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.)
Gallery 36, adjoining the main west vestibule, has a miscellaneous
collection of drawings and paintings in all mediums, ranging from the
most delicate and polished to caricature and sketchiness run riot. There
is a great deal of interest, but little that is important in a big way.
American Section: Miniatures
Galleries 37 and 40 contain an excellent collection of miniatures,
ranging from a work by Malbone, the first important American in this
field, to that of such notable contemporaries as W. J. Baer, Laura C.
Hills, and Lucia Fairchild Fuller.
In both miniature rooms there are a number of paintings and drawings, in
various mediums, including, in room 40, a few oils by Jules Guerin, the
color wizard of the Exposition.
American Section: Sculpture
Of the monumental sculpture of the American Section most of the finest
examples are out-of-doors. The central hall of the gallery building
contains a collection that is worth studying piece by piece, including
such notable things as Daniel Chester French's "Alice Freeman Palmer
Memorial," Karl Bitter's "Signing the Louisiana Purchase Treaty" and
"Tappan Memorial," and Robert Aitken's "Mausoleum Door."
But by far the most notable thing about the sculpture display is the
extensive collection of charming small bronzes, which is scattered
through the many rooms. The visitor should especially make sure of
seeing certain individual group exhibits, such as the very freely
rendered figures by Paul Troubetzkoy in the International Room (108),
Paul Manship's groups, with their touch of classic appeal, in gallery
93, and the cases of statuettes by Abastenia St. Leger Eberle and Bessie
Potter Vonnoh, in gallery 65. Very rich in interest, too, is the
collection of medals and plaques, shown in galleries 38 and 39.
Foreign Sections
The foreign sections are in two groups, at the two ends of the building.
There is no system in their arrangement, and they are treated here in
the order in which they happen to be placed, beginning at the far south
end.
The Japanese Section occupies galleries 1 to 10. To appreciate Japanese
art it is necessary to become accustomed to the conventionalization of
treatment-to understand what the artist was after, and to judge from
that standpoint. It is well to begin by studying works that are more
like Western art-such things as "Moving Clouds" (15) and "Evening:
Nawa Harbor" (12) in room 1-and then to progress to the works in which
the conventions are more pronounced. Note, throughout the paintings in
rooms 1, 2 and 3, the delicacy of tone, the color harmony, and the fine
sense of composition and pattern.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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