An Art-Lovers Guide to the Exposition: Explanations of the Architecture, Sculpture and Mural Paintings, With a Guide for Study in the Art GalleryCheney, Sheldon
History
An Art-Lovers Guide to the Exposition: Explanations of the Architecture, Sculpture and Mural Paintings, With a Guide for Study in the Art Gallery
Cheney, Sheldon
Panama-Pacific International Exposition (1915 : San Francisco, Calif.)
The Tower of Jewels is 433 feet in height, while the main archway
beneath is 110 feet high.
Court of the Four Seasons
The Court of the Four Seasons, unlike the other main courts, does not
immediately call forth one's exclamations of surprise and delight. It is
not so compellingly beautiful as either of the others. Nevertheless it
has a distinctive charm of its own-a reposeful atmosphere and a
simplicity of form that become more and more appealing with riper
acquaintance. It is a good place to come to when one is satiated with
the beauties of the other courts, for restfulness is the keynote. The
simple massive style of the architecture and the simple planting scheme
combine to produce a spirit of calm. The ideas of energy, achievement,
progress, effort-so insistently emphasized elsewhere-are left
behind, and everything breathes a sense of peace and orderliness, of
things happening all in good season.
The primary idea underlying the decorative features of the court is
sufficiently indicated in the name, "The Four Seasons;" and this idea is
symbolically expressed in the sculpture and mural paintings in the four
corners of the colonnade. But a study of the other decorations shows
that the idea of abundance, or fruitfulness, was equally in the minds of
architect and sculptors. The purely architectural ornaments, such as the
capitals and the running borders, employ the symbols of agriculture and
fruitfulness, while no less than five of the main sculptural groups or
figures deal directly with harvest themes.
Architecture
The style of architecture is in general Roman. The half-dome and the
colonnades are almost severely classic. The column capitals are Ionic.
But in the freedom of some of the architectural forms, particularly in
the archways at east and west, there is a suggestion of Renaissance
influence. The plan with its four cut-corners with fountains, and its
half-dome facing down the long colonnade to the bay, is ingenious. The
half-dome itself, dominating feature of the court, is exceptionally
dignified and impressive. To obtain the best view of it as a single
unit, one should stand between two columns of the colonnade near either
the Fountain of Summer or the Fountain of Autumn-as from these points
the eye is not carried through the doorway at the back of the dome, to
the detriment of a unified impression.
Henry Bacon is the architect who designed the Court of the Four Seasons.
Sculpture
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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