Entering by either of these three bronze doors, one passes
immediately through a deep arch into the Main Entrance Hall. It is
constructed of gleaming white Italian marble, and occupies very
nearly the whole of the Entrance Pavilion. By reason of a partial
division of the hall into stories and open corridors, and on
account of the splendor and variety of the decoration everywhere so
liberally applied, the eye is attracted to a number of points of
interest at once. The arrangement, however, is really simple and
well defined, as may be seen by looking at the plan on page 9. With
the exception of a portion of the attic story and of two or three
small rooms partitioned off in the southeast and northeast corners
of the first floor, the entire pavilion serves as a single lofty
and imposing hall. In the centre is a great well, the height of the
pavilion--seventy-five feet--enclosed in an arcade of two stories,
the arches of the first supported on heavy piers and of the second on
paired columns. The centre of the well is left clear; on either side,
north and south, is a massive marble staircase, richly ornamented
with sculpture. On the east side of the pavilion a broad passageway,
treated as a part of the general architectural scheme of the Entrance
Hall--though really an arm of the interior cross already referred
to--connects it with the Main Reading Room.
=The Vestibule.=--The arcades surrounding the well, or Staircase
Hall, as it would better be called, screen two stories of corridors.
The corridor which the visitor has now entered--the West Corridor, on
the library floor--serves as the general vestibule of the building,
and appropriately, therefore, is more sumptuously decorated than
any of the others. The most striking feature is a heavily panelled
ceiling, finished in white and gold--perhaps as fine an example of
gold ornamentation on a large scale as can be found in the country.
It is impressively rich and elegant without in the least overstepping
the line of modesty and good taste.
The corridor is bounded by piers of Italian marble ornamented with
pilasters. There are five piers on each side, those on the west
terminating the deep arches of the doors and windows, and one at
either end. It will be noticed that these piers, like all the others
on this floor, are wider than they are deep, so that the arches they
support are of varying depth--the narrow ones running from north
to south, and the deeper ones from east to west, invariably. This
difference of depth, both of the piers and of the arches, is apt to
be somewhat bewildering until one perceives the system on which it
is based, so that it may be well to add in this connection that the
same rule of broad and narrow, and the direction in which each kind
runs, holds good, also, of the corridors on the second floor, the
only variation being that paired columns, as has already been pointed
out, are substituted for piers.
=The Stucco Decoration of the Vestibule.=--Above the marble arches
of the Vestibule the wall with its ornamentation, and the whole of
the panelled ceiling, are of stucco. By the use of this material,
especially in connection with the gold, the architect has succeeded
in obtaining a warmer and softer tone of white than would have been
possible in marble.
[Illustration: THE MINERVA OF WAR. BY HERBERT ADAMS.]
Above each of the side piers are two white-and-gold consoles, or
brackets, which support the panelled and gilded beams of the ceiling.
In front of every console--and almost, but not quite, detached
from it--springs a figure of Minerva, left the natural white of
the stucco. The figures are about three feet in height, and were
executed from two different models, each the work of Mr. Herbert
Adams. They are skilfully composed in pairs: the first (the Minerva
of War) carrying in one hand a falchion or short, stout sword, and in
the other holding aloft the torch of learning; and the second (the
Minerva of Peace) bearing a globe and scroll--the former significant
of the universal scope of knowledge. Although thus differing, the
figures are of the same type; both wear the Ægis and the same kind of
casque, and both are clad in the same floating classic drapery.
Modelled in relief upon the wall between the two Minervas is a
splendid white-and-gold Greek altar, used as an electric light
standard. The bowl is lined with a circle of large leaves, from which
springs a group of nine lamps, suggesting, when lighted, a cluster
of some brilliant kind of fruit. Above the piers at either end of
the corridor is another altar, somewhat narrower and of a different
design, but used for the same purpose.
It should be noted that, for the most part, both in the ceiling
and on the walls, the gold has been dulled or softened in tone in
order to avoid any unpleasing glare or contrast with the white. This
effect, however, is regularly relieved by burnishing the accentuating
points in certain of the mouldings.
=The Marble Flooring.=--Before leaving the Vestibule, the visitor
may be interested to notice the design of the marble flooring. The
body of it is white Italian, with bands and geometric patterns of
brown Tennessee, and edgings of yellow mosaic. It will be seen at
once that the design is harmonious with the lines of the arcade and
the ceiling. These are not slavishly mimicked, but are developed,
varied, and extended. Sometimes a circle is used to draw together
two opposite arches; sometimes a square echoes the pattern of
the ceiling; lines of beaming--as they may be called in an easy
metaphor--connect opposite piers; and finally the boundaries of the
corridor are outlined in a broad border enclosing the whole. It has
been said that in hardly any other building in the country has so
much pains been taken by the architect to make the lines of his floor
designs consistent with those of the architecture and the general
decorative scheme. Throughout the Library, wherever marble or mosaic
is used for this purpose, the visitor will find this phase of the
ornamentation of the building of the highest interest and importance.
[Illustration: THE MAIN VESTIBULE.]
=The Staircase Hall.=--The floor of the Staircase Hall, into which
one passes next, is an excellent example of this point. Besides the
marble, the pattern contains a number of modelled and incised brass
inlays. The one in the centre is a large rayed disc, or conventional
sun, on which are noted the four cardinal points of the compass,
which coincide with the direction of the main axes of the Library.
The disc thus performs the same service for the building--only more
picturesquely and vividly--as an arrow-head cross for a chart or
plan. From the sun as a centre proceeds a great circular glory--or
“scale pattern,” as it is technically, and more descriptively,
called--of alternate red and yellow Italian marble, the former from
Verona and the latter from Sienna. Other inlays are arranged in a
hollow square, enclosing the sun as a centrepiece. Twelve represent
the signs of the zodiac; the others are in the form of rosettes,
in two patterns. They are embedded in blocks of dark red, richly
mottled, French marble, around which are borders of pure white
Italian marble.
=The Commemorative Arch.=--On the easterly side of the Staircase
Hall, on the way to the Reading Room, the regularity of the arcade
is interrupted by a portico of equal height, which does duty as a
sort of miniature triumphal arch, commemorating the erection of the
Library. The spandrels contain two sculptured figures in marble by
the late Olin L. Warner, the sculptor of the bronze doors previously
described. Along the frieze are the words LIBRARY OF CONGRESS,
inscribed in tall gilt letters. A second inscription, giving the
names of those concerned in the erection of the Library, is cut
upon the marble tablet which forms part of the parapet above. It is
flanked by lictors’ axes and eagles, sculptured in marble, and reads
as follows:
ERECTED UNDER THE ACTS OF CONGRESS OF
APRIL 15 1886 OCTOBER 2 1888 AND MARCH 2 1889 BY
BRIG. GEN. THOS. LINCOLN CASEY
CHIEF OF ENGINEERS U. S. A.
BERNARD R. GREEN SUPT. AND ENGINEER
JOHN L. SMITHMEYER ARCHITECT
PAUL J. PELZ ARCHITECT
EDWARD PEARCE CASEY ARCHITECT
=Mr. Warner’s Spandrel Figures.=--Mr. Warner’s figures in the
spandrels of this commemorative arch are life-size, and are entitled
_The Students_. Both figures--one in either spandrel--are represented
in an easy, but dignified and sculptural attitude, leaning on one arm
against the curve of the arch. That to the left is of a young man
seeking to acquire from books a knowledge of the experience of the
past. That to the right is an old man with flowing beard, absorbed
in meditation. He is no longer concerned so much with books as with
observation of life and with original reflection and thought. The
sculptor has thus naturally indicated the development of a scholar’s
mind, from youth to old age. As an ornament of the approach to the
Reading Room, the appropriateness of the figures is obvious.
[Illustration: AMERICA AND AFRICA.--BY PHILIP MARTINY.]
Within the arch, the pier on either side is decorated with a bit of
relief work, consisting of the seal of the United States flanked by
sea-horses, by Mr. Philip Martiny. It is Mr. Martiny’s sculpture,
also, which ornaments the staircase, the coved ceiling, and the lower
spandrels of the Staircase Hall. With the exception of Mr. Warner’s
figures, just described, and of a series of cartouches and corner
eagles which occupy the spandrels of the second-story arcade--the
work of Mr. Weinert--Mr. Martiny has this central hall to himself, so
far as the sculpture is concerned.
=Mr. Martiny’s Staircase Figures.=--The spandrels in the first story
are unusually delicate and pretty. The design comprises wreaths of
roses and oak and laurel leaves, with oak or palm for a background.
It is in the staircases, however, that Mr. Martiny’s work is most
varied and elaborate. On the piers between which they descend into
the hall, he has sculptured a striking female head of the classic
type, with a garland below and a kind of foliated arabesque on
either side. Upon the newel post which terminates the railing of
each staircase is placed a bronze female figure upholding a torch
for electric lights. The two figures are somewhat taller than life,
measuring six and a half feet, or eight feet to the top of the torch,
and ten feet including the rounded bronze base on which they stand.
Each has a laurel wreath about her head, and is clad in classic
drapery.
[Illustration: THE COMMEMORATIVE ARCH.]
Halfway up the staircase is a sort of buttress, which serves as a
pedestal for a group representing, on the south side of the hall,
Africa and America, and on the other side, Europe and Asia. The
four continents are typified, very delightfully, by little boys,
about three feet high, seated by the side of a large marble globe,
on which appear the portions of the earth’s surface which they are
intended to personify. _America_ is an Indian, with a tall headdress
of feathers, a bow and arrow, and a wampum necklace. With one hand he
shades his eyes while he gazes intently into the distance, awaiting,
one may fancy, the coming of his conqueror, the white man. _Africa_
is a little negro, with a war-club and his savage necklace of wild
beasts’ claws. _Asia_ is a Mongolian, dressed in flowing silk
robes, the texture of which, as the visitor will notice, is very
perfectly indicated by arranging the folds of the marble so that
they receive the proper play of light and shade. In the background
is a sort of dragon-shaped jar of porcelain. _Europe_ is clad in
the conventional classic costume, and has a lyre and a book; and a
Doric column is introduced beside him--the three objects symbolizing,
specifically, Music, Literature, and Architecture, and, more broadly,
the pre-eminence of the Caucasian races in the arts of civilization
generally, just as the dragon-jar on the other side of the globe
stands for the admirable ceramic art of China and Japan; and, also,
as the wampum and bow of the Indian indicate his advance in culture
over the stage of evolution typified by the rude war-club and savage
necklace of the negro.
The balustrade of the top landing on either side is ornamented with
the figures of three children in relief representing certain of the
Fine Arts. In the south staircase, beginning at the left as one looks
up from the floor, are _Comedy_, _Poetry_, and _Tragedy_. The first
has a comic mask and the thyrsus or ivy-wreathed wand of Bacchus, to
whom the first comedies were dedicated. _Poetry_ has a scroll, and
_Tragedy_ the tragic mask. Opposite, the figures, taking them again
from left to right, represent _Painting_, with palette and brushes;
_Architecture_, with compasses and a scroll, and behind him the
pediment of a Greek temple; and _Sculpture_, modelling a statuette.
[Illustration: DETAIL OF THE GRAND STAIRCASE.]
In the ascending railing of each staircase Mr. Martiny has introduced
a series of eight marble figures in high relief. These, also, are of
little boys, and represent various occupations, habits and pursuits
of modern life. The procession is bound together by a garland
hanging in heavy festoons, and beneath is a heavy laurel roll. In
the centre the series is interrupted by the group on the buttress
just described. At the bottom it begins quaintly with the figure of a
stork. Thence, on the south side of the hall, the list of subjects is
as follows: A Mechanician, with a cog-wheel, a pair of pincers, and a
crown of laurel, signifying the triumphs of invention; a Hunter, with
his gun, holding up by the ears a rabbit which he has just shot; an
infant Bacchanalian, with Bacchus’s ivy and panther skin, hilariously
holding a champagne glass in one hand; a Farmer, with a sickle and
a sheaf of wheat; a Fisherman, with rod and reel, taking from his
hook a fish which he has landed; a little Mars, polishing a helmet;
a Chemist, with a blow-pipe; and a Cook, with a pot smoking hot from
the fire.
In the north staircase are: A Gardener, with spade and rake; an
Entomologist, with a specimen-box slung over his shoulder, running to
catch a butterfly in his net; a Student, with a book in his hand and
a mortar-board cap on his head; a Printer, with types, a press, and a
type-case; a Musician, with a lyre by his side, studying the pages of
a music book; a Physician, grinding drugs in a mortar, with a retort
beside him, and the serpent sacred to medicine; an Electrician, with
a star of electric rays shining on his brow and a telephone receiver
at his ear; and lastly, an Astronomer, with a telescope, and a globe
encircled by the signs of the zodiac which he is measuring by the aid
of a pair of compasses.
[Illustration: THE STAIRCASE FIGURES.--BY PHILIP MARTINY.]
=The Ceiling of the Staircase Hall.=--Beneath the second-story
cartouches on the east and west sides of the hall are tablets
inscribed in gilt letters with the names of the following authors:
Longfellow, Tennyson, Gibbon, Cooper, Scott, Hugo, Cervantes. A
single moulding in the marble cornice above is touched with gold, as
an introduction to the rich coloring and profuse use of gilding in
the coved ceiling which it supports. The cove itself is of stucco,
and is painted blue--the color of the sky, which it is intended to
suggest--with yellow penetrations. These penetrations are outlined by
a heavy gilt moulding, and give space for ten semicircular latticed
windows opening into the rooms of the attic story. In the centre of
each penetration is painted a white tablet supported by dolphins, and
bearing the name of some illustrious author--Dante, Homer, Milton,
Bacon, Aristotle, Goethe, Shakespeare, Molière, Moses, and Herodotus.
In each corner of the cove are two female half-figures, as they are
called, supporting a cartouche, on which are a lamp and a book, the
conventional symbols of learning. The figures and cartouche are of
stucco, and were modelled by Mr. Martiny. Around them the cove is
sprinkled with stars. Higher up are the figures of flying geniuses,
two in each corner, painted by Mr. Frederick C. Martin, of Mr.
Garnsey’s staff.
Between the penetrations, the curve of the cove is carried upon
heavy gilt ribs, richly ornamented with bands of fruit. In the
spandrel-shaped spaces thus formed on either side, Mr. Martin
has painted another series of geniuses, which, by reason of the
symbolical objects which accompany them, reflect very pleasantly the
intention of Mr. Martiny’s sculpture in the staircases below. The
significance of most of the things they bear is obvious. Beginning at
the southwest corner, and going to the right, the list is as follows:
a pair of Pan’s pipes; a pair of cymbals; a caduceus, or Mercury’s
staff; a bow and arrows; a shepherd’s crook and pipes; a tambourine;
a palette and brushes; a torch; a clay statuette and a sculptor’s
tool; a bundle of books; a triangle; a second pair of pipes; a lyre;
a palm branch and wreath (the rewards of success); a trumpet; a
guitar; a compass and block of paper (for Architecture); a censer
(for Religion); another torch; and a scythe and hour-glass--the
attributes of Father Time.
The ceiling proper rests upon a white stylobate supported on the
cove. It is divided by heavy beams, elaborately panelled, and
ornamented with a profusion of gilding, and contains six large
skylights, the design of which is a scale pattern, chiefly in blues
and yellows, recalling the arrangement in the marble flooring beneath.
=First Floor Corridors: the Mosaic Vaults.=--The North, South, and
East Corridors on the first floor of the Entrance Hall are panelled
in Italian marble to the height of eleven feet, and have floors of
white, blue, and brown (Italian, Vermont, and Tennessee) marble,
and beautiful vaulted ceilings of marble mosaic. These last will
immediately attract the attention of the visitor. The working
cartoons were made by Mr. Herman T. Schladermundt from preliminary
designs by Mr. Casey as architect. The body of the design is in a
light, warm grayish tone, relieved by richly ornamental bands of
brown which follow pretty closely the architectural lines of the
vaulting--springing from pier to pier or outlining the penetrations
and pendentives. In all three corridors tablets bearing the names
of distinguished men are introduced as a part of the ornament, and
in the East Corridor are a number of discs, about eighteen inches
in diameter, on which are depicted “trophies,” as they are called,
emblematic of various arts and sciences, each being made up of a
group of representative objects such as the visitor has seen used to
distinguish the subjects of Mr. Martiny’s staircase figures.
The method of making and setting such a mosaic ceiling is interesting
enough to be described. The artist’s cartoon is made full size and
in the exact colors desired. The design, color and all, is carefully
transferred by sections to thicker paper, which is then covered
with a coating of thin glue. On this the workman carefully fits his
material, laying each stone smooth side down. The ceiling itself is
covered with a layer of cement, to which the mosaic is applied. The
paper is then soaked off, and the design pounded in as evenly as
possible, pointed off, and oiled. As the visitor may see, however, it
is not polished, like a mosaic floor, but is left a little rough in
order to give full value to the texture of the stone.
At the east end of the North and South Corridors is a large
semi-elliptical tympanum, twenty-two feet long. Along the walls are
smaller tympanums, below the penetrations of the vault. At the west
end, over the arch of the window, is a semicircular border. These
spaces are occupied by a series of paintings--in the North Corridor
by Mr. Charles Sprague Pearce, and in the South Corridor by Mr. H. O.
Walker. Like most of the special mural decorations in the Library,
they are executed in oils on canvas, which is afterwards affixed to
the wall by a composition of whitelead.
=Mr. Pearce’s Paintings.=--Mr. Pearce’s decorations are seven in
number. The subject of the large tympanum at the east end is _The
Family_.[6] The smaller panels along the north wall, taking them
from left to right, are entitled _Religion_, _Labor_, _Study_, and
_Recreation_. The single painting on the south side of the corridor,
occurring opposite the panel of _Recreation_, represents _Rest_. The
broad, arched border at the west end contains two female figures
floating in the air and holding between them a large scroll on which
is inscribed the sentence, from Confucius: “Give instruction unto
those who cannot procure it for themselves.”
[Illustration: THE NORTH CORRIDOR.--MAIN ENTRANCE HALL.]
The series, as seen by the list of titles just given, illustrates
the main phases of a pleasant and well-ordered life. The whole
represents the kind of idyllic existence so often imagined by the
poets--showing a people living in an Arcadian country in a state of
primitive simplicity, but possessing the arts and habits of a refined
cultivation. This life is very well summed up in the first of Mr.
Pearce’s paintings--that representing _The Family_. The subject is
the return of the head of the household to his family, after a day
spent in hunting. He stands in the centre, his bow not yet unstrung,
receiving a welcome home. His aged mother, with her hands clasped
over the head of her staff, looks up from the rock on which she
is sitting, and the gray-bearded father lays aside the scroll in
which he has been reading. The hunter’s little girl has hold of his
garment, and his wife holds out his baby son. An older daughter leans
her elbow against a tree. The scene is in the open air, at the mouth
of a cave, with a view beyond into a wooded valley bounded by high
mountains.
The smaller tympanums illustrate the simple occupations and
relaxations of such an existence as is here depicted. _Recreation_
shows two girls in a glade of the forest playing upon a pipe and a
tambourine. In the panel of _Study_, a girl, sitting with her younger
companion on a great rock, is instructing her with the aid of a book
and compasses and paper. _Labor_ is represented by two young men
working in the fields. One is removing the stump of a tree, and the
other is turning over the newly cleared soil to fit it for planting.
In _Religion_, a young man and a girl are kneeling before a blazing
altar constructed of two stones, one set upon the other. In _Rest_,
two young women are sitting quietly beside a pool, where they have
come with their earthen jars for water.
The penetrations in the vault of Mr. Pearce’s corridor contain the
names of men distinguished for their work in furthering the cause of
education: Froebel, Pestalozzi, Comenius, Ascham, Howe, Gallaudet,
Mann, Arnold, Spencer. It is of some interest to note that among the
hundreds of names inscribed in the Library only three are those of
men still living. Herbert Spencer, the last-named in the list just
given, is one, and the other two are Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas
A. Edison.
[Illustration: RELIGION--BY CHARLES SPRAGUE PEARCE.]
=Mr. Walker’s Paintings.=--The general subject of Mr. Walker’s
decorations is _Lyric Poetry_. Like Mr. Pearce’s, in the
corresponding position, the painting in the large tympanum at the
east end of the corridor sums up in a general way the subject of
the whole series. The scene is a wood, with a vista beyond into a
wide and open champagne. Down the centre a brook comes tumbling and
splashing over its rocky bed. Although wild, and thus suggestive,
perhaps, of the inspiration of poetry, the landscape purposely
has, as a whole, a touch of artfulness, hinting therefore at the
formalities of metre and rhyme. The titles of the figures which enter
into the composition--all, with one exception, those of women--are
named in the conventional border with which the artist has enclosed
his painting. The figure standing boldly forward in the centre
represents Lyric Poetry. She is crowned with a wreath of laurel, and
is touching the strings of a lyre. The feelings which most commonly
inspire her song are personified on either side. To her left are
Pathos, looking upward, as if calling on Heaven to allay her grief;
Truth, a beautiful nude woman (the Naked Truth) standing securely
upright, and seeming by her gesture to exhort the central figure not
to exceed the bounds of natural feeling; and in the corner of the
tympanum, Devotion, sitting absorbed in contemplation. On the other
side of the panel are Passion, with an eager look, and her arms
thrown out in a movement at once graceful and enraptured; Beauty,
sitting calmly self-contained; and Mirth, the naked figure of a
little boy, inviting her to join his play.
For the smaller tympanums, Mr. Walker has taken single youthful male
figures suggested by various poems by English and American poets--on
the south side of the corridor, Tennyson, Keats, Wordsworth, and
Emerson, and on the north side, Milton and Shakespeare. Although
not always from lyrics, the general spirit of the scene selected is
invariably lyrical. The first painting shows Ganymede upon the back
of the eagle--the form taken by Jupiter when he brought the boy from
his earthly home to be the cup-bearer of the gods. The lines referred
to are in Tennyson’s _Palace of Art_:--
Flushed Ganymede, his rosy thigh
Half-buried in the Eagle’s down,
Sole as a flying star shot thro’ the sky
Above the pillar’d town.
The next panel represents Endymion, in Keats’s poem of that name,
lying asleep on Mount Latmos, with his lover, Diana, the Moon,
shining down upon him. The painter, however, had no special passage
of the poem in mind.
[Illustration: STUDY.--BY CHARLES SPRAGUE PEARCE.]
The third panel is based on Wordsworth’s lines beginning, “There was
a Boy.” A boy is seated by the side of a lake the surface of which
reflects the stars:--
There was a Boy; ye knew him well, ye cliffs
And islands of Winander!--many a time,
At evening, when the earliest stars began
To move along the edges of the hills,
Rising or setting, would he stand alone,
Beneath the trees, or by the glimmering lake;
And there, with fingers interwoven, both hands
Pressed closely palm to palm and to his mouth
Uplifted, he, as through an instrument,
Blew mimic hootings to the silent owls,
That they might answer him....
Then, sometimes, in that silence, while he hung
Listening, a gentle shock of mild surprise
Has carried far into his heart the voice
Of mountain-torrents; or the visible scene
Would enter unawares into his mind
With all its solemn imagery, its rocks,
Its woods, and that uncertain heaven received
Into the bosom of the steady lake.
For Emerson, Mr. Walker has selected the poem of _Uriel_,
representing the angel retired in scorn from his companions, on
account of the anger with which they have received his proposition:--
Line in nature is not found;
Unit and universe are round;
In vain produced, all rays return;
Evil will bless, and ice will burn.
[Illustration: GANYMEDE.--H. O. WALKER.]
In the selection of this subject, Mr. Walker has commemorated Emerson
in a very interesting personal way--for the poem was written soon
after the famous Phi Beta Kappa oration of 1838, and is understood to
voice Emerson’s feelings regarding the storm of opposition which that
address had called forth.
Milton is represented by a scene out of the masque of _Comus_--the
vile enchanter Comus (in the guise of a shepherd) entranced at
hearing the song of the Lady. The words which he speaks in the poem,
and which Mr. Walker seeks to illustrate in his painting, are as
follows:--
Can any mortal mixture of earth’s mould
Breathe such divine enchanting ravishment?
In Shakespeare, the artist has gone to _Venus and Adonis_, showing
the dead body of Adonis, killed by the boar, lying naked in the
forest. The painting refers to no particular lines in the poem.
The broad border at the west end is occupied by an idyllic summer
landscape containing three seated female figures and a youth--the two
figures to the left, one of them caressing a lamb, representing the
more joyful moods of lyric poetry, and the other two its more solemn
feelings. At the top is a streamer, with the words, from Wordsworth:--
The Poets, who on earth have made us heirs
Of truth and pure delight by heavenly lays!
In the mosaic of the vault are the names of lyric poets, six
Americans occupying the penetrations on the north side: Longfellow,
Lowell, Whittier, Bryant, Whitman, Poe; and the following English and
foreign or ancient lyrists along the centre of the vault and in the
south penetrations: Browning, Shelley, Byron, Musset, Hugo, Heine,
Theocritus, Pindar, Anacreon, Sappho, Catullus, Horace, Petrarch,
Ronsard.
[Illustration: LYRIC POETRY.--BY H. O. WALKER.]
=Mr. Alexander’s Paintings.=--In the East Corridor are six tympanums
of the same size as the smaller panels of Mr. Walker and Mr.
Pearce, by Mr. John W. Alexander, illustrating _The Evolution of
the Book_. The subjects are, at the south end, _The Cairn_, _Oral
Tradition_, and _Egyptian Hieroglyphics_; and at the north end,
_Picture Writing_, _The Manuscript Book_, and _The Printing Press_.
In the first of these, a company of primitive men, clad in skins,
are raising a heap of stones on the seashore, perhaps as a memorial
of some dead comrade, or to commemorate some fortunate event, or,
perhaps, merely as a record to let others know the stages of their
journey. In the second panel, an Arabian story-teller stands relating
his marvellous tales in the centre of a circle of seated Arabs. The
third shows a scaffolding swung in front of the portal of a newly
erected Egyptian temple. A young Egyptian workman is cutting a
hieroglyphic inscription over the door, while an Egyptian girl, his
sweetheart, sits watching the work beside him. _Picture Writing_
represents a young American Indian, with a rudely shaped saucer of
red paint beside him, depicting some favorite story of his tribe
upon a dressed and smoothed deer-skin. An Indian girl lies near him,
attentively following every stroke of his brush. The next panel
gives the interior of a convent cell, with a monk, seated in the
feeble light of a small window, laboriously illuminating in bright
colors the pages of a great folio book. The last of the series shows
Gutenberg, the inventor of printing, in his office: the master, with
his assistant beside him, examining a proof-sheet, and discussing
the principle of his great invention. To the right is an apprentice,
swaying upon the handle-bar of the rude press.
=Mosaic Decorations of the East Corridor.=--The various trophies
already spoken of as ornamenting the mosaic of the vault of the
East Corridor are ten in number, each occurring in one of the
pendentives, at the ends and along the sides. Below each are the
names of two Americans (only those actually born in the United States
being included) eminent in the art or science typified. The list of
trophies, with the names, is as follows: Architecture (the capital
of an Ionic column, with a mallet and chisel), Latrobe and Walter;
Natural Philosophy (a crucible and pair of balances, etc.), Cooke and
Silliman; Music (a lyre, flute, horn, and music-sheet), Mason and
Gottschalk; Painting (a sketch-book, palette, and brushes), Stuart
and Allston; Sculpture (the torso of a statue), Powers and Crawford;
Astronomy (a celestial globe), Bond and Rittenhouse; Engineering
(including an anchor, protractor, level, etc.), Francis and Stevens;
Poetry (a youth bestriding Pegasus), Emerson and Holmes; Natural
Science (a microscope and a sea-horse), Say and Dana; Mathematics (a
compass and counting-frame), Peirce and Bowditch. In the vault proper
is inscribed a list of names of Americans distinguished in the three
learned professions: under Medicine, Cross, Wood, McDowell, Rush,
Warren; under Theology, Brooks, Edwards, Mather, Channing, Beecher;
and under Law, Curtis, Webster, Hamilton, Kent, Pinkney, Shaw, Taney,
Marshall, Story, and Gibson.
[Illustration: THE MANUSCRIPT BOOK.--BY JOHN W. ALEXANDER.]
From the East Corridor, entrance to the basement may be had through
a little lobby with a domed mosaic ceiling under either of the main
staircases. At the north end of the corridor is the Librarian’s Room,
and at the south end are a toilet-room for ladies and a cloak-room.
The little lobby of the latter is especially bright and attractive,
with deep, velvety red walls, a high arabesque frieze, and ceiling
decorations of lyres and a disc containing a large honeysuckle
ornament.
=The Librarian’s Room.=--The Librarian’s Room is one of the most
beautifully finished of any in the Library. It is divided into two
by a broad, open arch, leaving the office proper on one side, and a
smaller, more private office, with a gallery above, on the other.
The fittings are in oak, with oak bookcases. The windows look out
upon the Northwest Court. The gallery has a groined ceiling, and
over the main office is a shallow dome, with stucco ornamentation
in low relief by Mr. Weinert. Standing in a ring around a central
disc are the figures of Grecian girls, from two slightly differing
models, holding a continuous garland. Other ornaments are gilded
tablets and square or hexagonal panels, bearing an owl, a book, or
an antique lamp. The central disc is occupied by a painting by Mr.
Edward J. Holslag, already spoken of as the foreman of Mr. Garnsey’s
staff, representing _Letters_--the seated figure of a beautiful woman
holding a scroll in her hand and accompanied by a child with a torch.
The following Latin sentence is inscribed in a streamer: _Litera
scripta manet_.
[Illustration: THE PRINTING-PRESS.--BY JOHN W. ALEXANDER.]
In the pendentives of the dome, Mr. Weinert has modelled a figure,
about two feet in height, of a boy holding a palm-branch and blowing
a trumpet. Like the ring of girls in the dome, the figures are of
an alternating design. Above each is a circular panel with the
half-length figure of a woman, painted by Mr. Holslag. The four
decorations are intended to supplement, in a general way, the idea of
Mr. Holslag’s ceiling disc; one of the figures, for example, holds a
book, another a lute (for the musical quality of literature), and so
on. Each painting contains a Latin inscription, as follows:--_Liber
dilectatio animae_; _Efficiunt clarum studio_; _Dulces ante omnia
Musae_; _In tenebris lux_.
The color scheme adopted for the room is chiefly green. A green tinge
is used in the dome to emphasize the outline of the ornament, and
green, on a blue ground, predominates in the arabesques contained
in the tympanums below. The design of these last--where complete,
that is, for the tympanums are variously intercepted by door- and
window-arches--is a pleasant little study of the evolution of the
poet. At the bottom, a little boy is playing a pastoral tune on his
oaten pipe; above, two little trumpeters blare at him to join them in
the joy of battle; and at the top, a fourth child, the full-fledged
bard, sits astride his modern hobby-horse. The centre of the
decoration shows either a Pegasus or a Pandora, the latter opening
the famous box containing all the ills which plague mankind, and only
Hope for a blessing.
=The Lobbies of the Rotunda.=--Beyond the East Corridor, and
separated from it by an arcade, is the broad passageway leading to
the Reading Room. The entrance for visitors, however, is by way of
the second story, the doors on the library floor being open only
to those desiring to consult books. The passageway is divided by a
second arcade into two transverse lobbies. The ceiling of each is
vaulted, with a mosaic design of much the same pattern as those in
the corridors already described.
The second lobby is the immediate vestibule of the Reading Room,
and contains the two main passenger elevators, one at either end.
They start at the basement and ascend to the attic story, where,
among other rooms, are a commodious and well-equipped kitchen and
restaurant for the use of visitors and students, and the attendants
in the Library.
=Mr. Vedder’s Paintings.=--The lobby contains five tympanums, of
the same size as Mr. Alexander’s, which are filled by a series of
paintings by Mr. Elihu Vedder, illustrating, in a single word,
_Government_. Small as it is, the little lobby offers the painter
one of the most significant opportunities in the whole interior;
work here placed, in an apartment of the Library which serves at
once as elevator-hall and as vestibule to the Main Reading Room,
can hardly fail to attract the attention of everyone passing
through the building. It could not be more conspicuous anywhere
outside the central Reading Room, and the selection of such a
subject as Government is therefore peculiarly appropriate. In
every sort of library the fundamental thing is the advancement of
learning--illustrated in the Reading Room dome, as the visitor will
see later--but in a library supported by the nation the idea of
government certainly comes next in importance.
[Illustration: A CEILING FIGURE. BY ALBERT WEINERT.]
The painting in the central tympanum, over the door leading into
the Reading Room, is entitled simply _Government_. It represents
the abstract conception of a republic as the ideal state, ideally
presented. The other tympanums explain the practical working of
government, and the results which follow a corrupt or a virtuous
rule. The figures in these four tympanums are therefore appropriately
conceived somewhat more realistically. The decoration to the left of
the central tympanum illustrates _Corrupt Legislation_, leading to
_Anarchy_, as shown in the tympanum at the end of the lobby, over the
elevator. Similarly, on the other side, _Good Administration_ leads
to _Peace and Prosperity_. In all five, the composition consists of a
central female figure, representing the essential idea of the design,
attended by two other figures which supplement and confirm this idea.
In the first painting, _Government_, the central figure is that
of a grave and mature woman sitting on a marble seat or throne,
which is supported on posts whose shape is intended to recall the
antique voting-urn--a symbol which recurs, either by suggestion or
actually, in each of the other four tympanums. The meaning is, of
course, that a democratic form of government depends for its safety
upon the maintenance of a pure and inviolate ballot. The throne is
extended on either side into a bench, which rests, at each end, upon
a couchant lion, with a mooring-ring in his mouth, signifying that
the ship of state must be moored to strength. The goddess--for so,
perhaps, she is to be considered--is crowned with a wreath, and
holds in her left hand a golden sceptre (the Golden Rule), by which
the artist means to point out that no permanent good can accrue to a
government by injuring another. With her right hand she supports a
tablet inscribed with the words, from Lincoln’s Gettysburg address,
“A government of the people, by the people, for the people.” To the
right and left stand winged youths or geniuses, the first holding a
bridle, which stands for the restraining influence of order, and the
other with a sword with which to defend the State in time of danger,
or, if one chooses, the sword of justice--it may be taken either way.
The background of the group is the thick foliage of an oak tree,
emblematic of strength and stability.
[Illustration: MUSIC.--BY EDWARD J. HOLSLAG.]
In the second panel, _Corrupt Legislation_ is represented by a
woman with a beautiful but depraved face sitting in an abandoned
attitude on a throne the arms of which are cornucopias overflowing
with the coin which is the revenue of the State. But this revenue
is represented not as flowing outward, for the use and good of the
people, but all directed toward the woman herself. The artist’s
idea was that when revenue is so abundant, as here depicted, that
it greatly exceeds the needs of government, then government becomes
a temptation to all kinds of corrupt practices. The path in front
of the throne is disused and overgrown with weeds, showing that
under such a corrupt government the people have abandoned a direct
approach to Justice. With her right hand, the woman waves away, with
a contemptuous gesture, a poorly clad girl--representing Labor--who
comes, showing her empty distaff and spindle, in search of the work
which should be hers by right, but which she cannot obtain under
a government inattentive to the wrongs of the people. In her left
hand the woman holds a sliding scale--used as being more easily
susceptible of fraud than a pair of balances, and the proper emblem
therefore of the sort of justice in which she deals. A rich man is
placing in it a bag of gold; he sits confidently beside her, secure
of her favors in return for his bribe. At his feet are other bags of
gold and a strong box, together with an overturned voting-urn filled
with ballots, signifying his corrupt control of the very sources
of power. In his lap he holds the book of Law, which he is skilled
to pervert to his own ends. In the background are his factories,
the smoke of their chimneys testifying to his prosperity. On the
other side the factories are smokeless and idle, showing a strike or
shut-down; and the earthen jar in which the savings of Labor have
been hoarded lies broken at her feet.
The logical conclusion of such government is _Anarchy_. She is
represented entirely nude, raving upon the ruins of the civilization
she has destroyed. In one hand she holds the wine cup which makes
mad, and in the other the incendiary torch, formed of the scroll
of learning. Serpents twist in her dishevelled hair, and she
tramples upon a scroll, a lyre, a Bible, and a book--the symbols,
respectively, of Learning, Art, Religion, and Law. Beneath her feet
are the dislocated portions of an arch. To the right, Violence,
his eyes turned to gaze upon the cup of madness, is prying out the
corner-stone of a temple. To the left, Ignorance, a female figure,
with dull, brutish face, is using a surveyor’s staff to precipitate
the wreckage of civilization into the chasm which opens in the
foreground. Beyond, lying in an uncultivated field, are a broken
mill-wheel and a millstone. But the end of such violence is clearly
indicated; no sooner shall the corner-stone be pried from the wall
than the temple will fall and crush the destroyers; and beside the
great block on which Anarchy has placed her foot lies a bomb, with
a lighted fuse attached. Such a condition, says the painting, must
inevitably contain the seeds of its own destruction.
[Illustration: GOOD ADMINISTRATION.--BY ELIHU VEDDER.]
On the other side of the central tympanum, _Good Administration_
sits holding in her right hand a pair of scales evenly poised, and
with her left laid upon a shield, quartered to represent the even
balance of parties and classes which should obtain in a well ordered
democracy; on this shield are emblazoned, as emblems of a just
government, the weight, scales, and rule. The frame of her chair
is an arch, a form of construction in which every stone performs
an equal service--in which no shirking can exist--and therefore
peculiarly appropriate to typify the equal part which all should take
in a democratic form of government. On the right is a youth who casts
his ballot into an urn. He carries some books under his arm, showing
that education should be the basis of the suffrage. To the left is
another voting-urn, into which a young girl is winnowing wheat, so
that the good grains fall into its mouth while the chaff is scattered
by the wind--an action symbolical of the care with which a people
should choose its public servants. In the background is a field of
wheat, a last touch in this picture of intelligence and virtue, and,
in itself, symbolical of prosperous and careful toil.
In the last panel, that of _Peace and Prosperity_, the central figure
is crowned with olive, the emblem of peace, and holds in her hands
olive-wreaths to be bestowed as the reward of excellence. On either
side is a youth, the one to her right typifying the Arts, and the
other, Agriculture. The former sits upon an amphora or jar, and is
engaged in decorating a piece of pottery; behind him is a lyre, for
Music, and in the distance a little Grecian temple, for Architecture.
The other is planting a sapling,--an act suggestive of a tranquil,
just, and permanent government, under which alone one could plant
with any hope of enjoying the shade and fruit of after years. The
background of the picture is a well-wooded and fertile landscape,
introduced for much the same purpose as the wheat-field in the
preceding tympanum.
[Illustration: ANARCHY.--BY ELIHU VEDDER.]
Still another piece of symbolism is expressed in this interesting
series of pictures by the trees, their foliage forming the background
against which the central figure is placed. The oak in the central
panel has been spoken of. In the design representing _Peace and
Prosperity_, an olive-tree typifies not only Peace but Spring; in the
next panel, that of _Good Administration_, the tree is the fig, and
the season summer; in that of _Corrupt Legislation_, the autumnal
vine, hinting at a too abundant luxury, and with its falling leaves
presaging decay; and in that of _Anarchy_, bare branches and Winter.
=The Second Floor Corridors.=--Returning again to the Entrance
Hall proper, the visitor may most conveniently continue his tour
of the Library by ascending the Grand Staircase to the beautifully
decorated corridors of the second-story arcade, on his way to the
public galleries of the Main Reading Room. The corridors are arranged
like those which the visitor has already passed through on the
first floor, but their greater height and the brighter tone of the
decoration give an effect of considerably greater spaciousness.
=The Decoration of the Vaults.=--The floors of the corridors are
laid in mosaic of varying patterns. The ceilings are uniformly a
barrel vault, with pendentives--the same, that is, as those of the
North, East, and South Corridors below. The vaults are covered with
a painted decoration of Renaissance ornament which for variety and
interest is hardly surpassed anywhere else in the building. The
decorative scheme which has been adopted was planned throughout
by Mr. Casey, and elaborated, especially in the matter of color,
and carried into effect, by Mr. Garnsey, working under Mr. Casey’s
direction. In addition, each corridor contains, as a distinctive
accent of color and design, a series of paintings by a specially
commissioned artist--in the West Corridor by Mr. Walter Shirlaw,
in the North Corridor by Mr. Robert Reid, in the East Corridor by
Mr. George R. Barse, Jr., and in the South Corridor by Mr. Frank W.
Benson. In the side corridors, also, at the west end, the arch of
the vault is spanned by a broad band of stucco ornament containing a
series of octagonal coffers, ornamented in relief by Mr. Hinton Perry.
The decoration is varied, of course, from corridor to corridor,
in order to prevent any monotony of impression, but the main
principles on which it is based are everywhere the same. Thus the
color scheme--which was suggested in part by the beautiful Library
in Sienna--comprises in every corridor blue in the pendentives,
golden yellow in the penetrations, and a grayish white in the body
of the vault. The only exception to this rule is in the West and
East Corridors, which are terminated by double arches instead of
ending directly upon a wall. Here the end penetrations are red and
the pendentive yellow. The others remain as before. The delineation
of the spaces is at bottom very simple, and though more elaborate,
a good deal like that already noted in describing the mosaic in the
lower corridors. The penetrations are outlined by a bright colored
border, on which, where the lines converge to a point at the top,
rests a border of greater width, enclosing the entire vault in a
single great rectangle. This, in turn, is divided into compartments
by bands of ornament, varying in number according to the requirements
of the decoration, but always occurring immediately over the columns
of the arcade. These bands, coming where they do, perform a vital
service for the decoration in continually reminding the visitor, if
only by a painted arabesque, of the importance of the arch in such
a piece of construction as a vault. In the spaces between them are
garlands and wreaths, and panels for paintings and inscriptions--the
whole making part of one great arabesque, which is as easily
intelligible and coherent as it is various, but which would have been
bewildering in its wealth of ornament and color if it had not been
for the fundamental service performed by these various bands and
borders and broad masses of color.
The penetrations and pendentives are richly embellished with a
great variety of ornament, both conventional and otherwise. The
treatment differs in different corridors, however, on account of the
varying relative position of the paired columns which support the
arcade--from which results first a series of wide and then a series
of narrow pendentives. Where the former occur--in the West and East
Corridors--they are ornamented with the decorations of Mr. Shirlaw
and Mr. Barse; while the narrower pendentives on the north and south
carry simple medallions and tablets, and Mr. Reid’s and Mr. Benson’s
paintings find place in the arabesque of the ceiling vault and in
circular frames along the wall beneath. The balance is restored,
however, by introducing a series of medallions, corresponding to Mr.
Benson’s and Mr. Reid’s, though smaller and of less importance, in
the vaults east and west, and by ornamenting the penetrations in the
side corridors with greater richness and elaboration.
[Illustration: THE NORTH CORRIDOR, SECOND STORY, MAIN ENTRANCE HALL.
SHOWING DECORATIONS BY GEORGE W. MAYNARD AND ROBERT REID.]
=The Printers’ Marks.=--The most interesting decoration of the
penetrations, however, is a series of “Printers’ Marks” which is
continued through all four corridors. Altogether there are fifty-six
of them--sixteen in each of the side corridors, ten in the West
Corridor, and fourteen in the East Corridor. They are painted in
black outline, and are of a sufficient size, averaging about a foot
and a half in height, to be easily made out from the floor. By a
printer’s mark, it should be explained, is meant the engraved device
which the old printers used in the title-page or colophon of their
books, partly as a kind of informal trade-mark guarding against
counterfeited editions, and partly as a personal emblem, such as a
publisher of good standing would like to see on a long list of worthy
books. For this latter reason, and in order to be able to add an
interesting piece of ornament to the title-page, the mark has been
revived of late years by a considerable number of modern publishing
and printing houses.
Very often, as the visitor will see, the printer’s mark is, in its
way, a really beautiful piece of design; many have an interest as
being associated with the reputation of a famous printer like Caxton,
or Aldus, or Elzevir; while others depend mainly for their point
upon some special symbolical meaning, very frequently taking the
form of an illustrated pun. Thus, in the West Corridor, the mark of
Lotter--which means “vagrant” in German--is a mendicant supplicating
alms. In the South Corridor, the mark of Geoffroy Tory commemorates
the death of his little daughter--the broken vase, with a book
symbolizing the literary studies of which she had been fond.
There is no necessity, however, of describing the marks in detail,
for, with the exception of two or three American examples, they were
all taken from Mr. William Roberts’s _Printers’ Marks_ (London,
1893), in which they are illustrated and explained. Those thought
best adapted for decorative effect were chosen throughout, although
the marks of as many of the better known printers as possible were
included. Occasionally a border or a motto was omitted, but in the
main Mr. Roberts’s engravings were pretty exactly copied. In the West
Corridor the marks are mostly those of German printers; in the South
Corridor, French; in the East Corridor, Italian and Spanish; in the
North Corridor, English and Scottish and American.[7]
=Mr. Hinton Perry’s Bas-Reliefs.=--Mr. Perry’s bas-reliefs, at the
west end of the north and south vaults, have already been referred
to. They are four in number, and measure three feet eight inches from
one side to another. Taken as a series they represent what may be
called, for lack of a better title, _Ancient Prophetic Inspiration_.
The chief figure in each is a sibyl or priestess--Greek, Roman,
Persian, Scandinavian--in the act of delivering the prophetic
warnings which have been revealed to her in the rapture of a divine
frenzy. She is regarded as the mouthpiece of the god, and therefore
as the fountain of religion, wisdom, literature, art, and success
in war--all of which are typified, in one panel or another, in the
figures of her auditors.
[Illustration: PRINTERS’ MARKS.--CAXTON, TORY, LOTTER.]
Beginning in the South Corridor, the first panel shows the Cumæan
or Roman Sibyl. She is represented, in accordance with the ancient
histories, as an old and withered hag, whose inspiration comes from
an infernal, rather than a celestial source. Two figures, as in
all the panels, complete Mr. Perry’s group, one male and the other
female. The first is clad in the splendid armor of a Roman general;
the woman is nude, and stands for Roman Art and Literature. At her
feet is a box of manuscripts, and she takes in one hand an end of the
long scroll (representing one of the Sibylline Books, so famous in
Roman history) which the Priestess holds in her lap. The panel on the
other side of the arch represents a Scandinavian Vala or Wise Woman,
with streaming hair and a wolf-skin over her head and shoulders.
She typifies, in her bold gesture and excited gaze, the barbaric
inspiration of the Northern nations. To the left is the figure of a
Norse warrior, and to the right a naked woman lies stretched upon the
ground, personifying the vigorous life and fecundity of genius of the
North.
In the North Corridor, the subjects of Mr. Perry’s two decorations
are Greek and Persian Inspiration. The former is represented by the
Priestess of the world-renowned Oracle of Apollo at Delphi. She is
seated upon a tripod, placed above a mysterious opening in the earth,
from which the sacred fumes rise to intoxicate the Priestess, and
fill her with the spirit of prophecy. On one side of the panel, an
old man, standing for Greek science and philosophy, takes down her
words on a tablet; on the other is a nude female figure, personifying
Greek art and literature. In the second panel, that of Persia,
the face of the Sibyl is veiled, to signify the occult wisdom of
the East. A man prostrates himself at her feet in a fervor of
religious devotion, and a woman, nearly nude, stands listening in the
background. With her voluptuous figure and her ornaments of pearl and
gold--a fillet, anklets, armlets, and necklace--she represents the
luxuriance and sensuousness of Eastern art and poetry.
[Illustration: BOTANY. BY WALTER SHIRLAW.]
=Mr. Shirlaw’s Paintings.=--The subjects of Mr. Shirlaw’s figures
in the vault of the West Corridor are, on the west, beginning at
the left: _Zoölogy_, _Physics_, _Mathematics_, and _Geology_; and
on the east, again beginning at the left: _Archæology_, _Botany_,
_Astronomy_, and _Chemistry_. Each science is represented by a
female figure about seven and a half feet in height. The figures are
especially interesting, aside from their artistic merit, for the
variety of symbolism by which every science is distinguished from
the others, and for the subtlety with which much of this symbolism
is expressed. Not only is each accompanied by various appropriate
objects, but the lines of the drapery, the expression of the face
and body, and the color itself are, wherever practicable, made to
subserve the idea of the science represented. Thus the predominant
colors used in the figure of _Chemistry_--purple, blue, and red--are
the ones which occur most often in chemical experimenting. In the
pendentive of _Geology_, Mr. Shirlaw employs principally purple and
orange; the former is the ruling color in many of the more common
rock formations when seen in the mass and naturally; and the latter
is the color of the ordinary lichens one finds on boulders and
ledges. In the matter of line, again, the visitor will notice a very
marked difference between the abrupt, broken line used in the drapery
of _Archæology_, and the moving, flowing line in that of _Physics_.
In both cases it will be found that the line is in very complete
sympathy with the character of the science depicted. The method
of archæology is largely excavation carried on among sculptural
and architectural fragments. The swirling drapery of _Physics_ is
suggestive of flame and heat.
_Zoölogy_ is represented with a lion seated beside her, her hands
clasping his mane. She is the huntress and student of wild life, and
her body is powerfully developed, like an Amazon’s. She is clad in
the pelt of an animal, the head forming her cap, and in buskins of
skin. She stands on a rocky piece of ground, like a desert. The chief
colors employed in the pendentive are the typical animal colors,
browns and yellows.
_Physics_ stands on an electric globe, from which emanate rays of
light. She carries a torch in her left hand, and she holds up an end
of her drapery in her right in such a way that it seems to start from
the flame and flow in sympathy with it over her whole body, so that
it conveys the idea of the unceasing motion of fire. The same colors
as those used in the pendentive of _Geology_, purple and orange, are
used here also, but in this case standing, of course, for the colors
of flame.
[Illustration: MATHEMATICS. BY WALTER SHIRLAW]
_Mathematics_, the exact science, is represented as almost entirely
nude,--like “the Naked Truth” of Mr. Walker’s tympanum on the floor
below. Her right foot is on a stone block inscribed with the conic
sections, and on a shield which she holds are various geometrical
figures. Her scanty drapery is appropriately disposed in the severest
lines.
_Geology_, a sculpturesque figure, stands squarely and firmly upon
a mountain top, beyond which is seen the setting sun. A fold of her
drapery forms a receptacle for the specimens she has gathered. In her
left hand is a globe, and in her right a fossil shell. Her hair is
confined by a head-dress of bars of silver and gold. The embroidered
pattern of her garment has a suggestion of fossil forms and of the
little lizards which are found among the rocks.
_Archæology_ is clad in the Roman costume, and wears the helmet of
Minerva; the helmet is wreathed with olive, the emblem of peace,
which was sacred to Minerva, and is here used with special reference
to the peaceful character of the science, which can pursue its labors
only in an orderly society. The figure stands on a block of stone,
the surface of which is carved to represent a scroll, the ancient
form of book. A vase, copied from the manufacture of the Zuñi Indians
of New Mexico, stands beside her. In her right hand she holds a large
book, the pages of which she examines with the aid of a magnifying
glass in order to spell out its half obliterated text. Around her
neck is coiled a chameleon, whose changing hues are intended to
symbolize the varying nature of the theories she propounds.
The countenance of _Botany_ is expressive of a joyous sympathy with
nature. She stands on the pad of a water-lily, engaged in analyzing
its flower, the long stem of which coils gracefully about her body to
the water. Her drapery flows and breaks as a half-opened flower might
arrange itself.
_Astronomy_ holds a lens, such as is used in a telescope, in her
right hand, and in her left the globe of Saturn surrounded by its
rings--selected as being perhaps the best known and most easily
distinguished of all the planets. She stands on the sphere of the
earth, beyond which, to the left, is the quarter moon. The lines of
her drapery with their slow curves are suggestive, in a way, of the
orbits of the heavenly bodies. They flow in long lines, enveloping
her figure in the strength which proceeds from complete harmony.
_Chemistry_ is shown with her left foot placed upon a piece of
chemical apparatus and holding in her right hand a glass retort, in
which she is distilling a liquid. The necessary heat, manifested by
the ascending vapor which curls about the vessel, is from the mouth
of the serpent--the emblem of fecundity and life, breathing the
element of life, fire. The serpent is coiled about an hour-glass,
which is significant of the exact measurement of time necessary in
chemical experiments. The face of the figure is more worn, on account
of the anxious nature of her employment, than would comport with
the character of an out-of-door science like Botany or Zoölogy.
She is draped somewhat in the eastern manner, like a sibyl, thus
recalling the occult character ascribed to the science during the
Middle Ages--when it was called alchemy--and, for that matter, the
marvellousness of its results in the laboratories of to-day. A snake
wound as a fillet about her hair still further emphasizes this mystic
quality.
At either end of the corridor is a tablet bearing a list of names of
men distinguished in the sciences which Mr. Shirlaw has depicted;
at the north end: Cuvier, the Zoölogist; Linnæus, the Botanist;
Schliemann, the Archæologist; and Copernicus, the Astronomer; at the
south end: La Grange, the Mathematician; Lavoisier, the Chemist;
Rumford, the Physicist; and Lyell, the Geologist. In the penetrations
on either side of these two lists of names are the following
appropriate inscriptions:--
The first creature of God was the light of sense; the last was
the light of reason.
_Bacon._
The Light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth not.
_John_ 1, 5.
All are but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose body Nature is, and God the soul.
_Pope._
In nature all is useful, all is beautiful.
_Emerson._
Along the centre of the vault, three medallions by Mr. William B.
Van Ingen represent respectively _Sculpture_, _Architecture_, and
_Painting_. In each the art is represented by a female figure engaged
either in chiselling the features of a bust (that of Washington),
drawing the plan of a building, or painting at an easel.
[Illustration: TOUCH.--BY ROBERT REID.]
=Mr. Reid’s Paintings.=--Passing to the North Corridor, the attention
is at once attracted to the brilliant coloring of Mr. Reid’s
decorations in the vault and along the north wall. The former are
five in number, and represent the _Five Senses_. They are octagonal
in form, measuring within an inch of six feet and a half across. The
order of the subjects, beginning at the westerly end, is _Taste_,
_Sight_, _Smell_, _Hearing_, _Touch_. In each the sense suggested
is represented by a beautiful young woman, more of the modern than
the antique type of beauty, and clad in drapery which recalls
contemporary fashions rather than the classic conventions which are
usually followed by artists in their treatment of ideal subjects.
Being painted upon a ceiling, so that the visitor is required to
look directly upward in order to study them, the figures, though, in
a sense, represented as seated, are rather to be imagined as poised
in the air, without any special reference to the law of gravitation.
They are shown as supported upon cloud-banks, and the backgrounds of
the panels are sky and clouds.
The suggestion of the subject is as simply as it is ingeniously and
unconventionally conveyed. A large portion of this suggestion must be
looked for, of course, in the expression of the face and the attitude
as well as in the action of the figures. _Taste_ is shown drinking
from a shell. She is surrounded by foliage, and a vine grows beside
her laden with bunches of ripe grapes. She wears flowers in her hair,
and the idea throughout may perhaps be taken as that of the autumnal
feast of the wine-press. _Sight_ is looking at her reflection in a
handglass, and smiling with pleasure at the evidence of her beauty.
A splendid peacock, the emblem of beauty and pride in beauty, is
introduced beside her. _Smell_ is represented seated beside a bank of
lilies and roses. From this mass of flowers she has selected a great
white rose, which she presses to her nose. _Hearing_ holds a large
sea-shell to her ear, and dreamily listens to its roaring. _Touch_
is delightedly observing a butterfly which has alighted on her bare
outstretched arm--the touch of its tiny feet as it walks over her
flesh imparting an unaccustomed sensation to her nerves. A setter
dog, which she has just ceased from caressing, lies asleep behind her.
Mr. Reid’s subjects in the four circular panels along the wall are
entitled, in order from left to right: _Wisdom_, _Understanding_,
_Knowledge_, and _Philosophy_. Each is represented by a half-length
seated female figure--more solidly painted, but of much the same type
as the figures representing _The Senses_--holding a scroll, book, or
tablet. In the panel of _Philosophy_, a Greek temple is seen in the
background, emblematic of the Greek origin of philosophy.
[Illustration: HEARING.--BY ROBERT REID.]
Alternating with Mr. Reid’s ceiling paintings, is a series of
rectangular panels, in which are depicted, in low tones of color and
in a style somewhat suggestive of a classic bas-relief, a number of
ancient out-door athletic contests. Beginning at the west end of the
vault, the first of these represents a group of young men throwing
the discus. Then come _Wrestling_ and _Running_. In the fourth panel,
the athletes are being rubbed down by attendants, to clear them of
the sweat and heat of the conflict; and in the fifth, the successful
contestants are kneeling to receive the crown of victory at the hands
of a woman seated on a dais. The last picture represents the return
home, a tripping company of youths and maidens crowned with garlands.
The visitor will remember what was said concerning the special
enrichment of the penetrations in the side corridors for the sake
of compensating in a way for the absence of such decorations as
Mr. Shirlaw’s in the pendentives. In the present instance, this
enrichment takes the form of dragons and swans, which serve as
“supporters” of the panels containing the printers’ marks.
In the pendentives, tablets for inscriptions alternate with
medallions containing trophies of various trades and sciences. The
list of the latter, beginning at the left over the north wall,
is as follows: Geometry, represented by a compass, a protractor,
and a scroll, cone, and cylinder; Meteorology, the barometer,
thermometer, and anemometer; Forestry, a growing tree, and an axe
and pruning-knife; Navigation, the chronometer, log, rope, rudder,
and compass; Mechanics, the lever, wedge, and pulley-block; and
Transportation, with a piston, propeller, driving-wheel, and
locomotive head-light.
The inscriptions are from Adelaide A. Procter’s poem, _Unexpressed_,
and are as follows:--
Dwells within the soul of every Artist
More than all his effort can express.
No great Thinker ever lived and taught you
All the wonder that his soul received.
No true painter ever set on canvas
All the glorious vision he conceived.
No musician....
But be sure he heard, and strove to render,
Feeble echoes of celestial strains.
Love and Art united
Are twin mysteries, different yet the same.
Love may strive, but vain is the endeavor
All its boundless riches to unfold.
Art and Love speak; and their words must be
Like sighings of illimitable forests.
The only other decoration which there is space to mention is the
broad, semicircular border which follows the line of the vault on
the wall at either end of the corridor. At the east end, this border
is ornamented with a bright-colored arabesque, mainly in violet and
greens, with a medallion in the centre bearing a map of the Western
Hemisphere. At the west end, the border is plainer, with five
semicircular or circular tablets, two of which are ornamented with
the obverse and reverse respectively of the Great Seal of the United
States. The other three carry the following inscriptions:--
Order is Heaven’s first law.
_Pope._
Memory is the treasurer and guardian of all things.
_Cicero._
Beauty is the creator of the universe.
_Emerson._
=Mr. Barse’s Paintings.=--In the East Corridor, the pendentive
figures of Mr. Barse represent, beginning on the east side, at
the north end: _Lyric Poetry_ (entitled by the artist, _Lyrica_),
_Tragedy_, _Comedy_, and _History_; and on the west, again beginning
at the north, _Love Poetry_ (_Erotica_), _Tradition_, _Fancy_, and
_Romance_. The subject of the entire series, therefore, may be called
simply _Literature_. The figures, as the visitor will perceive, need
but little explanation. All are those of women clad in graceful,
classic robes, represented throughout as seated, and depicted with
little attempt at dramatic expression or action. _Lyric Poetry_
is playing on the lyre. _Tragedy_ and _Comedy_ have a tragic and
comic mask respectively, and _Comedy_ a tambourine. _History_ has
a scroll and palm-branch, and an ancient book-box for scrolls, such
as was used by the Romans, is set at her feet. _Romance_ has a pen
and a scroll. _Fancy_ clasps her hands, and gazes upward with a rapt
expression on her face. _Tradition_ wears the Ægis, and holds a
statue of the winged goddess of Victory in her hand--both introduced
as symbols of antiquity. _Erotica_ is writing on a tablet.
Along the centre of the vault, occupying a similar position to the
medallions in the opposite corridor, is another series of three
paintings, executed by Mr. William A. Mackay, which represent _The
Life of Man_. One will best understand the meaning of the paintings
by first reading the inscriptions which are placed immediately above
and below each medallion. On one side they refer to the ancient
allegory of the Three Fates, Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos--the first
of whom spun, the second wove, and the third cut, the Thread of
Life--and are as follows:--
For a web begun God sends thread.
_Old Proverb._
The web of life ... is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together.
_All’s Well that Ends Well._
Comes the blind Fury with th’ abhorred shears
And slits the thin-spun life.
_Milton._
On the other side the inscriptions, which compare the life of a man
to the life of a tree, are taken from Cardinal Wolsey’s speech in
_Henry VIII_:--
This is the state of man: to-day he puts forth
The tender leaves of hopes.
To-morrow blossoms.
And bears his blushing honors thick upon him.
The third day comes a frost, ...
And ... nips his root,
And then he falls.
Accordingly, in the present series, the first medallion shows a woman
(Clotho) with her distaff and a baby lying in her lap. The sun is
rising above the horizon, a sapling begins to put out its branches,
and near by is a little spring. In the next picture, Lachesis has a
loom and shuttle. The spring has grown into a river, and the mature
man bears in his hand a basket of fruit gathered from the abundance
of the full-grown tree, while the sun in the heavens marks the high
noon of life. In the last medallion the sun is setting, the tree has
fallen in ruin on the ground, and the stream has dried up. The man,
grown old and crippled, faints by the roadside, and Atropos opens her
fatal shears to sever the thread of his existence.
At each end of the corridor is a tablet containing the names of
eminent American printers, and men who have contributed to the
improvement of American printing machinery. At the north these names
are: Green, Daye, Franklin, Thomas, Bradford; and at the south,
Clymer, Adams, Gordon, Hoe, Bruce.
=Mr. Benson’s Paintings.=--Mr. Benson’s decorations in the vault of
the South Corridor and along the wall below are of the same size
and shape as those of Mr. Reid in the North Corridor. The arabesque
ornament of the ceiling is so arranged, however, as to allow space
for only three instead of five of these hexagonal panels. The subject
of the paintings they contain is _The Graces_--Aglaia (at the east),
Thalia (in the centre) and Euphrosyne (at the north).
[Illustration: COMEDY. BY GEORGE R. BARSH, JR.]
The three figures are almost invariably represented in a group, in
both ancient and modern art. Taken together, they stand, of course,
for beauty and graciousness, and typify, also, the agreeable arts and
occupations. In separating them, Mr. Benson has considered Aglaia
as the patroness of Husbandry; Thalia as representing Music; and
Euphrosyne, Beauty. The first, therefore, has a shepherd’s crook,
the second a lyre, and the last is looking at her reflection in a
hand-mirror. All are shown sitting in the midst of a pleasant summer
landscape, with trees and water and fertile meadows.
For the four circular panels Mr. Benson has chosen as his subject
_The Seasons_. Each is represented by a beautiful half-length
figure of a young woman, with no attempt, however, at any elaborate
symbolism to distinguish the season which she typifies. Such
distinction as the painter has chosen to indicate is to be sought
rather in the character of the faces, or in the warmer or colder
coloring of the whole panel--in a word, in the general artistic
treatment.
At either end of the vault is a rectangular panel painted in the same
style as those depicting the ancient games in the North Corridor,
but in this case representing the modern sports of _Football_ and
_Baseball_. The former, occurring at the east end of the vault, is
a more or less realistic picture of a “scrimmage.” The latter is
more conventionalized, showing single figures, like the pitcher and
catcher, in the attitude of play, and others with bats, masks, and
gloves.
Instead of the swans and dragons of the North Corridor, the printers’
marks in the penetrations of the present corridor are supported
between the figures of mermen and fauns, and mermaids and nymphs, the
male figures, with their suggestion of greater decorative strength,
occurring at the ends of the corridor, and the nymphs and mermaids
alternating between. Altogether there are thirty-two figures, each
painted by Mr. Frederick C. Martin.
On the pendentives, the series of trophies begun in the North
Corridor is continued, giving place, as before, in every other
pendentive, to a tablet bearing an inscription. Beginning on the
south side, at the east end, the trophies are as follows: Printing,
with a stick, inking-ball, and type-case; Pottery, three jugs
of different kinds of clay; Glass-making, three glass vases of
different shapes; Carpentry, a saw, bit, hammer, and right angle;
Smithery, the anvil, pincers, hammer, bolt, and nut; Masonry, a
trowel, square, plumb, and mortar-board.