From where we stood we could get a good view of those green columns in the Tower of Jewels, occasionally criticised as being too atmospheric to give the sense of support. "Those columns were colored by Guerin to get 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 example. It made a pleasing effect against the deeper tones of the grass and foliage. The notion that it isn't suited to columns seems to me unwarranted. As a matter of fact, there are several kinds of green stone that have often been successfully used for columns in architecture, like malachite and Connemara marble. The Bank of Montreal has some magnificent Connemara columns. Of course, the use up there is theatrical, exactly as Guerin intended it to be. People seem to forget that Guerin got his earlier training as a scene painter. He was recognized as one of the greatest scene painters of his time. He deliberately undertook to make this Exposition a great spectacle, and he ought to be judged according to what he tried to do. It seems to me that his success was astonishing. He created a picture that was spectacular without being garish or cheap and that harmonized with the dignity 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 domes. See what a velvety look he got, 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 become weathered. He knew that nature was the greatest of all artists, always trying to remove the shiny appearance of newness and to give seasoning." As we looked up toward the center of the South Garden the white globes on the French lamp posts caught 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 them into their present ivory hue. The change shows how important detail is, and how carefully Guerin's department has worked. While the construction was going 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 made it were lacking in imagination. Millions of eyes have been watching the details of this Exposition and very little has escaped notice."