From Mr. Dodge’s Pavilion, one goes into the Northwest Gallery, which
leads directly into the Main Entrance Hall once more. In dimensions,
arrangement, and general architectural scheme it corresponds to the
Southwest Gallery, with which the visitor began his tour through the
Rectangle. The prevailing color, however, is red, and not blue, both
in the walls and in the coffers of the vaulted ceiling.
=Mr. Melchers’s Paintings.=--At either end, occupying the same
position as Mr. Cox’s decorations, and of the same size and shape, is
a painting by Mr. Gari Melchers, illustrating, at the north, _War_,
and at the south, _Peace_. The same subjects, it is interesting to
note, and as many readers will remember, were chosen by Mr. Melchers
for his decorations at the World’s Fair in Chicago. The present
paintings may be taken, therefore, as representing the development
and completion of a favorite idea of the artist.
In the panel of _War_, the scene represented is that of a chieftain
of some primitive tribe returning home with his clansmen across
a desolate tract of open country from a successful battle. He
is crowned with a wreath of laurel, and sits proudly astride a
magnificent white horse. A second horseman rides beside him, and
another a little behind. Three men carry a roughly constructed bier
on which they are bringing home the dead body of a warrior for burial
in his native soil. In the right-hand corner a woman kneels to care
for a wounded man who has just sunk exhausted to the ground. Behind,
a trumpeter sounds his horn, exulting in this dearly bought victory.
To the left two foot-soldiers carry shields emblazoned with devices
of primitive heraldry. One of them holds in a leash two straining
bloodhounds, eager for their kennels, and leading the way toward home.
Mr. Melchers’s other painting, _Peace_, represents an early religious
procession. The inhabitants of some little village, perhaps in
prehistoric Greece, have come to the border of a grove bearing the
image of their tutelar goddess, a small seated figure set on a little
platform covered with an embroidered cloth. The procession has
halted, and the priest is reading from a paper which he holds in his
hand, containing, very likely, a blessing in the name of the goddess
upon the fields and orchards of the villagers. Various objects, one
of them the model of a ship, are carried in the procession to be
offered up as memorials in the temple of the goddess, and in the rear
a boy leads to the sacrifice a bull wreathed with garlands.
The following names--forming a list of the world’s most famous
generals and admirals--are inscribed in tablets above the doors and
windows of the gallery: Cyrus, Alexander, Hannibal, Cæsar, Charles
Martel, William the Conqueror, Frederick the Great, Charlemagne,
Eugene, Marlborough, Napoleon, Wellington, Nelson, Washington,
Jackson, Scott, Grant, Farragut, Sherman, and Sheridan.
[Illustration: WAR.--BY GARI MELCHERS.]