The Sculpture and Mural Decorations of the Exposition: A Pictorial Survey of the Art of the Panama-Pacific international expositionPerry, Stella G. S. (Stella George Stern)
General
The Sculpture and Mural Decorations of the Exposition: A Pictorial Survey of the Art of the Panama-Pacific international exposition
Perry, Stella G. S. (Stella George Stern)
Panama-Pacific International Exposition (1915 : San Francisco, Calif.); Sculpture, American
At the top of the longitudinal stairways in the Court of the Universe
are Paul Manship's "Music" and "Dance." These are typical examples of
that sculptor's power to combine classic restraint, sculptural dignity
and grace of line with complete freedom and untrammeled ease of method.
They express a musical mood, supplying the honor of musical art to the
otherwise incomplete celebration of man's achievements. In "Dance," here
reproduced, the beautiful movement of the figures and the garlands, full
in volume but light in weight, are superlatively well presented. A
glimpse of the companion group, "Music," can be had in the plate devoted
to the Nations of the East. In this are two classic male figures, the
Composer and the Musician. One holds an open scroll from which the other
reads as he pauses in touching the strings of a lyre. A number of
distinguished exhibits by Mr. Manship, showing all phases of his art,
appear in the Palace of Fine Arts where he has been awarded the honor of
a gold medal.
The Rising Sun
Fountain, Court of the Universe
"The Rising" and "The Setting Sun," by Adolph A. Weinman, stand high
against the heavens on tall shafts that rise from fountain bowls. They
are inspired with a sort of rapturous imagery and they so inspire the
beholder. "The Rising Sun," a youth with outstretched wings, a figure
suggestive of gladness, hope and the dawn of high adventure, is a
fitting symbol of the sunrise. He seems "a-tiptoe for a flight" on the
summit of his column; his profile against the sky is superb. On the
opposite column "The Setting Sun," a young woman with pensive face,
shaded by her hair and drooping wings, sinks to rest. These figures
stand on translucent shafts that are pillars of light in the evening.
They bear garlanded capitals and rise from double fountain bowls bound
together by rising and falling jets and sheets of water. The column
bases are finished with beautiful friezes, one symbolic of the Sun of
Truth, the other of the Peace of Night. Winged mermen support the upper
basin; sea-creatures gambol in the lower.
Column of Progress
In the Forecourt of the Stars
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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