Jules Guerin, probably the greatest man in his particular line in the
world, has had complete charge of the Exposition coloring.
He has used only five colors, but of course these colors are not all the
same tone.
All walls are pastel pink or a sunset shade, as seen in the Court of the
Ages. All niches are the same shade.
All ceilings and shells are ultramarine blue, with two exceptions. The
Court of the Ages is a pastel blue, and that of the Court of Palms is
fawn-color.
The domes of the Fine Arts Palace, and the Court of the Universe, are
burnt orange, or, as one writer has expressed it, "sea-weed washed with
brine."
The other domes are an oriental green, approaching copper-green.
The capitals when colored are burnt orange, with either an
ultramarine-blue or an Indian-red ground. Columnettes and a few
decorative bands are of turquoise-green.
There is a unity, a balance, a color beauty all unto itself. You see it
in the architecture, sculpture, and painting, in the arrangement of the
decorations, in the courts. Then over it all hangs the spirit of romance
such as surrounds the days of old Castile.
A mediaeval beauty and splendor bring longings for the pageants that
would add a world of interest.
There is a Graeco-Roman appeal in the long colonnades, the porticoes,
the fountains, the courts.
The Orient is strongly marked by the domes, the minaret suggestions, the
elephants, and minor details.
It is an Arabian-Nights-Tale - not a thousand and one nights, but two
hundred and eighty-eight.
Siena marble is used mainly at entrances and for pedestals. The
travertine is pinkish, grey and cream. Doorways in shadow are of lattice
green. Flag-poles are colored Spanish red. Lighting standards are green,
ochre, or eucalyptus blue. Banners are ochre and cadmium.
The world has never seen such an Occidental-Oriental harmony as in this
Exposition.
The traditions of the olden days are so strongly worked into these
palaces and courts that one feels more than he can tell when wandering
in this world of beauty; and we the laymen owe a debt of gratitude to
the architects, sculptors, painters, horticulturists, financiers,
engineers and the workmen who have given us this dream city of 1915.