Panama-Pacific International Exposition (1915 : San Francisco, Calif.)
The graceful figures atop the two fountain columns in the oval sunken
garden are the Rising and the Setting Sun, by Adolph A. Weinmann. (p.
69.) In the east the Sun, in the strength of morning, the masculine
spirit of "going forth," has spread his wings for flight; in the west,
the luminary, now essentially feminine, as the brooding spirit of
evening, is just alighting. The sculptural adornment of the shafts is
detailed in the chapter on Fountains.
The titanic Elements slumber on the balustrade, one on either hand of
the stairways leading down on north and south into the sunken area. (p.
64.) On one side, on the north, the Elemental Power holds in check the
Dragon of Fire. The whole figure expresses the primitive terror of Fire,
a fear that still lives in the beasts. On the other side lies Water, the
roaring Ocean, kelp in his hair, Neptune's trident in his hand, by him
one of his fabled monsters. On the south, eagles of the Air hover close
to the winged figure of the woman, who holds up the evening star and
breathes gently down upon her people. Icarus, who was the first airman,
appears upon her wings. Opposite, rests Earth, unconscious that her sons
struggle with her. These remarkably expressive figures are the work of
Robert Aitken.
The youthful groups by Paul Manship upon the extremities of the
balustrade, on either hand of the eastern and western stairways,
represent Music and Poetry, Music by the dance, Poetry by the written
scroll. The sculpture is archaic in type,--an imitation of Greek
imitations of still earlier models.
The colossal groups on the Arches of the Nations symbolize the meeting
of the peoples of the East and West, brought together by the Panama
Canal, and here uniting to celebrate its completion. In the group of the
Nations of the East the elephant bears the Indian prince, and within the
howdah, the Spirit of the East, mystic and hidden. (p. 63.) On the right
is the Buddhist lama from Tibet, representative of that third of the
human race which finds hope of Nirvana in countless repetitions of the
sacred formula, "Om Mani Padme Hum." Next is the Mohammedan, with the
crescent of Islam; then a negro slave, and then a Mongolian warrior, the
ancient inhabitant of the sandy waste, a type of those Tartar hordes
which swept Asia under Tamerlane and Genghis Khan. On the left of the
Indian elephant are an Arab falconer, an Egyptian mounted on a camel and
bearing a Moslem standard, then a negro slave bearing a basket of fruit
on his head, and a sheik from the deserts of Arabia, all representing
the Mohammedans of the nearer East. Thus are figured types of the great
Oriental races, the Hindoo, the Tartar, which includes the Turk and the
northern Chinese; the Chinese stock of the south, the Arab, and the
Egyptian. Only the Persian is omitted, and possibly the Japanese, unless
that, too, is Mongol.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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