Sculpture Of The Exposition Palaces And Courts Descriptive Note
Chapter 2
The ages have passed on and I more thoughtful have become, for mighty revolutions have gone on within my frame. My mind, a once too puny thing, has year by year grown stronger, until to-day I realize that feeble is my flesh - a thing to be abhorred, and mind does rule above all else. My very face which once was rude and lacked that fire that strong intelligence does give now has a steady purpose and fine spirit writ upon it. It is as if my flesh of old had dropped and like a cast-off cloak had fallen at my feet. Then come those days when tumult as of yore is waged within me, and then I grasp my new-made self and yearn to hold my old position within the body walls. Thought more strong than flesh does wield its strength and back I crouch beneath the feet to stay till Thought is off his guard again.
Victory
Louis Ulrich, Sculptor
Against the blue sky, with wings poised and draperies blown back, appears a Victory from every gable point of the palaces of the Exposition. She is positively charming in her sweep forward. Poised far above you, she holds the laurel wreath ready for the victor. Blessed Victories! We rejoice that there are so many of you for we have found so many victors. Sideview, against the clear blue sky, she suggests the great victory of Samothrace. Mr. Ulrich, we feel sure that the Lady Samothrace has exerted her subtle influence.
The Priestess of Culture
Herbert Adams, Sculptor
There are few sculptors with greater refinement or more cultured reserve than Herbert Adams. He understands the selection of the significant and in many ways seems most fitting to represent the Priestess of Culture. This figure at the base of the dome of the rotunda of the Fine Arts Palace, on the inside, is eight times repeated. Simple, dignified, beautifully balanced, with elegance expressed in every line of her garment with its rich border sparingly used, she holds in either arm an overflowing cornucopia, the symbol of what she is able to give you.
The Adventurous Bowman
Herman A. MacNeil, Sculptor
At the top of the Column of Progress where the sea-wind blows thru his locks, stands the Adventurous Bowman, the symbol of achievement. At the base of the column are seen figures representing the progress of men thru life. We watch them file past, but it is with this man of splendid daring, of consummate achievement, that we are most concerned. He has striven and has reached the top. He has only just pulled the chord of his bow, and his arrow has sped on. With confident eye he looks to see it hit the mark. The laurel wreath and palm of victory await his efforts.
Pan
Sherry Fry, Sculptor
You cannot look upon this little figure without feeling that he is inimitably charming. Pan, a god of the woodland, the symbol of the festive side of the Exposition, sits among the shrubs in front of Festival Hall. He has selected a marble capital on which to sit - quick reminder of those classic days when he roamed the Greek glades. Over the cold seat he has spread his fawn-skin. He has just been moving his lips over the pan-pipes, but a rustle among the leaves has caused him to pause in his melody. In the grass he sees a lizard which is as intent on Pan as Pan is on him. Care-free Pan with pointed ear and horned brow, we love thee, for dost thou not give us all our jollity and fun, the tonic for our daily walks!
Air
Robert Ingersoll Aitken, Sculptor
Robert Ingersoll Aitken has added to the cosmical meaning of the Court of the Universe his four elements - monumental, horizontal compositions of pronounced decorative effect. Air is the one of finest poetic feeling. She holds the star to her ear and listens to the music of the spheres. The eagle, the symbol of the air, is used with finely balanced effect. On her back are fastened wings, and man, puny man, is aiming, by attaching wings to himself, to overcome her - a subtle suggestion of airships.
The Signs of the Zodiac
Herman A. MacNeil, Sculptor
One of the loveliest gems of beauty in the Court of the Universe is Herman A. MacNeil's cameo frieze of gliding figures. In the centre, with wings outstretched, is Atlas, mythologically the first astronomer. Passing to left and right glide maidens, two and two, carrying their symbols - for these are the signs of the zodiac. These maids are the Hyades and Pleiades, the fourteen daughters of Atlas. It is as if the figures of some rare old Greek vase had suddenly distributed themselves along the top of the great piers. For absolute refinement, for a certain old Greek spirit in the Court of the Universe, these reliefs could not be excelled.
The Fountain of Ceres
Evelyn Beatrice Longman, Sculptor
The architectural side of the Fountain of Ceres, with its pleasing proportions, is most satisfying to the eye. It was a happy selection to place the Goddess of Agriculture between the Food Products Palace and the Palace of Agriculture. Ceres strikes the keynote of this delightfully beautiful court. With corn sceptre and cereal wreath, Ceres is poised on the globe, the winds of the Golden Gate blowing thru her drapery. Below on the die of the fountain are graceful figures in relief suggesting the decorations of a Greek vase. Eight joyous, happy creatures trip past you, some with tambourines, others with pipes sounding roundelays, or carrying festoons of flowers.
The Survival of the Fittest
Robert Ingersoll Aitken, Sculptor
This is the initial expression of martial spirit, when the first combat is seen and man by physical force seeks to override the power of his fellows. Far back in the childhood of history one finds, as often to-day is the case, that woman is the motive for the fray. Three combatants are here - the one on the right separated from the most powerful by the hand of her who loves him. The cause of the trouble stands at the left, steadfastly watching to see which of those that seek her is to be the victor. A glance tells you that he of powerful build in the center of the panel is to hold sway. He it is who is the most fitting survivor.
Earth
Robert Ingersoll Aitken, Sculptor
A very remarkable figure, her head hanging forward, lies stretched in slumber. It is the sleeping Earth. From her come the great trees whose ramifying roots extend in all directions. Man is seen wresting from her stone and precious metals. Wonderfully has Robert Aitken worked out the Mother Earth idea. She has brought forth many times and yet is ever young. It is keenly interesting to look at "Earth" and then at Michelangelo's "Night" to see the source of inspiration.
Wildflower
Edward Berge, Sculptor
At sight of your form, I seem now to see A bright stretch of color across a broad lea, Where the wildflowers sway to and fro in the breeze, Where the winds sing soft lullabies up in the trees Where all is as fresh, free and wholesome as you, Little Wildflower, blooming, so sweet and so true. And I come from the flight of my far-away dream As I look and I listen, to me it would seem That I hear a small voice in a most charming way Say, "Goodmorrow! Goodmorrow! Take time while you may, Just step up yet closer; I'll give you a chance To have something far sweeter than just a bright glance."
Appendix
The Sculptors
The planning, the placing, the naming of all this noble sculpture has practically been done by two men - the late Karl Bitter of New York, a man of great executive and technical ability as well as of immense inspiration, and A. Stirling Calder, on whom the honor for the great bulk of the work rests. Besides acting as personal overseer for the execution of the sculpture of the Palaces and Courts of the Exposition, Mr. Calder has designed the Nations of the Orient, The Nations of the Occident, The Fountain of Energy, The Stars, Column of Progress and its sculpture, and The Oriental Flower Girl. Since the sculpture is one of the strongest factors of this Exposition, we should extend to Mr. Calder our heart-felt appreciation of all that he has done to help make this Exposition such a wonderful, artistic success.
Robert Ingersoll Aitken
Robert Ingersoll Aitken was born in San Francisco in 1878. He was a pupil of Arthur F. Mathews at the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art and later of Douglass Tilden, the well-known California sculptor. He has done a great deal of very strong, compelling work. The examples of his sculpture seen at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition are of pronounced virility and of fine composition. He is a man who excels in technique. He has done in San Francisco the Victory for the Dewey Monument in Union Square, the McKinley Monument, the Bret Harte Monument and the Hall-McAllister Monument. In the Metropolitan Museum of New York is "The Flame." At the Fine Arts Palace are a number of works from his chisel - The Gates of Silence, the Gates' memorial, being by far the finest.
Herbert Adams
Herbert Adams was born in Vermont in 1858. He has had many advantages, not the least of which were the five years spent in Paris. While there he did the beautiful bust of Adelaide Pond, who afterwards became his wife. In 1890 he returned to America, becoming instructor in the Art School of Pratt Institute, Brooklyn. He has done a number of works for the Congressional Library, the Vanderbilt bronze doors of the St. Bartholomew Church of New York, the tympan of the Madonna and Child in the same church, a statue of William Ellery Channing and many others. His beautiful busts of women are said to be unsurpassed even in France.
Edward Berge
Edward Berge was born at Baltimore, Maryland, in 1874. He was admitted quite early in life to the Maryland Institute of Art, and the Rhinehart School of Sculpture of Baltimore, following this instruction by the usual finishing-off at Paris. He had the good fortune while in Paris to study under the great Rodin. He won bronze medals at both the Pan-American Exposition of 1901 and the St. Louis Exposition of 1904. His many very interesting fountain figures seen at the Panama, Pacific International Exposition have won deserved praise from the many who have seen them.
Solon Borglum
Solon Borglum was born in 1868 at Ogden, Utah. The greater part of his early life was spent on the plains of Nebraska, lassoing wild horses and photographing at the same time every detail of this strange life upon his brain. He spent a short time in California, where he began his life as an artist. Realizing his limitations, he went to the Cincinnati Art School, where he studied some time under Rebisso. It was while here that he spent all of his spare time on the anatomy of the horse. The time soon arrived for a sojourn in Paris. His "Little Horse in the Wind" excited pronounced attention at the Salon that first year abroad and honors were bestowed upon him as long as he remained in Paris. He has given the Indian the greatest attention, and is one of the best sculptors of the red man in the United States. He has but one group in the Fine Arts Palace - "Washington."
Edith Woodman Burroughs
One of the chief women sculptors of the United States is Edith Woodman Burroughs, born at Riverdale-on-the-Hudson, in 1871. She was a pupil at the New York Art Students' League under Augustus Saint-Gaudens, later studying in Paris with Injalbert and Merson. In 1893 she was married to Bryson Burroughs, a New York artist. She has made a specialty of fountain sculpture. No one who has ever seen her Fountain of Youth at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition can forget it. It will always be a source of regret that the appropriation for the Panama-Pacific International Exposition sculpture was reduced, thus preventing the public from seeing the speaking, simple groups of "Arabian Nights Entertainments." Mrs. Burroughs is represented at the Metropolitan Museum of New York by "John La Farge," a remarkably interesting portrait head, full of character. She has the power of speaking her language in a few words - but just the right ones.
A. Stirling Calder
The man at the wheel in the management of all the works of sculpture at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition has been A. Stirling Calder. He was born at Philadelphia in 1870. Having studied four years at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, he had the advantage of two years in Paris. For some time he has been connected with the Philadelphia School of Industrial Arts. He is a man of splendid imagination, of dignified and noble purpose, being one of the sincere men of his art who keeps the standards where they should be. One of his early works, "The Man Cub," in the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, is most original and interesting in its treatment. It stands a most unique figure in the line of sculpture. It is said that his "Martha W. Baldwin Memorial" is one of the best designs for a figure and pedestal yet produced in America. Mr. Calder lived some time in southern California and when there did the sculptured work on the portico of Throop Polytechnic Institute of Pasadena. This work was done by means of enormous castings made in fine concrete. Mr. Calder originated this method and it will probably be the means of revolutionizing the relief work done on many of the public buildings in the future. Mr. Calder's rare intellectual fiber, added to his accurate knowledge of his subjects, with his exalted outlook, has placed him among the foremost American sculptors.
James Earle Fraser
James Earle Fraser was born at Winona, Minnesota, in 1876. His father was a railroad constructor, so that the lad had a good chance in traveling around the country to study the free types and life of the West. Being very impressionable, he imbibed a great deal which he has turned to good account in his chosen work. At fourteen he started to carve figures from the chalk that conventionality required to be used on blackboard problems. At eighteen he entered the Chicago Art Institute, where he stayed for but three months. He soon went to Paris, going first to the Beaux Arts and later to the Colorossi and Julian Academies. He won many honors during his three years stay in Paris. In 1898 he won the prize offered by the American Art Association in Paris for the best work in sculpture. Augustus Saint-Gaudens was on the jury and immediately became interested in the talented boy who later on held the place of chief assistant in the Saint-Gaudens studio. He became instructor of the Art Students' League of New York in 1906, holding the position until 1911. He it was who made the new five-cent piece design - the Indian head on one side, the bison on the other. He is particularly interested in personalities, having done a number of very clever portrait busts. It is enough to look at the portrait bust of Mrs. Harry Payne Whitney's boy to realize what he is able to do in the line of portraiture. He has produced nothing finer in that line. He is a master of character records.
Daniel Chester French
Since the passing of Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Daniel Chester French has been regarded by many as standing at the head of American sculpture. He was born in Exeter, New Hampshire, in 1850. After having one year at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he studied with Doctor Rimnier of Boston, the first teacher of art anatomy in the United States. Later he studied with Thomas Ball of Florence, Italy, and a short time in Paris. He has been practically his own instructor. His work is of the noblest type. It is anatomically correct, of a high intellectual order, perfect technique and of fine imagery. His first important work was "The Minute Man" of Concord, Massachusetts. Among his many works are "Death and the Sculptor," "The Alice Freeman Palmer Memorial," the head of "Emerson" (which caused Emerson to say, "This is the head I shave"), "The Milmore Memorial," "The Alma Mater of Columbia College," and finest of all, the wonderful "Mourning Victory" in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Concord. His memorials are of high spiritual import.
Sherry E. Fry
Sherry E. Fry was born in Iowa in 1879. He has been most fortunate in having the best instruction, having studied at the Chicago Art Institute, the Julian Academy and the Beaux Arts of Paris, a year in Florence, and later with McMonnies, Barrias, Verlet and Lorado Taft. He has traveled extensively, so has had the opportunity of seeing the best that the world holds for the artist. He won the National Roman Prize in 1908 and held it for three years. He has been a careful student of the Indians. His work at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition is distinctly graceful and decorative.
Albert Jaegers
Albert Jaegers, a man who has taught himself his art, having fine powers of observation and much invention, was born at Elberfeld, Germany, in 1868. He has been an indefatigable worker, holding his art above all else. Solving technical problems by himself, studying the world around him with an intense love in all his undertakings, Albert Jaegers has come to be a power among his fellows. He has exhibited at several Expositions, has done considerable municipal work - the finest figure probably being his "Baron Steuben," of Washington - and many fine portraits. His "Uncle Joe Cannon" in the Fine Arts Palace, shows his power as a portraitist. His work has brought him decorations from the German Emperor.
Isidore Konti
A foreign sculptor living in New York, Isidore Konti has steadily risen in the excellence of his work until to-day he stands among the foremost American sculptors. He was born at Vienna, in 1862. His father's capture by the Viennese in the war against Hungary, where the father lived, and his subsequent compulsory connection with the Viennese army made the son, Isidore, long for the freedom of America. He came to America as a boy, living in Chicago. He exhibited at the Chicago Exposition in 1893, and later attracted much favorable comment at the Pan-American Exposition at Buffalo. His works in the Fine Arts Palace are of a very high order and are exquisitely modeled. The more sober life of the individual, with appreciation of sentiment and longing, are evident in his works.
Leo Lentelli
Leo Lentelli was born in Bologna, Italy, in 1879. He came to the United States in 1903, where he has been permanently located in New York. His most notable work is seen in the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, New York, where he has done "The Savior with Sixteen Angels" for the reredos. He has recently completed a group which has been placed over the entrance to the new Branch Public Library of San Francisco. He is still another of the sculptors who is self-taught.
Evelyn Beatrice Longman
Evelyn Beatrice Longman has risen constantly in her work since she took her first step in art at the Chicago Art Institute. She was born in Ohio of English parents, being one of six children. At fourteen she began to earn her own living in Chicago, studying at night at the Chicago Institute of Art. She saved her money, using it on her education at Olivet College. She returned to Chicago and studied drawing and anatomy. So clever was she that at the end of the first year she began to teach those subjects at the Institute. Later, she went to New York where she studied with Herman MacNeil and Daniel Chester French. She really made her debut in sculpture at the St. Louis Exposition, where she showed "Victory," a male figure which was so excellent in invention and technique that it was given a place of honor on the top of Festival Hall. In 1907 John Quincy Adams Ward offered a prize for the best portrait bust. This competition was open to all American sculptors. Charles Grafly won in the competition, but Miss Longman won the second place with her "Aenigma." Besides some excellent portraits, she has done two remarkable bronze gates at the entrance to the chapel of the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, and much fine figure work. Daniel Chester French says "She is the last word in ornament."
Herman A. MacNeil
Herman A. MacNeil was born in 1886, at Chelsea, Massachusetts. After graduating from the State Normal School of Massachusetts, he went to Paris, where he studied under Chapu of the Julian Academy, and two years under Falguiere of the Ecole des Beaux Arts. He came home and soon answered a call to Cornell, where he remained three years. Then three years were spent in teaching art at the Chicago Art Institute. While there, he taught Miss Carol Brooks of Chicago, whom he married in 1895. She is a very clever sculptor herself. Her "Listening to the Fairies," "The First Wave," "The First Lesson," "Betty," in the Fine Arts Palace of the Exposition, readily show how very charming her work is. Mr. and Mrs. MacNeil studied together in Rome for four years and on their return to America established themselves in New York, where the MacNeil studio is. He is the teacher of modeling of the National School of Design, New York. He has made a specialty of Indian subjects, "The Sun Vow," "The Coming of the White Man," and the "Moqui Runner" being some of his best pieces. To him the Indians are as fine as Greek warriors and most worthy of careful study. Whatever he does in sculpture is in its very essence national. He is extremely refined, a superb modeler and one whose every piece of work is strong and of the first rank.
Paul Manship
Standing quite apart from the other sculptors in his special joyous line of work is Paul Manship, a young man from St. Paul, Minnesota, born in 1885. He obtained the Prix de Rome from the American Academy, which prize allowed him to study in Rome and Greece for three years, from 1909 to 1912. His study in Greece gave a most interesting, individual touch to his work, for he united to his fresh, vigorous western style the classic precision of the Greek. He has a certain archaistic mannerism in his work recalling the Aeginetan marbles, which individuality puts a Manship stamp upon his work, striking a distinctly personal note. His statuettes are most charming and natural - little bursts of spirit and intense feeling. His work is always interesting - the kind you cannot pass by. He fills a niche all his own and is a most promising, gifted young sculptor. His "Spring Awakening" and "Playfulness" in the Twachtman Room of the Fine Arts Palace are delightfully exhilarating little figures.
Charles Niehaus
Charles Niehaus' great talent lies in the lines of monumental sculpture. He was born in Cincinnati, in 1855. He was a pupil of the McMicken School of Art of that city, later attending the Royal Academy of Munich, Germany, where he took the first medal ever won by an American. He has won gold medals at the Pan-American Exposition, the Charleston Exposition and also at the Exposition of St. Louis. His work is of the extremely dignified order, and shows great simplicity of line. It is always the spirit of the work that claims you in all that he undertakes. He has done nothing finer than his "Garfield" at Cincinnati. His Astor Memorial Doors of Trinity Church, New York, his "Doctor Hahnemann" of Washington, D. C., and his "Driller," symbolic of the energy of labor, are among his best works.
Furio Piccirilli
Living in New York in truly Florentine style is the Piccirilli family - a household of five families. It is said that nowhere in America is the old Florentine style of the fourteenth century way of living so well exemplified. The men of the family were marble cutters, but within the last few years Attilio, an elder brother, has been expressing himself in sculpture of a pronounced order. Furio is a young member who is coming to the front thru the very lovely representations of his work at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition. He has given a fine human touch to his work. It stands quite apart in its Italian feeling from the robust American sculpture.
Frederick Roth