The third of the second-story pavilions is the Pavilion of the Seals,
at the northeast corner of the building. The walls in this room,
it may be noted, are treated differently from those of the other
three pavilions. Instead of the frieze and the paired pilasters, one
has wall-surfaces covered with gilding and ornamented with painted
laurel-bands arranged in regular patterns recalling the designs of
the parterres of an old-fashioned garden.
[Illustration: FIRE.--BY R. L. DODGE.]
[Illustration: STATE AND TREASURY.--BY W. B. VAN INGEN.]
The paintings in the tympanums are by Mr. W. B. Van Ingen, and
illustrate the seals of the various Executive Departments of the
United States Government. The disc of the domed ceiling was designed
by Mr. Garnsey, and shows the Great Seal of the United States
surrounded by allegorical emblems.
=Mr. Van Ingen’s Paintings.=--As in the previous pavilions on
this floor, the general arrangement of the decoration is the same
in all four tympanums. In each the artist has introduced a low
terrace or wall of masonry running from end to end, thus serving
both to ballast the picture, as it were, and to bind its parts more
strongly together. A recess in the centre of the terrace allows
space for a circular tablet, painted to represent wood, about six
feet in diameter, or nearly the height of the tympanum. On this are
inscribed, as if in raised letters, one or more quotations from
the writings or speeches of great American statesmen. These were
selected by the Librarian, Mr. Spofford, mainly for their general
patriotic application, but, of course, as far as possible with some
special reference to the subject of the decoration. The border of
each tablet, as of the decoration itself, is a band of laurel-leaves,
suggested by the laurel-roll which outlines the disc of the ceiling.
On either side of the tablet is a female figure, seated against the
terrace, personifying a Department of the Government, in token of
which she supports a shield or cartouche on which the seal of that
Department is conspicuously displayed. The visitor will notice that
these figures (in this respect like Mr. Reid’s in the Entrance Hall)
illustrate the American type of woman, and wear modern gowns and not
conventional Greek or Roman drapery.
The two figures and the tablet between form the necessary central
pyramidal composition. For a limit and balance to the decoration the
artist has painted, at either end, a cypress-tree and, in all but
one of the tympanums, one or two nude children or geniuses, usually
engaged in some action which shall be useful in explaining the
purport of the picture, the meaning of which is still further brought
out, in most cases, by introducing into the background a well known
monument or building, or some conventional object, suggestive of the
functions of the Department represented.
The west tympanum is devoted to the Department of the Treasury and
the Department of State; the north tympanum to the Department of
Justice and the Post-Office Department; the east tympanum to the
Departments of Agriculture and the Interior; and the south tympanum
to the War and Navy Departments.
Half a tympanum is devoted to each. The Department of the
Treasury--to begin with the one first named in the above list--is
sufficiently indicated by the introduction of the Treasury Building
in the background. Two children are playing on the parapet, one
of them with his foot on a strong-box. The background of the
other portion of the tympanum--illustrating the Department of
State--exhibits the dome and west front of the Capitol and, to the
right, the Washington Monument. The vital thing about a nation--that
which it is the first business of a Department of State to help
preserve--is its independence. The Monument may be taken, therefore,
as standing for the establishment of that independence, and the
Capitol for its maintenance. A dog, typical of fidelity, lies in the
foreground. The cypress trees, it may be noted before passing to the
next tympanum, are introduced purely for their decorative effect, and
are without any symbolical meaning. In all the decorations they are
set in jars copied from Zuñi originals in the National Museum.
In the north tympanum, the figure of Justice is clad in ermine. On
the terrace is a high bronze standard, carrying a pair of evenly
balanced scales. The genius at the left holds a measuring rod,
for exact justice. In the other half of the painting, devoted
to the Post-Office Department, the genius is represented with a
pair of compasses marking out mail routes on a globe. Mercury was
the Messenger of the Gods, according to classic mythology, and a
bronze statue of him with his winged sandals, staff, and cap, is
appropriately set upon the stone terrace to typify the dispatch and
celerity of the Department.
[Illustration: CEILING DISC.--BY ELMER E. GARNSEY.]
Agriculture, in the next tympanum, is symbolized solely in the
fertile and well cultivated landscape which forms the background of
her portion of the decoration. The chief duty of the Department of
the Interior--to protect and control the Indians--is indicated in the
background of the other half of the picture by a representation of
the curious method of burial, if one may use the word, which prevails
among certain of the western tribes--the body, lashed to a few poles
for a bier, being laid away in the branches of a tree.
In the last tympanum, that of War and the Navy, the terrace is nicked
and shattered by the bullets of the enemy. The figure to the left,
representing the Department of War, holds a regulation army sword,
and the figure to the right a naval sword. To the left the two
children are engaged in combat; one is falling, stained with blood,
while the other presses upon him with a falchion, or Roman sword. The
corresponding composition to the right is much the same; the chief
difference being the trident which the victor aims at his opponent’s
breast. War is accompanied by a Roman standard adapted to an American
use by altering the old initials “S.P.Q.R.”--“The Senate and People
of Rome”--to “U.S.A.” In the background is Bunker Hill Monument in
Boston. On the other side are the masts of the recently constructed
battleship _Indiana_, and a rostral column of the same sort as those
used in the tympanum representing _Water_ in the Pavilion of the
Elements, but in this case copied exactly from the one erected in
honor of Commodore Decatur and afterwards removed to Annapolis, where
it is now. The inscriptions on the tablets in the four tympanums may
most conveniently be inserted here. In the west tympanum, that of the
State and Treasury Departments, the quotations are as follows:--
’Tis our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliance with
any portion of the foreign world.--WASHINGTON.
Let our object be our country, our whole country, and nothing but
our country.--WEBSTER.
Thank God I also am an American.--WEBSTER.