Part 8 (2/2)

The Palace of Horticulture as an illustration of French Renaissance architecture fascinated this observer, in spite of its overelaborateness ”It's hout Europe,” he said, ”and how it showed itself in art through the national characteristics French Renaissance and Italian Renaissance, though they have qualities in common, are very different

And you'll find marked differences even in the Renaissance art of the Italian cities, such as Rome and Florence and Venice But the Renaissance showed that no ht have been they were all stirred by a great intellectual and spiritual movement It was like a vast moral earthquake It nition of the relation of the past to the present and theof the relation for mankind It led to a new kind of self-emancipation and individualism It created art-forrounds In a sense it was a declaration of artistic independence”

”Is there really such a thing as independence in art?” I ventured to ask

The architect began to smile ”I'm afraid there isn't much independence

If there were this Exposition would not be quite so intiet into Mullgardt's Court of the Ages Then you'll find an answer to your question”

At this palace the architect found s in the whole Exposition done in what ht be called the conventional exposition spirit I like it i, but I should hate it as a public building that I had to see every day It's too fantastic In this place it serves its purpose But itlike the Golden Gate Park, where it would be close to nature Now this Exposition is very different from most of the enterprises of the kind that have taken place in Europe It is probably the most serious exposition ever knoith the possible exception of the one in Chicago If it were in a great European capital, for exaaiety But the builders here, though they have been gay in their use of color, have been treely for the sake of education”

The use of green on the building was unquestionably one of the , particularly when it suggested, as it so often did, old copper ”Toshade, far reen applied to Festival Hall And the suggestion of green in the dohtful But it's a pity they didn't use another kind of glass When people criticise Ryan for not doingeffects-in this dome they evidently don't know that a lass was sent and Ryan could do very little with it

In order to carry out his original plans Ryan would have to apply a coat of varnish to the interior of the dome, a rather expensive process

However, itto the South Gardens

Froreen colu too ative the sense of support ”Those coluet an effect of contrast That shade was one of the first of the shades he experimented with He tried it out on the sashes in Machinery Hall The French landscape painters used it a good deal in outdoor scenes, on trellises, for exaainst the deeper tones of the grass and foliage The notion that it isn't suited to columns seems to me unwarranted As a reen stone that have often been successfully used for columns in architecture, like malachite and Connenificent Connemara columns Of course, the use up there is theatrical, exactly as Guerin intended it to be People see as a scene painter He was recognized as one of the greatest scene painters of his tireat spectacle, and he ought to be judged according to what he tried to do It see He created a picture that was spectacular without being garish or cheap and that harnity and the splendor of the architecture One explanation of his success lies in his being so fond of the Orient, where the architects have worked in color as far back as we can go Every chance he makes a trip to the Orient and he comes back with a lot of Oriental canvases that he has painted there Only a lover of the Orient would have dared to put that orange color on the doot, almost wax-like He was careful not to apply, in most instances, more than one coat of paint He wanted it to sink in and to becoreatest of all artists, always trying to re”

As we looked up toward the center of the South Garden the white globes on the French laht the architect's eye ”Don't you remember how cheap they looked on the first days?” he said ”The trouble was that they were too white They seemed cold and raw So they were sprayed with a liquid celluloid to soften thee sho important detail is, and how carefully Guerin's depart on there was one remark that often used to be heard, 'It will never be noticed,' and a most foolish remark it was It showed that the people who ination Millions of eyes have been watching the details of this Exposition and very little has escaped notice”

A great croas pouring out of the afternoon concert in Festival Hall

The architect, as he looked on, re in Paris, isn't it? Or, perhaps, it'sin a lovely old French provincial city, where the theater is the chief architectural monument

It's hard for ed that kind of architecture for their theaters and opera houses It seeive the clue to the building The use of the word festival here is a little old-fashi+oned and

It doesn't mean e usually consider festivity It is essentially a concert hall, and the architecture ought to suggest concentration of sound by being built in a way that shallis obviously related to dissipation of sound No wonder the acoustics turned out bad and the interior had to be remodeled”

XII

The Half Courts

In front of the Court of Palms we stopped to admire Jaroup of sculpture in the Exposition ”It deserves all its popularity, doesn't it? It's finely iined and splendidly worked out The pony is excellent in itsand the Indian is wonderfully life-like”

At our side a , the man more than six feet tall, with broad shoulders and a face that had evidently seen a good deal of weather ”I've known fellers just like that Indian,” we heard hiht be a Blackfoot after a couple of days' tusselling with the wind and the rain in the mountains I've seen 'em come into town all beat out The uess he knehat he was doing when he called it 'The End of the Trail”'

When the visitor had passed, the architect said: ”The syets them all, doesn't it; and the realism, too? But Fraser couldn't have expressed so much if he hadn't put a lot of heart into his 'Work He really felt all that the Indian represented, as a hu race”

”The Court of Palms” captured us both, by its shape, by the splendor of the Ionic colu and by that chararden ”You can feel here the mind that developed those four Italian towers It shows the sah they stand at either end of the court, and make a beautiful ornaive it dignity and variety And how artistically the palraceful of plants; but here they are really decorative And those laurel trees at the side of the main doorway make fine ornamental notes

The sculptured vases, too, are wonderfully graceful”