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
In the western facade of the Palaces of Food Products and Education are
examples of the new tendency in sculpture. These are "The Triumph of the
Field" and "Abundance" by Charles R. Harley, the modernist. He has made
them intricate and teeming with imagery, giving the beholder much food
for study and personal interpretation. These works have been useful in
arousing much artistic discussion. They endeavor to express a mood of
richness, fullness and success and have the effect of laden chariots in
a triumphant pageant. In "The Triumph of the Field," Man sits upon the
skeleton head of a steer, surrounded by a multitude of symbols
indicative of festivals of agricultural success in the past. Some are
pagan, some Christian. Above his head is the wheel of an antique wagon;
he holds crude farm implements of long-past days. In "Abundance," the
companion piece, Nature, a female figure, sits in the prow of a ship,
surrounded by the abundance of land and sea. Her hands are extended;
one, in order to receive greatly; the other, that she may greatly give.
Worship
Altar of Fine Arts Rotunda
This lovely, adoring figure, pure, devoted, appealing, emblematic of Art
Tending the Fires of Inspiration, is placed upon the Altar before the
Palace of Fine Arts and can be seen only from across the waters of the
lagoon. Her perfect self-surrender to her holy task of guarding
inspiration's flame is a sermon and a poem. She is the worshipful spirit
for whose reward the glow of genius is sent. She is an image of the
perfect reverence for an ideal. It is interesting to note that she is by
the same hand that fashioned those rugged laborers on the portals of the
Palace of Varied Industries, that of Ralph Stackpole. The altar of Fine
Arts, separated from the beholder by the whole width of the beautiful
lagoon, set before the great rotunda and surrounded by sculptured
barriers and growing green buttress walls of flowers that quite shut it
off from all access of the passerby, has the effect of a shrine. This
sense of seclusion adds much to the impressiveness of the statue.
The Struggle for the Beautiful
Frieze, Fine Arts Rotunda
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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