The Panama CanalHaskin, Frederic J. (Frederic Jennings)
History
The Panama Canal
Haskin, Frederic J. (Frederic Jennings)
Panama Canal (Panama)
If Chicago had its "White City," the San Francisco fair will be all
aglow with rich color. It will be made to harmonize with the "vibrant
tints of the native wild flowers, the soft browns of the surrounding
hills, the gold of the orangeries, the blue of the sea." The artist in
charge of this phase of the work declares that, "as the musician
builds his symphony around a motif or chord," so it became his duty to
"strike a chord of color and build his symphony upon it." The one
thing upon which he insisted was that there should be no white, and
the pillars, statues, fountains, masts, walls, and flagpoles that are
to contrast with the tinted decorations are to be of ivory yellow.
Even the dyeing of the bunting for flags and draperies is under the
personal supervision of the artist in charge of the color scheme of
the exposition. The roofs of the buildings will be harmoniously
colored and the city will be a great party-colored area of red tiles,
golden domes, and copper-green minarets. "Imagine," said Jules Guerin,
the artist, "a gigantic Persian rug of soft melting tones with
brilliant splotches here and there, spread down for a mile or more,
and you may get some idea of what the Panama-Pacific Exposition will
look like when viewed from a distance."
The lighting of the exposition will be by indirect illumination,
affording practically the same intensity of light by night as by day.
Lights will be hidden behind the colonnades, above the cornices, and
behind masts on the roofs. Sculpture will stand out without shadow at
night as by day. Great searchlights, many of them concentrated upon
jets of steam, and playing in varying color, will add to the beauty of
the scene. Even the fogs of the harbor will be made to contribute to
the night effect of the exposition, and auroras will spread like
draped lilies in the sky over the exhibition.
The sculpture will be unique in the history of exposition-giving. That
phase of the work is under the control of Karl Bitter. In front of the
main entrance, at the tower gate, there will be an allegory of the
Panama Canal called "Energy; the lord of the Isthmian way." It will be
represented by an enormous horse standing on a heavy pedestal, the
horse carrying a man with extended arms pushing the waters apart. In
the Court of the Sun and Stars two great sculptural fountains,
typical of the rising and setting of the sun, will carry out the idea
of "the world united and the land divided." In every part of the
exposition scheme the sculpture will tell the story of the unification
of the nations of the East and the West through the construction of
the Panama Canal.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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