The path leading to the northern end of the colonnade attracted us. It
brought us to the beautiful little grove of Monterey cypress that
McLaren had saved from the old Harbor View restaurant, for so many years
one of the most curious and picturesque of the San Francisco resorts,
one of the few on the bay-side. Though the architect frankly admired
Paul Bartlett's realistic "Wounded Lion," the pieces of sculpture set
out on the grass bothered him somewhat. He couldn't find any
justification for their being there. He wanted them, as he said, in a
setting. "I think I can see what the purpose was in putting them here,
to provide decoration that would be unobtrusive. But some of these
pieces, like Bartlett's, stand out conspicuously and deserve to be
treated with more consideration. Besides, there's always danger of
weakening a glorious conception like Maybeck's by putting too many
things into it, creating an artistic confusion."
We began to see how the colonnade in Gerome's painting had worked its
influence. It was easy to imagine two chariots tearing along here,
between the columns, after the ancient fashion. And those bushes, to the
right, rising on the lower wall, between the vases, surely had the
character of over-growth. They carried out Maybeck's idea of an
abandoned ruin.
The architect pointed to the top of the wall: "The little roof-garden on
the edge of the upper wall gives the Egyptian note in the architecture
that many people have felt and it is emphasized by the deep red that
Guerin has applied, the shade that's often found in Egyptian ruins."
Above the main entrance of the palace we saw Lentelli's "Aspiration,"
that had been the cause of so much criticism and humorous comment during
the first few weeks of the Exposition. "Lentelli had a hard time with
that figure. It drove him almost to distraction. Perhaps a genius might
have solved the problem of making the figure seem to float; but I doubt
if it could have been solved by anyone. The foot-rest they finally
decided to put under it didn't help the situation much."
Directly in front of "Aspiration," on its high pedestal, stood Charles
Grafly's monumental statue of "The Pioneer Mother." "I suppose the
obvious in sculpture has its place," the architect remarked, "and this
group will appeal to popular sentiment. Its chief value lies in its
celebrating a type of woman that deserves much more recognition than she
has received in the past. Most of the glory of the pioneer days has gone
to the men. The women, however, in the background, had to share in the
hardships and often did a large part of the work. It's a question in my
mind whether this woman quite represents the vigorous type that came
over the plains in the prairie schooner. However, just as she is, she is
fine, and she has a strong hand that looks as if it had been made for
spanking. I wonder why the sculptor gave her that kind of head-covering.
She might have appeared to better advantage bare-headed. The children
are excellent. Observe the bright outlook of the boy and the timid
attitude of the girl. There's a fine tenderness in the care the girl is
getting from her mother and from the boy, too, suggesting dawning
manhood. Altogether, the group has nobility and it's worthy of being a
permanent monument for San Francisco. By the way, there's the old Roman
idea of the decorative use of the bull's head again, at the base of the
group. It has a very happy application here. It reminds us of the oxen
that helped to get the Easterners out to California in the old days
before the railroads. A good many of them must have dropped in their
tracks and left their skulls to bleach in the sun."
The other ornamental design we found very appropriate and direct, as we
studied the pedestal. There was the ship that used to go round the horn,
with the torches that suggested civilization, and, at the back of the
pedestal, the flaming sun that celebrated the Golden Gate.
In the rotunda we found Paul Bartlett, represented again by the
equestrian statue of Lafayette, in full uniform, advancing sword in the
air. It unquestionably had a magnificent setting, though it suffered by
being surrounded by so many disturbing interests. "The director of the
Fine Arts Department cared enough about this figure to have it
duplicated for the Exposition. It's a good example of the old-fashioned
heroic sculpture, where the subjects take conventional dramatic
attitudes."
The ceiling of the rotunda displayed those much-discussed murals by
Robert Reid. Up there they seemed like pale reflections. "You should
have seen them when they were in Machinery Hall. Then they were
magnificent. But the instant they were put in place it was plain that
the effect had been miscalculated. At night, under the lighting, they
show up better. Judged by themselves, apart from their surroundings,
they are full of inspiration and poetry. Only a man of genuine feeling
and with a fine color-sense could have done them. But in all this
splendor of architecture they are lost."
On examining them in detail we found that they covered an
extraordinarily wide range of fancy, graceful and dramatic, even while,
save in one panel, they showed an indifference to story-telling. One
group celebrated "The Birth of European Art," with the altar and the
sacred flame, tended by a female guardian and three helpers, and with a
messenger reaching from his chariot to seize the torch of inspiration
and to bear it in triumph through the world, the future intimated by the
crystal held in the hands of the woman at the left. Another, "The Birth
of Oriental Art," told the ancient legend of a Chinese warrior who,
seated on the back of a dragon, gave battle to an eagle, the symbol
relating to man's seeking inspiration from the air. "Ideals in Art"
brought forward more or less familiar types: the Madonna and the Child,
Joan of Arc, Youth and Beauty, in the figure of a girl, Vanity in the
Peacock, with more shadowy intimations in two mystical figures in the
background, the tender of the sacred flame and the bearer of the palm
for the dead, and the laurel-bearer ready to crown victory. "The
Inspiration in All Art" revealed the figures of Music, Architecture,
Painting, Poetry and Sculpture. Four other panels glorified the four
golds of California, gold, wheat, poppies and oranges, a happy idea,
providing opportunities for the splendid use of color.
"It's a pity those murals couldn't have been tried out up there and then
taken down and done over," said the architect. "But sometime they will
find the place where they belong, perhaps in one of our San Francisco
public buildings. They're too good not to have the right kind of
display."
"The Priestess of Culture," by Herbert Adams, one of the best-known of
American sculptors, eight times repeated, we felt, had its rightful
place up there and blended into the general architectural scheme. But
some of the other pieces of statuary might have been left out with
advantage.
Through the columns we caught many beautiful vistas. And those groups of
columns themselves made pictures. "What is most surprising about this
palace is the way it grows on you. The more familiar you are with it the
more you feel the charm. Maybeck advises his friends to come here by
moonlight when they can get just the effect he intended. In all the
Exposition there's no other spot quite so romantic. It might have been
built for lovers."