with toil are acclaimed. Its companion picture on the right represents
Achievement. The Mind that conceived the work is throned, the Sciences
stand at one side, while a figure crouching before the bearer of rewards
points to Labor as equally worthy.
On the west side of the arch, the central panel portrays the meeting of
Atlantic and Pacific, with Labor joining the hands of the nations of
east and west. In the panel to the left, enlightened Europe discovers
the new land, with the savage sitting on the ruins of a forgotten
civilization, the Aztec once more. On the right America, with her
workmen ready to pick up their tools and begin, buys the Canal from
France, whose labor has been baffled.
The two lovely fountains in the wings of the Tower draw their
inspiration from the days of the conquistadors. Mrs. Harry Payne
Whitney's Fountain of El Dorado is a dramatic representation of the
Aztec myth of The Gilded One, which the followers of Cortez, in their
greed for gold, mistook for a fact instead of a fable. (p. 54.) The
Fountain of Youth by Edith Woodman Burroughs finds its justification as
a part of the historical significance of the Tower in the legend of that
Fountain of Eternal Youth sought by Ponce de Leon. (p. 53.) The
interpretation of these sculptures is set forth in the chapter on
Fountains.
The Tower of Jewels epitomizes the Exposition's art. The glories of its
architecture, color, sculpture, painting, and landscape gardening all
find an expression here. In architecture it reflects something of almost
all of the orders found in the Exposition. In the main it is Italian
Renaissance, which means that the basic characters are Roman and Greek,
enriched with borrowings from the Orient and Byzantium. In column and
capital, in wall and arch and vaulted ceiling, it represents the
architecture of the whole Exposition, and so harmoniously as to form a
singular testimony to the unity of the palace scheme.
In color, from the dull soft gold of the columns of the colonnades on
either wing, through the vivid hues of Dodge's allegorical murals under
the arch, and the golden orange and deep cerulean blue in the vaulted
recesses, up to the striking green of columns on the upper rounds of the
Tower, the structure summarizes all the pigments which the master of
color, Guerin, has laid upon the Exposition.
In sculpture, the conquistadors in front, the hooded Franciscans and the
Spanish warriors who stand around the cornice, the corner figures on the
Tower above, and, finally, the great globe on top, repeat in varied form
the themes of palace, court, facade, and entrance. It has its own
fountains in its own little courts.
Then, as a final touch to complete this epitome of Exposition art, the
dark cypresses set in the niches on either side of the openings of the
arch, gracefully express the debt the whole palace scheme owes to its
landscape engineer. In the original models of the Tower, these niches
were designed for vases. It was a happy thought that placed the
cypresses there instead.
VI.
The Court of the Universe
Most important of the three great courts of the "Walled City"--
A meeting-place of East and West--Roman in its architecture and
atmosphere, suggesting the vast Piazza of St. Peter's Triumphal Arches
of the Nations--Their types of the great races of Orient and Occident--
Fine mural paintings by Simmons and Du Mond--Fountains of the Rising
and the Setting Sun--Aitken's "Elements"--The "Column of Progress."
The court is the key to the scheme of the palace group of the
Exposition. Leaving out the state and foreign quarters, and the other
suburbs, and omitting the Fine Arts Palace and Machinery Hall, which,
from a purely architectural standpoint, are merely balanced ornaments
needed to complete the whole, the Exposition city is a palace of blank
walls enclosing three superb courts.
The court is an essential element of the Oriental architecture of the
Mediterranean, which provided the theme of the Exposition plan. There,
however, it is the patio, the place of the siesta, the playground of the
children. Here the courts have been made the chief architectural feature
of the group. There the courts are private. Here they are merely hidden.
The central court at the Exposition, the largest and the most splendid,
is the Court of the Universe. (See p. 63.) It is the most important,
too, in the story which its sculptures tell, and in its relation to the
purpose of the Exposition. Whether it is also the most beautiful is a
matter about which opinions differ. Many persons admire Mullgardt's
romantic Court of Ages beyond anything else, while others are in love
with the calm Court of Seasons. Paradoxically, the Court of the Universe
suffers from its very magnificence. It is so vast that the beholder is
slow to feel an intimate relation with it. The same is true of some of
the noblest sights in nature. First seen, there is something
disappointing in the Grand Canyon. There is too much in the view to be
comprehended until after many days. In this court, the visitor is
pleased with its splendid proportions, its noble arches, its rich
sculpture, the wonderful blending of its colors with those of sea and
sky; but the pleasure at first is of the intellect rather than of the
emotions. Like other big and really fine things, it grows on one. The
sweep of its colonnades is majestic, the arches are noble monuments, the
Column of Progress is inspiring, the fountains show a graceful play of
water, the sculpture is big, strong, and significant; the flowers of the
sunken garden are a glory long to be remembered.
The Court of the Universe is Roman in architecture, treated in the style
of the Italian Renaissance. Its commanding features, the Triumphal
Arches and the magnificent flanking colonnades are most Roman in spirit,
their Italian decoration appearing in the medallions and spandrels of
the arches, the garlands hung along the entablature of the colonnade,
and the interior adornment of the vaulted corridors. The columns,
including the huge Sienna shafts before the arches and the Tower of
Jewels, are Roman Corinthian, with opulent capitals, though not too
florid when used in a work of such vast extent. Most Roman of all is the
great Column of Progress, at the north end of the court.
McKim, Mead and White of New York, the architects, had the Piazza of St.
Peter's at Rome in mind when they designed this great sweep of
colonnades. There, too, they borrowed from the circle of saints the idea
of the repeated Star figure. The colonnade not only encloses the court
but is produced along the sides of the Palaces of Agriculture and
Transportation to form two corridors of almost Egyptian vastness. These
two features, the arches and the colonnades, here at the center of the
palace group, strike the Exposition's note of breadth. Their decoration
is the key to the festal richness of all the adornment.
By day the four entrances to the court are its finest features. Nowhere
in the whole Exposition is the air more gloriously free than around the
lofty arch and colonnades of the Tower of Jewels. Nowhere is the
sunlight purer, or the sky bluer, than over the broad approach leading
up from the glancing waters of the bay, past the aspiring Column of
Progress, and between the noble colonnades of the palaces on either
hand. From within the court, or from the approaches on east and west,
the triumphal Arches of the Nations impress one with the magnificence of
their proportions, their decoration, and their color. There the Oriental
hues of the Exposition are carried upward, to meet and blend with the
sky, and magically to make the heavens above them bluer than they really
are. (See frontispiece.)
There is little Oriental about the court, except the color and the group
of the Nations of the East above the Arch of the Rising Sun. The
colonnade is Corinthian, all the arches are Roman, the sculpture is
classic, the paintings are romantic, mystic,--the Court of the Universe
may properly hold all things. It is thus an arena for the expression of
universal themes, on which the nations of the East and West look down
from their lofty Arches of Triumph. With this key, the symbolism of the
sculpture in the court is easy. The Stars, by Calder, stand in circle
above the colonnade. The frieze below the cornices of the pavilion
towers represents the Signs of the Zodiac, by Herman A. MacNeil.
The graceful figures atop the two fountain columns in the oval sunken
garden are the Rising and the Setting Sun, by Adolph A. Weinmann. (p.
69.) In the east the Sun, in the strength of morning, the masculine
spirit of "going forth," has spread his wings for flight; in the west,
the luminary, now essentially feminine, as the brooding spirit of
evening, is just alighting. The sculptural adornment of the shafts is
detailed in the chapter on Fountains.
The titanic Elements slumber on the balustrade, one on either hand of
the stairways leading down on north and south into the sunken area. (p.
64.) On one side, on the north, the Elemental Power holds in check the
Dragon of Fire. The whole figure expresses the primitive terror of Fire,
a fear that still lives in the beasts. On the other side lies Water, the
roaring Ocean, kelp in his hair, Neptune's trident in his hand, by him
one of his fabled monsters. On the south, eagles of the Air hover close
to the winged figure of the woman, who holds up the evening star and
breathes gently down upon her people. Icarus, who was the first airman,
appears upon her wings. Opposite, rests Earth, unconscious that her sons
struggle with her. These remarkably expressive figures are the work of
Robert Aitken.
The youthful groups by Paul Manship upon the extremities of the
balustrade, on either hand of the eastern and western stairways,
represent Music and Poetry, Music by the dance, Poetry by the written
scroll. The sculpture is archaic in type,--an imitation of Greek
imitations of still earlier models.
The colossal groups on the Arches of the Nations symbolize the meeting
of the peoples of the East and West, brought together by the Panama
Canal, and here uniting to celebrate its completion. In the group of the
Nations of the East the elephant bears the Indian prince, and within the
howdah, the Spirit of the East, mystic and hidden. (p. 63.) On the right
is the Buddhist lama from Tibet, representative of that third of the
human race which finds hope of Nirvana in countless repetitions of the
sacred formula, "Om Mani Padme Hum." Next is the Mohammedan, with the
crescent of Islam; then a negro slave, and then a Mongolian warrior, the
ancient inhabitant of the sandy waste, a type of those Tartar hordes
which swept Asia under Tamerlane and Genghis Khan. On the left of the
Indian elephant are an Arab falconer, an Egyptian mounted on a camel and
bearing a Moslem standard, then a negro slave bearing a basket of fruit
on his head, and a sheik from the deserts of Arabia, all representing
the Mohammedans of the nearer East. Thus are figured types of the great
Oriental races, the Hindoo, the Tartar, which includes the Turk and the
northern Chinese; the Chinese stock of the south, the Arab, and the
Egyptian. Only the Persian is omitted, and possibly the Japanese, unless
that, too, is Mongol.
On the Arch of the Setting Sun, the prairie schooner is the center of
the group of the Nations of the West, on the top a figure of Enterprise,
the Spirit of the West. (p. 59.) On either side of her is a boy. These
are the Heroes of Tomorrow. Between the oxen rides the Mother of
Tomorrow. Beside the ox at the right is the Italian immigrant, behind
him the Anglo-American, then the squaw with her papoose, and the horse
Indian of the plains. By the ox at the left is the Teuton pioneer,
behind him the Spanish conquistador, next, the woods Indian of Alaska,
and lastly the French Canadian.
Three sculptors collaborated in the modeling of these groups, A.
Stirling Calder, Leo Lentelli, and Frederick G. R. Roth.
Of the Mural Paintings under the Arches of the Nations, the two by
Edward Simmons in the arch on the east are an allegory of the movement
of the peoples across the Atlantic, while those by Frank Vincent Du Mond
in the western arch picture in realistic figures the westward march of
civilization to the Pacific. Historically, the picture on the southern
wall of the Arch of the Nations of the East comes first. Here Simmons
has represented the westward movement from the Old World through natural
emigration war, conquest, commerce and religion, personifying these in
types of the people who have crossed the Atlantic. On the strand, beyond
which appear types of the navies of the ages, are the following: an
inhabitant of the fabled Atlantis, here conceived as a savage; the Greek
warrior, perhaps one of those who fared with Ulysses over the sea to the
west; the adventurer and explorer, portrayed as Columbus; the colonist,
Sir Walter Raleigh; the missionary, in garb of a priest; the artist, and
the artisan. All are called onward by the trumpet of the Spirit of
Adventure, to found new families and new nations, symbolized by the
vision of heraldic shields. Behind them stands a veiled figure, the
Future listening to the Past. The long period in which this movement has
been in progress is expressed by the dress of the travellers.
This might be called the Material Movement to the West, for the picture
opposite depicts the Ideals of that progress. Hope leads the way, though
some of the Hopes, shown as bubbles, were but Illusions. Then follow
Adventure, Art, Imagination, Truth, Religion, and the spirits of
domestic life. Simmons' work is characterized by grace and delicacy. The
pictures are pleasing as form and color alone, but without titles the
allegories are too difficult for people unaccustomed to interpreting
this kind of art.
Du Mond's two murals in the western arch are easier. They make a
continuous story. The first chapter, on the north side, pictures the
emigrant train, led by the Spirit of Adventure, leaving for the West,
while the second shows the pioneers reaching the shores of the Pacific
and welcomed by California. To express the many-sided development of the
West, Du Mond has portrayed individuals as the types of the pioneers.
Here are Junipero Serra, the priest; Anza, the Spanish captain who first
trod the shores of San Francisco Bay; Joseph Le Conte, the scientist;
Bret Harte, the author; William Keith, the artist; and Starr King, the
divine. The energy of these men has actually outstripped the Spirit of
Adventure. Du Mond's story parallels in a way that pictured by Simmons.
Color and composition are both exceedingly grateful to the eye.
The Column of Progress, outside the court, commands the entire north
front of the Exposition, as the Tower of Jewels does the southern. (p.
57.) Symmes Richardson, the architect, drew his inspiration from
Trajan's Column at Rome, an inspiration so finely bodied forth by the
designer and the two sculptors who worked with him, MacNeil and Konti,
that this shaft stands as one of the most satisfying creations on the
Exposition grounds. Its significance completes the symbolism of the
Exposition sculpture and architecture, as the joyous Fountain of Energy
at the other end of the north-and-south axis begins it. That fountain
celebrates the completion of the Canal. The Tower of Jewels with its
sculpture tells the historical story of the conquest of the western seas
and their shores. The Court of the Universe is the meeting place of the
Nations, come to commemorate the joining of East and West. From this
Court, a splendid avenue leads down to the border of the Western Ocean,
where stands the Column of Progress, beyond the Exposition. Both in its
position and in its sculpture the column signifies that, this
celebration over, human endeavor stands ready to go on to still vaster
enterprises on behalf of mankind.
The figure atop this Column is the Adventurous Bowman, past human
achievement behind him, seeking a new emprise in the West, whither he
has loosed his arrow. At his back is a figure of Humanity, signifying
the support of mankind. By his side is the woman, ready to crown his
success. (p. 58.) The question has often been asked, why there is no
string to the archer's bow. The sculptor properly omitted it, for, at
the moment the arrow leaves the bow, the cord is vibrating far too
strongly to be visible.
The cylindrical frieze below the Bowman represents the Burden Bearers.
This, with the Bowman, is the work of H. A. MacNeil. The spiral of ships
ascending the shaft symbolizes the upward course of man's progress.
Around the base is the frieze by Isidor Konti, on three sides striving
human figures, on the fourth celestial trumpeters announcing victory.
The whole signifies man's progress through effort. (p. 60.)
Yet the visitor must not look for a story in all the sculpture here or
elsewhere. Some of this art is merely decorative, fulfilling purposes of
harmony or completeness in the general mass. The winged figures by Leo
Lentelli on the columns before the Arches of the Nations are simply
ornaments, relieving, with their shafts, what would otherwise be too
sheer a wall in the structure. They may be angels or they may be genii.
Decorative, also, are the sculptured medallions between these columns,
and the Pegasi on the spandrels of the arch, the medallions done by
Calder, the Pegasi by Roth.
The caryatids in pairs of male and female surmounting the balustrade of
the sunken garden are merely lamp bearers. The spouting monsters in the
fountain pools are but ornamental, and so are the figures in relief
under the basins. Those at the base of the shafts are described in
detail in the chapter on Fountains. In the decoration of the entablature
of the colonnade, the skull of the ox repeated between the garlands
recalls the vicissitudes of the pioneers in their long march across the
continent.
The Court of the Universe, this huge Piazza of the Nations, is thus
all-inclusive. Within its vast oval is room for every theme. From it
lead the ways to all the Exposition. In spirit it is as cosmopolitan
as the Forum under the Caesars. Its art revives for us
"The glory that was Greece,
The grandeur that was Rome."
-
Inscriptions in Court of the Universe
I. Arch of the Rising Sun, east side of the Court.
(a) Panel at center of attic, west side of the Arch, facing the
Court:
The Moon Sinks Yonder in the West While in the East the Glorius Sun
Behind the Dawn Appears. Thus Rise and Set In Constant Change Those
Shining Orbs and Regulate the Very Life of this Our World.
--Kalidasa, India.
(b) Small panel at right of center, facing the Court:
Our Eyes and Hearts Uplifted Seem to Gaze on Heavens' Radiance.
--Hitomaro, Japan.
(c) Small panel at left of center, facing the Court:
They Who Know the Truth are Not Equal to Those Who Love It.
--Confucius, China.
(d) Panel at center of attic, east side of the Arch:
The Balmy Air Diffuses Health and Fragrance. So Tempered is the
Genial Glow That We Know Neither Heat Nor Cold. Tulips and
Hyacinths Abound. Fostered by A Delicious Clime the Earth Blooms
Like A Garden.--Firdausi, Persia.
(e) Small panel at right of center:
A Wise Man Teaches Be Not Angry. From Untrodden Ways Turn Aside.
--Phra Ruang, Siam.
(f) Small panel at left of center:
He That Honors Not Himself Lacks Honor Wheresoe'er He Goes.
--Zuhayr, Arabia.
II. Arch of the Setting Sun, west side of the Court.
(a) Panel at center of attic, east side of the Arch, facing
the Court:
Facing West From California's Shores--Inquiring Tireless Seeking
What is Yet Unfound--I A Child Very Old Over Waves Toward the
House of Maternity the Land of Migrations Look Afar--Look Off the
Shores of My Western Sea the Circle Almost Circled.
--Whitman, America.
(b) Small panel at right of center:
Truth--Witness of the Past Councilor of the Present Guide of the
Future.--Cervantes, Spain.
(c) Small panel at left of center:
In Nature's Infinite Book of Secrecy A Little I Can Read.
--Shakespeare, England.
(d) Panel at center of attic, west side of the Arch:
It is Absolutely Indispensable For the United States to Effect A
Passage From the Mexican Gulf to the Pacific Ocean And I Am Certain
That They Will Do It--Would That I Might Live to See it But I Shall
Not.--Goethe, Germany.
(e) Small panel at right of center:
The Universe--An Infinite Sphere the Center Everywhere the
Circumference Nowhere.--Pascal, France.
(f) Small panel at left of center:
The World is in its Most Excellent State When Justice is Supreme.
--Dante, Italy.
VII.
The Court of the Ages
(Officially called "The Court of Abundance.")
An artist's dream in romantic Orientalism--Mullgardt's own title for it
- His great "Tower of the Ages"--Mullgardt interprets his architectural
masterpiece--Brangwyn's splendid murals, "Earth," "Air," "Fire" and
"Water"--The "Fountain of Earth," by Robert Aitken, realism set amidst
the romantic.
The Court of the Universe is not Oriental, the Court of the Ages is. Not
in architecture, but in feeling, in the atmosphere with which the
architect has invested it, this court brings to mind those brilliant
lands of the Mediterranean touched by the East through the Moors. You
pass under its arcades and walk out into a region of the Sun, warm,
bright, dazzling. The architect, Louis Christian Mullgardt, has caught
the feeling of the South,--not the rank, jungle South of the tropics;
nor the mild, rich South of our own Gulf states; but the hard,
brilliant, arid South of the desert. This court expresses Arizona, New
Mexico, Spain, Algiers,--lands of the Sun. The very flowers of its
first gardens were desert blooms, brilliant in hue, on leafless stalks.
There are orange trees, but they, also, are trees of the Sun, smooth of
leaf, to retain moisture.
It is a court, too, of romance. It might be a garden of Allah, with a
plaintive Arab flute singing, among the orange trees, of the wars and
the hot passions of the desert. It might be a court in Seville or
Granada, with guitars tinkling and lace gleaming among the cool arcades.
It is a place for dreams.
The architecture has been called Spanish Gothic, but, according to the
architect, it "has not been accredited to any established style." We may
well be content to call it simply Mullgardt. The court is an artist's
dream, rather than a formal study in historic architecture; and it is
the more interesting, as it is the more original, for that. Except for
the central fountain, which, fine though it is as a sculptured story, is
out of harmony with the filigreed arcades around it, all the sculpture
in the court is, in feeling, an intimate part of the romantic
architecture. This portion of the art of the court is best considered as
decoration, finding its justification in the beauty it imparts to the
whole. It has genuine meaning, but what that is remains inscrutable so
long as the court is called that of Abundance.
Mullgardt called his creation the "Court of the Ages." He was overruled
because the officials deemed the name not in accord with the
contemporaneous spirit of the Exposition. They called it the "Court of
Abundance." In spite of the name, however, it is not the Court of
Abundance. Mullgardt's title gives a key to the cipher of the statues.
Read by it, the groups on the altar of the Tower become three successive
Ages of Civilization. (See p. 70.)
Tower of the Ages.--This is the most admired of all the Exposition
towers, and with reason. The originality, strength and beauty of its
design set it above anything else of the sort yet seen in America; and
the symbolism of its sculptures, which are the work of Chester Beach, is
of almost equal interest with the tower itself. At the base, on the
gable above the arch, rude of face and form, with beasts low in the
scale, are the people of the Stone Age. Above them is a mediaeval group,
the Crusader, the Priest, the Peasant Soldier armed with a cross-bow,
with similar figures on the side altars. Enthroned over all, with a
crown on her brow, is Modern Civilization, expressed as Intelligence. At
her feet are two children, one with an open book, symbolizing Learning;
the other, a boy with a part of a machine, representing Industry. The
supporting figures on the sides are the Man and Woman of the Present,
sprung from the earlier types. The delicate finials rising from the
summit of the tower express Aspiration.