Part 7 (1/2)
VIII
The Court of the Four Seasons
As we entered the Court of the Four Seasons the architect said: ”If I were to send a student of architecture to this Exposition, I should advise him to spend most of his time here Of all the courts, it expresses for me the best architectural traditions Henry Bacon frankly took Hadrian's Villa for hisevery feature classic That half dome is an excellent example of a style cultivated by the Roroups of the seasons, by Piccirilli, screened behind the double columns, come frolih colu, his favorite pink, and McLaren has added a poetic touch by letting garlands of the African dew plant, that he e of, flow over from the top See how Bacon has used the bull's head between the flowers in the ornamentation, one of the most popular of the Renaissanceears of corn hang from the top of the coluures, carry the mind back to the days when the Romans made a sacrifice of the sacred bull in the harvest festivals This Thanksgiving of theirs they called 'The Feast of the Sacrifice' ”
Crowning the half doure of Nature, laden with fruits, by Albert Jaegers On the coluers, ”Rain,” holding out a shell to catch the drops, and ”Sunshi+ne,” with a palures of the harvesters carried out the agricultural idea with elemental simplicity in friezes that recalled the friezes on the Parthenon Here, on each side of the half-doood example of the composite column, a combination of the Corinthian and the Ionic, with the Ionic scrolls and the acanthus underneath, and with little huures between the two
What we liked best about this court was its feeling of intimacy One could find refresh by John McLaren His reen around the emerald pool in the center were particularly successful He had usedthe olive, the acacia, the eucalyptus, the cypress, and the English laurel
We lingered in front of these fountains, adroups and the play of water over the steps We thought that Piccirilli had been ” ”Of course, it's very conventional work,” said the architect, ”but the conventional has its place here It explains just why Milton Bancroft worked out those murals of his in this particular way He wanted to express the elemental attitude of mind toward nature, the artistic childhood of the race”
When we exaroups in detail, we found that they possessed excellent qualities They carried on the traditions of the wall-fountains so popular in Ro over steps The figures ell put together and the lines were good All of the groups had the surface as carefully worked out In ”Spring” the line of festooning helped to carry on the line leading to the top of the group There was tender feeling and fine workmanshi+p in ”Summer,” with the feminine and masculine hands clearly differentiated ”The ood lesson fro them what he himself elo, the iht and shade that are just as necessary in roups there is definite accentuation of the ures seeure of The Outcast, by the sculpter's brother, Attilio Piccirilli, that we shall see in the colonade of the Fine Arts Palace So less surfaces that excite ad those people who care for mere prettiness It is just about as adraph But the Piccirillis go at their work like genuine artists”
Those ard as somewhat too simple and formal ”After all,” said the architect, ”it's a question whether this kind of effort is in the right direction So often it leads to what seearded by some people as insincerity At any rate, the best that can be said of it is that it's clever i of the court and it gives bright spots of color Guerin has gone as close to white as he dared So he felt the need of strong color contrasts, and he got Bancroft to supply them And the colors are repeated in the the other decorations of the court It's as if the painter had been given a definite number of colors to ith In this e over the old Roman painters Their colors were very restricted In this court they ht have allowed more space for the murals They're not only limited in size, but in shape as well Bancroft used to call thee-stamps
In the entrance court we found Evelyn Breatrice Longman's ”Fountain of Ceres,” the last of the three fountains done on the grounds by woht the true note,” the architect reh I don't care for the shape But the figure itself is too prim and modish Somehow I can't think of Ceres as a proper old maid, dressed with ood deal of skill The friezeof those sharp lines that cut out the figures like pasteboard And these worotesque head down near the base, spouting out water” The architect glanced up and noticed the figure of ”Victory” on one of the gables, so often to be seen during a walk over the grounds ”There's ure than to the one here, and yet there's a certain resemblance between theed Victory of Saman has purposely softened the effect on account of the ht have been gestions in the Winged Victory more closely
There the treatnificent Both the Greeks and the Roure And it's often found a the ruins of Pompeii, which kept so close to Ro the entrance to the Court of the Four Seasons from Ryan's display of scintillators on the iiven John McLaren a chance to create another of these deep green masses that surrounded the pool It shut the court off fro, however, glimpses of the bay and the hills beyond
IX
The Palace of Fine Arts Fro to the Court of the Four Seasons, we started along another of those inner courts,by those Spanish doorways and by the twisted columns, a favorite of the Roh the Exposition,” the architect remarked, ”we are reminded of the Oriental fondness for the serpent Some people like to say that it betrays the subtlety and slyness of the Oriental people
But they admired the serpent chiefly because, in theirthings, a little roundabout perhaps, but often better than thedown as if from an eminence, stood, the Palace of Fine Arts The architect renificent conception in so co down into the courts, on what he called ”the main axis”
”It's the vision of a painter who is also a poet, worked out in terms of architecture Maybeck planned it all, even to the details He wanted to suggest a splendid ruin, suddenly co journey in a desert He has invested the whole place with an at and Greek in the refinement of its ornamentation That rotunda reminds one of the Pantheon in Ro of the acanthus and the fretwork and the frieze, by Ziestive of Greece Maybeck says that his mind was started on the conception, 'The Island of Death,' by Boecklin, the painting that the German people knoell as the 'Todteninsel,' and by 'The Chariot Race,' of Gerome”
The architect went on to say that the resereat artist could carry a suggestion into an entirely new realeneral scope of the work, and the chariot race gave the hint for that colonnade, which Maybeck had raceful by the use of the urns on top of groups of coluure of a woman at each corner He had used that somewhat eccentric scheh the construction Maybeck had defied the architectural conventions; but he had been justified by his success
My attention was directed to a group of columns at the end of the colonnade ”There's just a hint of the Roman Forum over there Perhaps it's accidental Perhaps it's developed from a picture way down in Maybeck's consciousness However, the idea of putting two coluether in just that way coreat French architect, Perrault, used it in the Louvre In the coain in the Court of the Universe
It gives great architectural richness”
People had wondered what McLaren had es he had made over there with his dew plant He had ns put into his hands Maybeck had intended the hedge to be used as a background fortrees that were to run up as high as the frieze, in this way gaining depth Through those trees the rotunda was to be glihs, were also to be planted along the edge of the lagoon, the water running under the leaves and disappearing
In the lagoon sere swi necks ”The old Greeks and Roh they would, of course, have found alien influences here,” said the architect ”They would have enjoyed the sequestration of the Palace, its being set apart, giving the i the approach long and circuitous”
”They ht have done more with the water that was here before they filled in,” I said ”It offered fine chances”