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.



VIII.

The Court of the Seasons



A charming bit of Italian Renaissance—Its quiet simplicity—The alcove Fountains 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.

-

Inscriptions in Court of Seasons

(a) On arch at east side:

So Forth Issew'd the Seasons of The Yeare—First Lusty Spring All Dight in Leaves and Flowres. Then Came the Jolly Sommer Being Dight In A Thin Silken Cassock Coloured Greene. Then Came the Autumne All in Yellow Clad. Lastly Came Winter Cloathed All in Frize Chattering His Teeth For Cold that Did Him Chill.

—Spenser.

(b) On arch at west side:

For Lasting Happiness We Turn Our Eyes To One Alone And She Surrounds You Now. Great Nature Refuge of the Weary Heart And Only Balm To Breasts That Have Been Bruised. She Hath Cool Hands For Every Fevered Brow And Gentlest Silence For the Troubled Soul.

—Sterling.



IX.

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.



X.

The Fountains



A characteristic and fitting feature of the Exposition—Fountain of Energy—The Mermaids—Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney's "El Dorado" and Mrs. Burroughs' "Youth"—Rising and Setting Sun—Piccirilli's "Seasons"—Aitken's masterpiece, the Fountain of Earth—"Beauty and the 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 of Earth, by Robert Aitken, the most magnificently virile of all the Exposition fountains, conceived of a powerful imagination and executed in 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.

On the east side, a figure of Greed looks back on the earth, the mass in his hands suggesting the futility of worldly possessions. Next is a group of Faith, wherein a patriarch holds forth to the woman the hope of immortality, with a scarab, ancient symbol of renewed life. Then comes a man of Sorrow, as the woman with him falls into her last Slumber. These are about to be drawn into oblivion by the relentless hand of Destiny. 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.

Passing 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.

Passing again into the first panel we find a representation of Lust,—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 space 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 space. 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 assemblages 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 noble metropolitan terminal of a great railway system. It would hold many long passenger 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 massiveness 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 nobility 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—Japan 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 passageway, 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 shore 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 spaced 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 noble 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, god 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 classic 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 peacock. 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 sunshine 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.

An excellent test of the quality of all such temporary structures is the satisfaction with which one thinks of them as permanent buildings. No other of the palaces would wear so well in its beauty if it were set up for the joy of future generations. It would be a glorious thing for San Francisco if the Fine Arts Palace could be made permanent in Golden Gate Park. To duplicate it in lasting materials would cost much, but it would be worth while. San Francisco owes it to itself and its love for art to see that this greatest of Western works of art does not pass away. As it stands on the Exposition grounds, it is more enduring than any of the other palaces. To induce the loan of its priceless contents, the building had to be fireproof. But the construction is not permanent. The splendid colonnade, a thing of exquisite and manifold beauty, is only plaster, and can last but a season or two. Even were the building solid enough to endure, its location is impossible after the Exposition closes.

It should be duplicated in permanent form. No doubt a proper site, with a setting of water and trees, can best be found in Golden Gate Park. The steel frame and roof of the main gallery could easily be transferred there and set up again. While it would cost too much to duplicate in real marble the pillars of the colonnade and dome, yet these can be reproduced in artificial stone as successfully as they have here been imitated in plaster. In the Pennsylvania Railroad station in New York travertine has been counterfeited so well that no one can tell where the real ends and the imitation begins.

Every other considerable city in the civilized world has its art gallery. San Francisco has already the full-sized model of surely the most beautiful one in the world. Made permanent in the Park, this Palace of Art would not only honor San Francisco, but would be "a joy forever" to all America.

The Fine Arts Exhibit[1].—The Palace of Fine Arts contains what the International Jury declares the best and most important collection of modern art that has yet been assembled in America. The war in Europe had a two-fold effect on this exhibition. While it prevented some countries, like Russia and Germany, from sending their paintings and sculptures, it led others, such as France and Italy, to send more than they otherwise would have sent. The number the Exposition might have was limited only by its funds available for insurance. So many were the works of art sent over on the Vega and the Jason that an Annex was required to house them.

It must be remembered that this art exhibit, like the other exhibits of the Exposition, is contemporaneous. It represents, with exceptions, the work of the last decade. Most of the exceptions are in the rooms of the Historical Section, the Abbey, Sargent, Whistler, Keith, and other loan collections, and the great Chinese exhibit of ancient paintings on silk. In general, the paintings and sculptures made famous by time are not in the Fine Arts Palace. Its rooms are mainly filled with the latest work of artists of the day, exhibited under the Exposition's rule which limits competition in all departments to current production. This explains, for instance, why the French Government has placed its Meissoniers and Detailles, with Rodin's bronzes, in the French Pavilion. A Michelangelo, works of Benvenuto Cellini, and many old paintings and statues are in the beautiful Italian Pavilion. Other paintings of value are in the Belgian section of the French Pavilion, and in the Danish Pavilion.

This limitation of the Fine Arts exhibit has made room for a great representation of the men of today. The Palace contains a multitude of splendid pictures. While of course, as in all such collections, there is some inferior work, the most pertinent criticism is that there are too many really notable things, and the scope of the collection is too broad, to be seen with due appreciation in a limited time. There is so liberal a showing of different schools, styles and lands, that one is liable at first to be bewildered. But the exhibit is most popular. The great number of visitors constantly thronging the galleries is significant of the value the people put upon art. Excellent as the collection is as a school for artists, it was made for popular enjoyment and education. The best result to be looked for is its stimulation and culture of the public taste. The people are already in love with it, and what they love they make their own.

The exhibits are arranged in fifteen sections, consisting of national, sectional, or personal, collections of paintings, besides many important displays of miniatures, etchings, prints, drawings, and tapestries. The art of the sculptor is abundantly illustrated in grouped statuary, single pieces, panels in low or high relief, and wood carvings. Passing the heroic emblems of history or allegory in marble, bronze or plaster, nothing is more beautiful or appealing than the hundreds of small bronzes shown. In brief, the Fine Arts exhibit embraces all the classifications of modern art, save the "arts and crafts" exhibits, which are scattered among the several exhibit palaces.

First in importance to a citizen of this country is the art of the United States. Possibly it may also be of first importance to foreign visitors. For the phrase "American art" no longer raises a doubt. It is at last recognized that America has something of its own to offer the world,—a style developed within the last, two decades. The prime movement of the times presenting boldness, brilliance and a laxity of detail in portrayal, the art of America, as shown in this exhibition, embodies these characteristics without emphasizing them. Keeping in mind the fact that the Palace contains little American art earlier than 1905, American artists are showing marked individualities, even in their acceptance of popular precepts. The virile men of the day love luminosity; it dominates all else, and marks their canvases with light; they restrain the too bold stroke of the radical Impressionist, but outline with firmness, so that details are more easily imagined by the observer, even when an expected delineation is absent. Even the older men, though still under the influence of earlier tradition, show a distinctiveness of style that sets them well apart from their English, French or German contemporaries.

The International Section, in Room 108 and in the Annex, is peculiarly interesting in that it makes easy a comparison of the characteristic fingerprints of each country represented. There is ample opportunity here for a discriminating and profitable study. Unfortunately, because of the war, the gallery contains no special rooms for the art of England and Germany. Both countries are represented only by loan collections. Of German art there are forty well chosen paintings.

France, Italy, Holland, Sweden, Portugal, Japan, China and several of the South American countries have installed representative collections in the Palace; while the Annex, made necessary by the unexpected number of pictures from Europe, contains a large exhibit of Hungarian art, a Norwegian display, filling seven rooms, a large British exhibit, and a small group of pictures by Spanish painters, showing that the influence of Velasquez is still powerful in Spanish art. The Norwegian display is one of the largest foreign sections, quite as characteristic as the Swedish, and certain to arouse discussion because of its extreme modernism. The ultra-radical art of Edvard Munch, who is called the greatest of Norwegian painters, and to whom a special room is assigned, is sure to be a bone of contention among the critics. The work of Harald Sohlberg (medal of honor) and Halfdan Strom (gold medal), differing widely from Munch's, though hardly less modern in style, will also attract much attention. The omission of Munch from the honor list is really a tribute to his eminence. An artist who has won the Grand Prix at Rome and awards in every other European capital was deemed outside of competition here.

Axel Gallen-Kallela, the celebrated Finnish painter, winner of the Exposition's medal of honor, fills another room in the Annex. This room, covering adequately Gallen's progress through twenty-five years, is the only one in the Exposition to illustrate the development of a great painter from his student days. The collection runs from his earliest academic work, photographic in its care for detail, to his present mastery of Impressionism, wherein by a few strokes he expresses all the essentials.

The Italian Futurists are well shown in the Annex, and for the first time in this country. The Futurist pictures hitherto seen in America have been French imitations of the Italian originators of the mode. A sample Futurist title, "Architectural Construction of a Woman on the Beach," may or may not indicate what these pictures reveal. The Annex, too, has a splendid exhibit of the etchings of Frank Brangwyn, the great Englishman, who is no less renowned as an etcher than as a painter, and who has won the Exposition's medal of honor in the International Section.

The arrangement of the rooms in the Fine Arts Gallery becomes simple enough when the key is supplied. The United States section is in the center, and, with the historical rooms, occupies, roughly, half the space, flanked by the foreign rooms at either end of the building. Four rooms of the United States section are separated from the rest and form a narrow strip across the extreme north end of the gallery. The prints, drawings, miniatures, and medals are installed in rooms forming a strip along the west wall of the building.

The United States section is opened by a central hall opposite the main entrance, and by a corridor extending on either side through to the foreign sections. The central hall is chiefly devoted to sculpture, including Karl Bitter's strong and characteristic group, "The Signing of the Louisiana Purchase Treaty," Daniel Chester French's "Alice Freeman Palmer Memorial," both winners of the medal of honor, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney's fine central fountain, and other important work. The walls are hung with ancient tapestries of great interest, and paintings, mostly decorative, though Robert Vonnoh's "Poppies" and Ben Au Haggin's "Little White Dancer" are admirable. Vonnoh won a gold medal.

Historical Section.—South of the United States section, a block of ten rooms, with Room 54 at the southwest angle of the central hall, is devoted to painters who either have influenced American art or represent its earlier stages. Room 91, on the east side of the block, contains old Dutch, Flemish, French, and Italian pictures, none very interesting, though Teniers, Watteau and Tintoretto are represented. Rooms 92, 62, and 61, constituting the tier next to the Italian section, show chiefly examples of the French painters, including those of the Barbizon school, who have influenced later American painting. Along with other names less known, Room 92 displays canvases by Daubigny, Courbet, Charles Le Brun, Meissonier, Tissot, Monticelli and Rousseau. It has two Corots, one a delight. Room 62 is even more important. It offers a Millet, far from typical; a capital Schreyer, two portraits by the German Von Lenbach, a small but interesting sample of Alma Tadema's finished style, and the sensational "Consolatrix Afflictorum" by Dagnan-Bouveret. Better still, in Jules Breton's "The Vintage" and Troyon's "Landscape and Cattle" it has two of the noblest paintings to be seen in the entire Palace,— pictures that show these great masters at their best.

Room 61 is mainly devoted to the early Impressionists, with seven canvases by their leader, Claude Monet, and other landscapes by Renoir, Pissaro and Sisley, and a brilliant interior (No. 2343) by Gaston La Touche. The pictures by Monet illustrate his progress from the hard conventionalism of his early academic style (seen in 2636) to such delightful embodiments of light and atmosphere as 2633 and 2637. The gallery contains no more triumphant piece of Impressionism than the saucy "Lady in Pink" by the Russian, Nicholas Fechin. The story set afloat that it is the work of an untaught Russian peasant simply testifies to ignorance of this master. Every splotch of color here breathes technique. As if by way of contrast, the opposite wall shows one of Puvis de Chavannes' classical murals, even more anaemic than usual.

The large room No. 63 shows a Venetian sunset by Turner, two portraits by Goya, another attributed to Velasquez, a splendid Raffaelesque altar-piece by Tiepolo, the like of which rarely leaves Italy, and canvases by Guido Reni, Ribera, and Van Dyke. Almost all the remaining space is taken up by excellent examples of the British art that influenced the early American painters, with some of prior date. Here are canvases by Lely, Kneller, Hogarth, Reynolds, Gainsborough, Hoppner, Beechey, Allan Ramsay, Lawrence, Raeburn, and Romney. The last four are especially well represented. In this room, too, is the bronze replica of Weinmann's figure, "The Setting Sun," here called "Descending Night."

American "Old Masters."—Following logically the English portrait painters, the American historical section begins with Rooms 60 and 59. The former is mainly filled with the work, much of it admirable, of the early American portrait painters. Here are Gilbert Stuart's lovable "President Monroe," Benjamin West's "Magdalen," and portraits by Peale, Copley, West, Sully and others. In Room 59, the antiquarian interest predominates, with a few fine portraits by Inman, Harding, King, and S. F. B. Morse, who, besides inventor, was an artist. But nothing here surpasses No. 1719 by Charles Loring Elliott, a canvas that is irresistible in its vivid setting forth of personality. Room 58 brings the story of American painting well past the middle of the Nineteenth century, with typical examples of Bierstadt, Eastman Johnson and other fading names. Room 57 contains a number of Edwin Abbey's finely illustrative paintings, the most popular of which is his "Penance of Eleanor," and a collection of his splendid drawings; also important canvases by Theodore Robinson and John La Farge. Room 64 covers a wide sweep, from Church's archaic "Niagara Falls" down to Stephen Parrish, Eakins, Martin, the Morans, Hovenden, and Remington. Edward Moran's "Brush Burning" (2649) is capital. Room 54, the last of the American historical rooms, is perhaps the most important, finely showing Inness, Wyant, Winslow Homer, Hunt, and other American masters.

Modern American Painting.—We come now to the great and splendid representation of present-day painters. In noting these, the artists achieving grand prizes, medals of honor or gold medals will often be mentioned; but a full list of such honors will be found at the end of this chapter. It should be remembered that no member of a jury, and no man who received the honor of a separate room, was eligible for award. In general, it may be said, the Exposition puts forward the work of artists who have "arrived" since the opening of the century. In accordance with this helpful policy, older painters who had won many honors at previous exhibitions were passed over for the encouragement of younger men. It should also be noted that awards were not made for particular pictures, but upon each artist's exhibit as a whole.

Rooms 55, 56, 65 and 85 show contemporary Americans,—the last two with great credit. No. 65 is a large room of canvases by American women painters. One who has not kept abreast of woman's work in art in this country has a surprise awaiting him in the the high quality shown here. Two pictures by Ellen Rand (2919, 2918), Mary Curtis Richardson's captivating "Young Mother" and her "Professor Paget" (3000, 3002), and Alice Stoddard's inimitably girlish group, "The Sisters" (3329), will reward very careful study of their sincerity and strength of treatment. Especially brilliant are the works of Cecilia Beaux and M. Jean McLane,— the first winning the Exposition's medal of honor, the latter rather theatrical in their gayety of color. Here also is a canvas (2743) by Violet Oakley, another honor medallist.

Room 85 is enriched by the canvases of Charles Walter Stetson, Horatio Walker, Charles W. Hawthorne, Douglas Volk (gold medal), and George de Forest Brush. Volk's three charming pictures deserve to be better hung. The Stetson group illustrates the Impressionist method and result as well as anything in the Palace. Take his "Smugglers" or his "Summer Joy" (3311, 3317), and note how a few heavy and apparently meaningless dabs of color may be laid side by side on canvas in such a way that, when seen from a distance, they blend, until the picture not only outlines figures and foliage, but also glows with atmosphere, life and movement.

These rooms complete the south half of the American section, with the exception of the very interesting, though not fully adequate, Whistler Room, 28; the Print Rooms, 29 to 34, in the tier along the west wall, and five more one-man rooms along the east wall. These five, in their order from the main entrance are: No. 87, devoted to the old-masterlike works of Frank Duveneck, who, more perhaps than any other American, shows the great manner of Velasquez, Rembrandt and Franz Hals, and to whom the jury has recommended that a special medal be given for his influence on American art; No. 88 filled with the admirable Impressionist landscapes of E. W. Redfield; 89 and 93, given up to the widely contrasted work of Edmund C. Tarbell and John H. Twachtman, each in his own fashion a master and enjoying a well-earned popularity, Twachtman's pictures in particular commanding almost as high prices as those of the men in Room 54; and No. 90, just off the Tarbell room, containing a small loan collection which very incompletely represents William Keith. Five other individual rooms are north of the main entrance: No. 79, portraits and still life by William M. Chase; 78, Childe Hassam's radically Impressionist work; 77, Gari Melchers' pictures of Dutch types and scenes; 76, the charming western pictures of Arthur F. Mathews and Francis McComas, both Californians; and 75, the John S. Sargent room, containing among other works his famous early portrait of Mme. Gautrin, his "John Hay," and the sympathetic portrait of Henry James which was mutilated by the British suffragettes. All these one-man rooms exhibit characteristic work of the men thus distinguished, though the younger men are the more completely represented. The Whistler, Keith, Chase and Sargent rooms, which may be classed with the historical block, show few of the best-known masterpieces of these artists.

Room 80, cut out of the northeast corner of the central hall, a gallery of well restrained pictures, contains the interesting work in light and color of William McG. Paxton, member of the jury; portraits and figures by Leslie P. Thompson (silver medal), Philip L. Hale's warm-toned portraits, the delicate but brilliant landscapes of Willard L. Metcalf (medal of honor), and those by Philip Little (silver medal). The portraits are in the older academic style; the landscapes, modern. Rooms 67 and 68 are distinguished by some notable landscapes and marines. No. 67 shows Emil Carlsen's fresh "Open Sea," his single picture here, but the winner of a medal of honor, and Albert Laessle's small animal sculptures (gold medal), and capital examples of Paul Dougherty, J. F. Carlson, Leonard Ochtman and Ben Foster. No. 68 holds two fine snowy landscapes by W. Elmer Schofield (medal of honor), two engaging studies in brown by Daniel Garber, brilliant figures by J. C. Johansen, and California coast views by William Ritschel. The last three artists are gold medallists.

Room 69 is made noteworthy by works of three of the nine American winners of the medal of honor,—Lawton Parker's voluptuous "Paresse" and two portraits, and single paintings by John W. Alexander and Richard E. Miller (1035, 2606). Alexander's airy "Phyllis" is his only picture in the Palace. Miller shows one more canvas, a colorful "Nude" (2607) in Room 47. Room 70 is entirely devoted to portrait painters, among them Julian Story, H. G. Herkomer, Robert Vonnoh, and Irving C. Wiles (3668), the latter two both winners of the gold medal. No. 74 shows admirable small landscapes, among them the "Group of White Birches" by Will S. Robinson (silver medal), Charles C. Allen's "Mountain and Cloud," and land and water views by Charles J. Taylor, especially No. 3404. Room 73 shows good landscapes by Ernest Lawson (gold medal), Paul King (silver medal), and the two Beals. Gifford Beal's work won a gold medal. Room 72, a gallery in the academic style, contains a variety of portraits, figure paintings and landscapes, including W. R. Leigh's spirited "Stampede," and the more conventional work of Walter MacEwen. No. 71 is another varied room. In addition to some landscapes, the visitor will be struck by the small but exquisite exhibit in gold, enamel, and precious stones of Louis C. Tiffany.

The western tier of this section, Rooms 43-51, contains work of all grades of merit. No. 43 is conglomerate. Perham Nahl's well drawn "Despair" (2690) is perhaps best worth mention. In No. 44 Putthuff's two brown western scenes and Clarkson's portrait of E. G. Keith are interesting. No. 45 is better. Walter Griffin's opulent landscapes (medal of honor) are well worth studying. Here also are two canvases by Robert Reid, one almost Japanese in its effect; the restrained landscapes of William Sartain, and Charles Morris Young's sharply contrasting "Red Mill' and "Gray Mill," with his characteristic wintry landscapes. Reid and Young won the gold medal. In No. 46 are a half-dozen delicately handled landscapes by Frank V. Du Mond, a member of the jury. In No. 47 E. L. Blumenschein's warm Indian pictures and A. L. Groll's desert scenes won silver medals. But the best thing here is Richard E. Miller's "Nude," already mentioned.

On the east wall of Room 48 hangs "Sleep," the best of the eight canvases shown by Frederic Carl Frieseke, distinguished above all other American painters in the palace by the Exposition's grand prize. Seven other pictures by Frieseke, interesting by reason of comparison with this masterpiece, hang in Room 117. In Gallery 48 are also some good landscapes,—Robert Vonnoh's "Bridge at Grez" and Cullen Yates' "November Snow." In No. 49, a better balanced room than most in this tier, three walls are made noteworthy by J. Alden Weir's luminous and Impressionist landscapes, and D. W. Tryon's more academic canvases. Weir was the chairman of the jury for oil paintings. No. 50 is dominated by Sergeant Kendall, in both painting and sculpture. In the first he won the gold medal, in the second the silver medal. Room 51 has been called the "Chamber of Horrors," because it shows several of the extremists; but it has some masterpieces. Staring things by John Sloan, William J. Glackens, Adolphe Borie, and Arthur B. Caries are relieved by H. H. Breckinridge's highly colored fruits and flowers, Gertrude Lampert's "Black and Green," Thomas Anshutz' two studies of women, and several of Robert Henri's strong figure pieces.

In the extreme northern end of the gallery, beyond the foreign sections, is a tier of four rooms, 117-120, ranging from the mediocre to the admirable. In No. 117 are seven interesting canvases by Frieseke, the grand-prize winner, already mentioned. These pictures show the artist's scope. No. 1816 and others are strikingly like Plinio Nomellini's No. 86 in the Italian section. No. 1811 is as different from these as "Sleep" is from all the rest. In the same room are Mora's "Vacation Time" (2645) and Tanner's "Christ at the Home of Lazarus" (3370), both winners of the gold medal. Room 118 holds the pictures of several gold-medal winners, the "Promenade" (1185) by Max Bohm; the noble "Lake Louise" (1246) by H. J. Breuer, whose pictures of the Canadian Rockies are also to be found in Rooms 56 and 58; the tender "Spring" (1972) by W. D. Hamilton, worthy of a better place; and H. L. Hoffman's clearlighted "A Mood of Spring" (2116), and his vivid "Savannah Market" (2115).

Room 119 is filled with water-colors, drawings, engravings and etchings. Room 120 holds George Bellows' Post-Impressionistic canvases, Myron Barlow's well-drawn figures, W. D. Hamilton's speaking likeness of Justice McKenna (1971), Charles H. Woodbury's "The Bark" (3692), and Waldo Murray's portrait of "Robert Fowler" (366), wrongly catalogued with the International section. All these painters won gold medals. This is perhaps the best room in this tier.

In the tier on the western wall devoted to the minor forms of art, Howard Pyle's illustrations occupy two small rooms, 41 and 42. The first contains ink sketches, the second his works in characteristic color. Room 40 is devoted to admirable miniatures and to water colors. Here on the east wall are Jules Guerin's vividly colored Oriental scenes, which won the gold medal. The walls of Room 39 are given up to a series of charming pastels by John McClure Hamilton. No. 39 also contains cases of medals, as does No. 38. Room 37 is devoted to miniatures, and 36 to drawings.