The Jewel City Part 7

The gap between these groups and the main structure of the fountain typifies the unknown time between the beginning of things and the dawn of history.

Each of the four panels in pierced relief surrounding the globe of the Earth tells a single story, with the exception of the first, which tells three. Traveling to the left around the globe, we begin with the figure of Vanity, mirror in hand, in the center of the first panel, as the symbol of worldly motive. Here, too, are primitive man and woman, bearing their burdens, symbolized by their progeny, into the unknown future, ready to meet whatever be the call of earth. The woman suggests the overwhelming instincts of motherhood.

Pa.s.sing into the next panel, we see their children, now grown, finding themselves, with Natural Selection. The man in the center, splendid in physical and intellectual perfection, attracts the women on either hand, while two other men, deserted for this finer type, display anger and despair. One tries to hold the woman by force, the other, unable to comprehend, turns hopelessly away.

The succeeding panel symbolizes the Survival of the Fittest. Here physical strength begins to play its part, and the war spirit awakens, with woman as its cause. The chiefs struggle for supremacy, while their women try in vain to separate them.

The last panel portrays the Lesson of Life. The elders offer to hotheaded youth the benefit of their experience. The beautiful woman in the center draws to her side the splendid warrior, whose mother on his left gives her affectionate advice. On the right of the panel, a father restrains a wayward and jealous youth who has been rejected by the female.

Pa.s.sing again into the first panel we find a representation of l.u.s.t,--a man struggling to embrace a woman, who shrinks from his caresses. Thus the circle is complete; these last two figures, though in the first panel, are separated from those first described by decorations on the upper and lower borders.

Framing the panels, while also indicating the separation in time of their stories, stand archaic figures of Hermes, such as the ancients employed to mark distances on the roads. Their outstretched hands hold up the beginnings of life in the form of rude primeval beasts, from whose mouths issue the jets of the fountain.

At night this fountain glows deep red, from lamps concealed within the panels, while clouds of rosy steam rising around the globe create an illusion of a world in the making.

The Fountain of Beauty and the Beast was originally intended for the Court of Palms, which was conceived as the Court of Occidental Fairy Tales, just as the Court of Flowers was to have been that of Oriental Fairy Tales. Mrs. Whitney's fountain of the Arabian Nights, a creation of whimsical beauty, was to have stood in the latter court. It was modeled, but was never enlarged; and its place was taken by Beauty and the Beast, the work of Edgar Walter. (p. 100.)

This is another harmonious fountain, rightly conceived, so that its sculpture does not overbalance its use in the play of water, and admirably in tune with the flowery grace of the court. Beauty, pouring water from a Greek amphora, sits lightly upon the ugly Beast. Why she wears a smart Paris hat no one has discovered. Four cheery pipers, lively as crickets in the sun, support the upper bowl. Around the lower basin is a frieze in low relief, figuring Hanuman, the King of Monkeys, leading a bear with one hand and prodding a lion with the other. All this is part of the original fairy-tale significance of the court.

The fountains are of the glories of the Exposition. There is always charm in the movement of the waters, rest in their music. The appeal is elemental, and therefore, universal. Artificial jets can never equal the play of water in Nature, but when adorned with harmonious sculpture, as here, they become that significant and satisfying imitation which is Art.

XI.

The Palace of Machinery

A vast rectangular hall, saved by Ward's successful architecture from being a huge barn--Modeled on the Roman Baths of Caracalla--Patigian's finely decorative sculptures, symbolizing the mechanical forces and labor--Beauty of the interior--A Cathedral of Dynamics.

A mighty hall is the Palace of Machinery. (See p. 105, 106.) Beachey flew in it. The Olympic might rest in its center aisle with clear s.p.a.ce at both bow and stern, and room in the side aisles for two ocean greyhounds as large as the Mauretania. Vastness is the note of the architecture which Clarence Ward has employed to give body to this enormous s.p.a.ce. It is an architecture of straight lines in all the outer structure, lending itself admirably to the expression of enormous proportions. In general ground plans the palace is a simple rectangular hall. Think, then, of the task the architect had before him to avoid making the palace a huge barn. His work succeeded, as any great work succeeds, because he used simple means.

First of all, a Roman model was well chosen for so vast a building. The Greeks built no large roofed structures. Their great a.s.semblages were held in open-air theaters and stadia. The Greek masterpiece, the incomparable Parthenon at Athens, was considerably smaller than Oregon's timbered imitation at the Exposition. On the other hand, the solid Roman style lends itself to bulk. The models followed in the Machinery Palace were the Roman Baths, particularly the Baths of Caracalla. They have been used once before as a model in this country, in the building of the Pennsylvania Railway station in New York. There, too, travertine was first successfully imitated by Paul Deniville. Looking at the Palace of Machinery, indeed, it is not difficult to imagine it as the n.o.ble metropolitan terminal of a great railway system. It would hold many long pa.s.senger trains, and an army of travelers. The distinctive feature of the perspective is the triple gable at the ends of the palace and over the great main entrance. By thus breaking up the long roof lines, as well as by lowering the flanks of the building to flat-roofed wings, a barn like effect was avoided. In the triple gables, also, the three central aisles which distinguish the interior show in the outer structure. Under the gables the huge clerestory windows above the entrances relieve the great expanse of the end walls. Similar windows open up the walls above the flat-topped wings. In the main entrance, the gables are deepened to form a huge triple vestibule where the row of columns is repeated. The long side walls are relieved by pairs of decorated columns flanking the minor entrances.

Thus, by entirely simple devices, the long lines and vast expanses of wall are deprived of monotony. The architect has given majesty to the palace, not merely a majesty of hugeness, but of just proportions and dignified simplicity. In the general architectural scheme of the Exposition it forms one end of the main group of palaces, at the other end of which is set the Palace of Fine Arts. Machinery Hall, with its severe ma.s.siveness and solidity, is a balance to the poetry and spirituality of the Fine Arts.

The main entrance is on the west side, looking down the avenue between the Palaces of Mines and Varied Industries. Perhaps it is better, though, to take a first view of the sculptural decoration at the entrance at either the north or the south end, where almost everything is shown that appears in the more complicated main vestibule.

The three clerestory windows make three arches with four piers. In front of each pier stands a great Sienna column crowned with one of four symbolic figures, each, in the strength of the male, emblematic of force. First on the left is "Electricity," grasping the thunderbolt, and standing with one foot on the earth, signifying that electricity is not only in the earth but around it. The man with the lever that starts an engine represents "Steam Power." "Imagination," the power which conceives the thing "Invention" bodies forth, stands with eyes closed; its force comes from within. Wings on his head suggest the speed of thought. At his feet is the Eagle of Inspiration. "Invention" bears in his hand a winged figure,--Thought, about to rise in concrete form.

The eagle appears as a symbol of the United States, on the entablature carried across the opening below the arch on two Corinthian columns in each embrasure. The lower third of each of these shafts is decorated with a cylindrical relief representing the genii of machinery, flanked by human toilers and types of machines. The genii are blind, as the forces developed by machines are blind. There are only two of these cylindrical friezes, but they are repeated many times on the columns at either end and at the main entrance, and on the pairs of columns that flank the minor openings in the western wall.

Over the main entrance the gable is extended to enclose a majestic triple vestibule, backed by the same effect that appears at the palace ends, but with the entablature and its supporting columns repeated across the outer arches. (p. 111.) With the exception of the spandrels on the transverse arches, the sculptural decoration here is the same as that described for the end entrances, though more often repeated. The spandrels represent the application of power to machines. All this decoration is the work of Haig Patigian, of San Francisco.

Before the main entrance stands the only example, in the Exposition sculpture, of the work of the dean of American sculptors, Daniel Chester French. This is his noteworthy group, the Genius of Creation. (p. 147.) Other statues by French will be found among the exhibits of the Fine Arts Palace. The Genius of Creation was placed here at the last moment.

It had been intended for the Court of the Universe, while Douglas Tilden's group of "Modern Civilization" was to have stood before the Palace of Machinery. When this was not completed, the Exposition wisely decided that the great court already had enough statuary, and ordered French's group erected in its place.

According to French himself, this group might well have been called "The Angel of Generation." The winged figure, neither male nor female, but angelic, is veiled, suggesting the creative impulse as a blind command from unknown sources. The arms are raised in a gesture of creative command. It has wings, said French, because. both art and the conception demanded these spiritual symbols. The man and woman against the rock whereon the angel sits are emblems of the highest types created. The man looks upward and outward with one hand clenched, ready to grapple with life. The woman reaches out for sympathy and support; her fingers find this in the hand of the man at the back of the rock. Man and woman are encircled by the snake, the earliest symbol of eternity and reproduction, a figure appearing, curiously enough, in every religion, and with much the same significance.

Without ignoring the majesty of the exterior, glowing with color and adorned with statuary, it may be said that the real n.o.bility of this great structure appears in the splendid timber work of the interior.

Here, where every bone and rib of the huge hall stands bare as the builders left it, is a note of true grandeur. The long rows of great timbered columns, the lofty arches that spring from them, the almost endless vista of truss and girder, tell of vastness that cannot be expressed by the finished architecture outside. The finest character of the palace is within. From the outside it is a great and well-proportioned hall. Within it becomes a vast cathedral, dedicated to the mighty spirit of Dynamics.

XII.

The Palace of Fine Arts and its Exhibit, With the Awards

A memorable demonstration of the value of landscape to architecture-- Simplicity the foundation of Maybeck's achievement--The Colonnade and Rotunda--Altar, Friezes and Murals--Equestrian statue of Lafayette-- Night views--The Palace should be made permanent in Golden Gate Park-- The Fine Arts Exhibit--Its contemporaneous character and great general merit--American art well shown--The foreign collections--Sweden's characteristically national art--Exhibits of France, Italy, Holland, Argentina, and other countries--j.a.pan and China exhibit ancient as well as modern art--The Annex--Work of the Futurists--Notable sculptures in the Colonnade--Grand Prizes, Medals of Honor and Gold Medals Awarded.

If everything else in the beautiful architecture of the Exposition were forgotten, the memory of the Palace of Fine Arts would remain. It should be a source of pride to every Californian that this incomparable building is the work of a Californian, and a source of deep satisfaction to the architect himself that it so completely points the lesson which he intended it to convey. For the Palace of Fine Arts is a sermon in itself. In it old Roman models have been used to elaborate a California text. Its structure and setting are the demonstration of a theorem,-- the finished word of the preachment of a lifetime. The Exposition gave the preacher his opportunity. Bernard Maybeck, the Berkeley architect, had long been telling California that architecture here, to be beautiful, needed only to be an effective background for landscape. His theory is that as trees and plants grow so easily and so quickly here, Californians are wasting their finest source of beauty if they do not combine landscape with building.

When Maybeck was called upon to design a palace of fine arts at the Exposition, one fact enabled him to exemplify his theory in the finest way. The old Harbor View bog was found to have a bottom impervious enough to hold water, and the trees of the demolished resort were still standing. When the mud was scooped out, a lake was left. That gave not only growing trees, in addition to the resources of the Exposition's forestry, but also a real sheet of water, for the landscape. (See p.

112.)

Maybeck surprised me by saying that there is nothing specially remarkable about the Palace itself. "What is it the people like?" he asked, and himself replied, "it is the water and the trees." When I reminded him of the beauty of the colonnade seen from points in the enclosed pa.s.sageway, where no water is in view, he answered: "The public was bribed to like that. Leaving off the roof between the colonnade and the gallery was a direct bribe. A few other simple devices give the effect the people like. One of these is the absence of windows in the walls, a device well known to the old Italians. Others are the water, the trees, and the flower-covered pergolas on the roof."

Maybeck's modesty is genuine, but he deserves more credit than he gives himself. I quote him because his point is worth emphasizing. The highest beauty can be attained by simple means. If all our architects could see that, we should have less straining for effect, less over doneness, and more harmony and significance in our buildings. The people can and do appreciate this kind of beauty. It was surely inspiration that made it possible for Maybeck to produce this masterpiece.

Sweeping in a great arc around the western sh.o.r.e of the lagoon, the Palace, in the architect's view, is merely a background for the water, the trees and the plants on the terraced walls and pergolas. Certainly it is a beautiful setting to a beautiful scene. So perfectly are the Palace and its foreground fitted to each other that the structure looks as though it might have stood there for twenty centuries, a well-preserved Roman villa, while generations of trees grew, and decayed, and were reproduced around its base.

The great detached colonnade, with its central rotunda, is the climax of the entire structure. It is backed up and given solidity by the walls of the gallery behind it, 1,100 feet long. These walls, unbroken save for the entrances, are relieved and beautified by shrubbery set on a terrace halfway between the ground and the eaves. (p. 113.) At the extremities of the double colonnade, and s.p.a.ced regularly along it, are groups of four columns, each crowned with a great box designed for flowers and vines. Unfortunately, the architect's plan to place growing plants in these receptacles was vetoed because of the cost. The weeping women at the corners, by Ulric Ellerhusen, expressive of the melancholy felt on leaving a great art collection, were intended to be only half seen through drooping vines. On the water side of the rotunda, a novel effect of inclusion is obtained by semi-circular walls of growing mesembryanthemum.

Around the entablature of the n.o.ble octagonal rotunda are repeated Bruno Louis Zimm's three panels, representing "The Struggle for the Beautiful." (p. 114.) In one, Art, as a beautiful woman, stands in the center, while on either side the idealists struggle to hold back the materialists, here conceived as centaurs, who would trample upon Art. In another, Bellerophon is about to mount Pegasus. Orpheus walks ahead with his lyre, followed by a lion, representing the brutish beasts over whom music hath power. Back in the procession come Genius, holding aloft the lamp, and another figure bearing in one hand the pine cones of immortality, in the other a carved statue which she holds forward as a lesson in art to the youth before her. In the third panel appears Apollo, G.o.d of all the arts, in the midst of a procession of his devotees bearing garlands. Between the panels are repeated alternately male and female figures, symbolizing those who battle for the arts.

On an altar before the rotunda, overlooking the lagoon, kneels Robert Stackpole's figure of Venus, representing the Beautiful, to whom all art is servant. The panel in front of the altar is by Bruno Louis Zimm, and pictures Genius, the source of Inspiration. Unfortunately, this fine altar has been made inaccessible; it can be seen only from across the lagoon. (p. 137.) The friezes decorating the huge circular flower receptacles set around the base of the rotunda and at intervals in the colonnade are by Ellerhusen. Eight times repeated on the lofty columns within the rotunda is "The Priestess of Culture," a conventional but pleasing sculpture by Herbert Adams.

Above, in the dome, Robert Reid's eight murals, splendid in color, are too far away to be seen well as pictures. Two separate series are alternated, one symbolizing the Progress of Art, the other depicting the Four Golds of California. The panel in the east, nearest the altar, is "The Birth of European Art." The sacred fire burns on an altar, beside which stands the guardian holding out the torch of inspiration to an earthly messenger who leans from his chariot to receive it. On the right is the Orange panel, representing one of the California golds.

"Inspiration in All Art" comes next. The veil of darkness, drawn back, reveals the arts: Music, Painting, Poetry, and Sculpture. A winged figure bears the torch of inspiration. The second of the California golds, the Wheat panel, follows, and then "The Birth of Oriental Art."

The allegory here is the ancient Ming legend of the forces of earth trying to wrest inspiration from the powers of air. A Chinese warrior mounted on a dragon struggles with an eagle.

Gold, the yellow metal, is the subject of the next panel, followed by "Ideals in Art." In this appear concrete symbols of the chief motives of art, the cla.s.sic nude of the Greeks, the Madonna and Child of Religion, Joan of Arc for Heroism, Youth and Material Beauty represented by a young woman, and Absolute Nature by the peac.o.c.k. A mystic figure in the background holds the cruse wherewith to feed the sacred flame. A winged figure bears laurels for the living, while the shadowy one in the center holds the palm for the dead. Last of all comes the Poppy panel, representing the fourth gold of California.

"The entire scheme--the conception and birth of Art, its commitment to the earth, its progress and acceptance by the human intellect,--is expressed in the four major panels. They are lighted from below by a brilliant flood of golden light, the suns.h.i.+ne of California, and reach up into the intense blue of the California skies." This, as well as much of the interpretation of the eight pictures, is drawn from Reid's own account.

Within the rotunda has been installed Paul Wayland Bartlett's spirited equestrian statue of Lafayette. This is a replica of the original work, which was presented to the French Government by the school children of the United States, and stands in the gardens of the Louvre. Other notable statues here are Karl Bitter's Thomas Jefferson, John J. Boyle's Commodore Barry, Herbert Adams's Bryant, and Robert T. McKenzie's charming figure of "The Young Franklin." Outside the rotunda, facing the main entrance to the gallery, is "The Pioneer Mother," Charles Grafly, sculptor. Over the entrance is Leo Lentelli's "Aspiration."

Beautiful as is the Palace of Fine Arts by day, it is even more lovely at night. (p. 137.) Either by moonlight or under the gentle flood of illumination that rests softly upon it when the heavens are dark, it is wonderful. There is so much of perfection in the building, and it is so well placed, that it needs no special conditions to be at its best. Nor is any particular viewpoint necessary. Stand where you will around this structure, or on the opposite margin of the lagoon, and each position gives you a different grouping of columns and dome and wall, a different setting of trees and water. The form of the Palace is responsible for this. Roughly speaking, a rectangular structure presents but four views.

But the great arc of the Fine Arts, with its detached colonnade following the same curve on either side of the rotunda, is not so restricted. Every new point of view discloses new beauty. The breadth of the lagoon before it guarantees a proper perspective. It is impossible not to see it aright.