central structure, is a colossal figure symbolizing Helios, in his arms the great globe of the setting sun after it has thrown off the nebulous mass that subsequently became the earth. The whole expresses primitive man's idea of the splashing of the sun into the water as it sets.
On the side of the central structure toward the figure of Helios, and leading up to the Earth, are two groups, each of five crouching figures, and divided by a conventional plane. At the outer extremity, Destiny, in the shape of two enormous hands and arms, gives life with one and takes it with the other. The five figures on the left side represent the Dawn of Life, those on the right, the Fullness and End of Existence. The first group begins with a woman asleep, just from the hand of Destiny; while the succeeding figures symbolize the Awakening, the Joy of Being, finally, the Kiss of Life, with the human pair offering their children, representing the beginnings of fecundity.