The relief ornament in the ceiling of the dome and in the frieze of the entablature was modelled by Albert Weinert. He was limited by the architect to the well-known Roman forms revived by the sculptors and painters of the Italian Renaissance, but has treated them with so much individual feeling that one may regret he was denied the opportunity of creating the designs. For one cause of the dearth of decorative sculptors in America may very reasonably be attributed to the hesitation of architects to permit the use of any forms except such as they can find authority for in historic ornament. Martiny, we have seen, was allowed to invent the design for the staircase; a quite unusual privilege, which has resulted in a memorable work of art, almost unique in the country. Usually the architect from books and photographs indicates what forms shall be adopted, and these are reproduced by the draftsmen in working drawings, which are handed over to a contractor to be executed by journeymen modellers. Their business is to copy the drawing exactly. If they have any individuality of feeling it is suppressed; the divorce between design and craftsmanship is perpetuated, and dry conventionalism results. In the degradation of design which ensues from this slavish adherence to historic precedents, producing, be it noted, not a revival of the precedent but, for the most part, a dead, inert copy, a thing not to be taken seriously as decoration, the sculptor is discouraged from associating himself with design. He may have the gift of decoration, but it lies uncultivated, since he will not work except with reasonable liberty. And he is right, for the only decoration that is of any vital worth is such as grows under the hand of a man whose brain has conceived it and is controlling continually its growth. He may be influenced by historic precedent or be working in the freedom of his fancy; in either case, his work has personal, vital significance. Significantly bad it may be, and this I suspect is the architect’s apprehension; yet, provided it have significance, there is some prospect of improvement: just as we reach what measure of virtue we have through our faults. For of all men the most exasperating is he who, without character enough for fault or virtue, methodically maintains a level of innocuous mediocrity. Equally exasperating is decoration of this kind, and it is a kind that is prevalent everywhere.