The Southwest Pavilion--or the Pavilion of the Discoverers, as it may
better be called, from the subject of the paintings with which it is
ornamented--opens immediately from the Southwest Gallery. The domed
ceiling is richly coffered and profusely ornamented with gilding,
except for a large central space in the form of a disc, which
contains a painted decoration. Below the dome are four tympanums,
also occupied by paintings. The walls are ornamented with paired
pilasters, bearing a narrow frieze decorated with lions’ heads and
festoons of garlands.
=Mr. Pratt’s Bas-Reliefs.=--In the pendentives is a series of four
large circular plaques in relief, representing _The Seasons_. The
series, which is repeated in each of the other three pavilions, is
the work of Mr. Bela L. Pratt. _Spring_ is the figure of a girl
sowing the seed, her garment blown into graceful swirls by the early
winds of March. _Summer_ is a maturer figure, sitting, quiet and
thoughtful, in a field of poppies. _Autumn_ is a mother nursing
a baby. An older child--a little boy--stands beside her, and the
abundance and fruitfulness of the season are still further typified
in the ripe bunches of grapes which hang from the vine. _Winter_
is an old woman gathering faggots for the hearth. Behind her is a
leafless tree, on which is perched an owl. A garland appropriate to
the season hangs over each of the four plaques--fruits for _Spring_
and _Summer_, grains for _Autumn_, and oak leaves and acorns for
_Winter_.
[Illustration: CENTRAL GROUP OF DISCOVERY.--GEORGE W. MAYNARD.]
=Mr. Maynard’s Paintings.=--The paintings in the tympanums and the
disc are the work of Mr. George W. Maynard, whose panels in the
Main Entrance Hall have already been described. In the tympanums
the sequence of Mr. Maynard’s subjects begins on the east side
and continues to the right, as follows: _Adventure_, _Discovery_,
_Conquest_, _Civilization_--the bold roving spirit of _Adventure_
leading to _Discovery_, which in turn results in _Conquest_, bringing
at last a settled occupation of the land and final _Civilization_.
In the disc of the ceiling, Mr. Maynard has depicted the four
qualities most appropriate to these four stages of a country’s
development--Courage, Valor, Fortitude, and Achievement.
Since the tympanums are the same in shape and of the same size,
measuring each thirty-one feet by six, and since all stand in the
same relation toward the whole room, Mr. Maynard has followed
throughout a single method of arrangement. Each tympanum is over
three doors or three windows, as the case may be. In accordance,
therefore, with this exactly balanced architectural scheme, a
pyramidal group of three female figures--pyramidal because any
other form would have looked top-heavy--is placed above the central
opening. Balancing or, so to say, subsidiary figures, which, if only
from their position at the diminishing ends of the tympanum, are
necessarily of less importance, are placed over the doors or windows
to the side. Thus the decoration is poised in complete accordance
with the disposition of the wall which it crowns. The figures at the
ends, it will be noticed, are of two sorts, mermaids and emblazoned
shields; but since they alternate in pairs from tympanum to tympanum,
the shields occurring in the east and west and the mermaids in the
north and south, this variety serves very well to accentuate the
unity of the composition of the four paintings. The ornament, also,
is the same in its more important features: the throne in the centre,
flanked by cornucopias; the arabesque border with its dolphins,
suggestive of seafaring; and the lists of names of discoverers and
colonizers which occupy the spaces to the right and left of the
central group, and serve to draw together the whole composition.
It would be well if the visitor were to hold in mind these points,
for in the two following pavilions on this floor, where the
conditions governing the painter are exactly the same as in the
present room, it will be seen that the artists employed have followed
in their work the same orderly and logical plan of arrangement which
Mr. Maynard has here adopted.
In the first tympanum, Adventure, seated on her throne, holds in her
right hand a drawn sword, in instant readiness for the combat; her
left hand rests upon an upright caduceus, the emblem of Mercury,
the god of the traveller, merchant, and thief, and fit, therefore,
to be the patron of the restless adventurers who sailed westward in
the sixteenth century, impelled as well by a desire for booty as for
legitimate trade. To the right and left are seated female figures,
representing respectively Spanish and English adventure--the two
countries which furnished America with the largest part of its early
buccaneers and adventurers. Like the central figure, the two are
clad in rich and elaborate armor, accurately copied, as is that in
the other tympanums, from authentic sixteenth-century models. The
figure to the left, typifying England, holds a cutlass in her right
hand, while her left hand buries itself in a heap of pieces-of-eight,
the pirate and buccaneering coin _par excellence_. The companion
figure to the right holds a battle-axe in her right hand, and in
her left one of the little figurines, or miniature idols of gold,
which the Spaniards in Peru sought so eagerly, and with so much
cruelty, to secure from the natives. At either side of the throne is
a shield, on which an old Norse Viking ship, propelled by oars and
sail, is depicted. At either end of the tympanum is a shield, that
to the right bearing the arms of Spain, and that to the left those
of England. On the Spanish side of the decoration is the following
list of names of Spanish adventurers: Diaz, Narvaez, Coello, Cabeza,
Verrazano, Bastidas. On the other side is the English list: Drake,
Cavendish, Raleigh, Smith, Frobisher, Gilbert. Each group of names
is surmounted by the heraldic form of the naval crown, ornamented
with alternate sterns and squaresails of ships, which was given by
the Romans to a successful naval commander, or to the sailor who
first boarded an enemy’s ship. In either corner of the tympanum still
another emblem of sea-power, the trident, is introduced.
[Illustration: CEILING DISC.--GEORGE W. MAYNARD.]
In the second tympanum, Discovery, crowned with a laurel wreath of
gold and wearing a leather jerkin, sits on her throne, holding a
ship’s rudder in her right hand, and with her left upon a globe of
the earth, which is supported on her knee. The rude map of America,
which appears on it, is copied from a portion of a mappemonde, or
chart of the world, which was discovered a few years ago in England,
and which has been ascribed to Leonardo da Vinci. It dates from the
second decade of the sixteenth century.[12] The two seated figures
to the right and left are clad in armor; the first holds a sword
and “Jacob’s staff,” or cross staff, a device used by the early
navigators instead of a quadrant or sextant to determine the altitude
of the sun and stars. The figure to the left, with paddle and chart,
points towards the distance with outstretched arm, and turns to her
companions to beckon them onwards. The two shields at the foot of
the throne bear an astrolabe, an obsolete instrument used for the
same purpose as the cross staff. At either end of the tympanum, a
mermaid, with a seashell for cap, and with seaweed twined about her
body, invites the voyagers with strings of pearls and coral. Lists of
names occur at the left and right, surmounted, as before, with the
naval crown. The first list is: Solis, Orellana, Van Horn, Oieda,
Columbus, Pinzon; the second, Cabot, Magellan, Hudson, Behring,
Vespucius, Balboa.
In the third tympanum, that of _Conquest_, the idea expressed in
the central group is that of the proud tranquillity which follows
triumph in battle. The figures carry the insignia of victory. The one
seated upon the throne has pushed back her casque and lets her left
hand hang idly over the crosspiece of the sword. But there is still
danger of a renewal of the struggle; the right hand rests clenched
upon an arm of the throne, the armor has not yet been laid aside, and
the sword not yet sheathed. The figures to the left and right are
in a like attitude of readiness, though they carry in addition to
their swords the emblems of peace--the first, representing Southern
Conquests, a sheaf of palms; and the second, representing Northern
Conquests, chaplets of oak-leaves, which wreathe her casque and
sword. The two shields bear a heraldic representation of the Pillars
of Hercules, with the motto _Ne plus ultra_ twined about them, and
between them, in the distance, the setting sun--perhaps an ironical
allusion to the ancient idea which set the limits of the earth
at the Straits of Gibraltar, or perhaps simply an adaptation and
extension of it to the new conditions of knowledge. At the ends of
the tympanum the arms of England and Spain are again introduced, as
significant of the general division of North and South America into
English and Spanish territory. The names to the left are: Pizarro,
Alvarado, Almagro, Hutten, Frontenac, De Soto; to the right, Cortes,
Standish, Winslow, Phipps, Velasquez, De Leon. Over each group is the
battlemented mural crown given by the Romans to the soldier who first
succeeded in planting a standard upon the wall of a besieged city.
The fourth tympanum, _Civilization_, is the flowering of the other
three. The armor has been laid aside, and the three figures in the
centre are clad simply in classic garments. Civilization, crowned
with laurel and seated on her throne, holds up the torch of learning,
or enlightenment, and displays the opened page of a book--an idea
which is repeated in the lamp and book which compose the device on
the two shields below. To the left is _Agriculture_, crowned with
wheat, and holding a scythe and a sheaf of wheat. To the right is
_Manufactures_ with distaff and spindle, twisting the thread. The
mermaids at the ends of the decoration hold up, one an ear of corn,
and the other a branch of the cotton-plant bearing both the flower
and the boll--the two chief products respectively of the northern and
the southern portions of our country. The names are: to the left,
Eliot, Calvert, Marquette, Joliet, Ogelthorpe, Las Casas; and to the
right, Penn, Winthrop, Motolinia, Yeardley, La Salle. Over each list
is a wreath of laurel.
Mr. Maynard has represented in the ceiling the four qualities most
pertinent to the character of his four tympanums. All four are shown
as female figures, displayed against a background of arabesque.
The first, Courage--a brute, animal courage--is clad in a coat of
coarse scale-armor, over which a lion’s skin is drawn, the head of
the beast serving her for a cap. She is armed with a war-club and
a shield. The next, Valor, is a nobler figure, more beautiful and
wearing more beautiful armor. Her right hand holds a sword, and her
left is pressed to her breast. The third, Fortitude, is unarmed.
In her left arm she carries an architectural column, the emblem of
stability. Achievement, the last, is clad in armor, but is without
offensive weapon. She wears a laurel crown, and in her left hand
she carries the Roman standard, surmounted by its eagle and laurel
wreath, the symbol of a strong and just government. In the order
named, therefore, it will readily be seen how these figures may be
said to typify the successive tympanums of _Adventure_, _Discovery_,
_Conquest_, and _Civilization_.