Handbook of the new Library of Congress

by Unknown

SOUTHWEST GALLERY.

The chief decorations of the gallery into which one goes from the South Corridor of the Entrance Hall are two large tympanums by Mr. Kenyon Cox, one at each end of the room over the triple doors by which one enters or leaves. For the rest, the room is lighted, like the other galleries, on both sides, so that one may look out toward the Capitol, or, on the east, into one of the interior courts. The ceiling is an elliptical barrel vault, rising to a height of twenty-nine feet. It is set with square coffers in blue and gold, and divided by double ribs which spring from the paired pilasters. Between the pilasters a bright-colored arabesque is introduced, in which blue is the prevailing color. It is continued in the ceiling by an arabesque in relief, the most conspicuous features of which are seated cherubs, and medallions with the letters “C. L.”—standing for “Congressional Library.” The floor is Vermont, Italian, and Georgia marble, laid in square panels, so as to reflect, in a way, the pattern of the coffers in the ceiling above.

Mr. Cox’s Paintings.—Mr. Cox’s tympanums are thirty-four feet long and nine and a half feet high. At the south end of the room the subject of the decoration is The Sciences, and at the north end, The Arts. The panels are similar in composition, occupying as they do exactly corresponding positions. On each the design is drawn together by a low marble balustrade, at the centre of which is a semicircular recess enclosing a kind of throne or high marble seat. At either end of the recess, so as to come directly over a pilaster occurring between the doors, is a post bearing a tripod on which incense is burning. The effect is to carry the lines of the architecture below up into the painting.

THE ARTS.—BY KENYON COX.

In the panel of The Arts, the central throne is occupied by the figure of Poetry, represented as a young and beautiful woman crowned with laurel and bearing an antique lyre. She is seated in an attitude of immediate inspiration, the fold of her garment blowing in the wind, her left hand raised from the chord which she has just struck upon the lyre, and her lips parted in a burst of song. On the steps of her throne are two little geniuses, one writing down her words on a tablet, and the other raising his arms in sympathy as he joins in the rhythmical swing of her song. The first may be taken as personifying the more strictly literary and reflective side of poetry, and the other as standing for its feeling for harmony and music, or, in general, the lyrical element in poetry. In the left-hand portion of the decoration are Architecture and Music, and to the right, Sculpture and Painting—all typified by female figures bearing some appropriate object identifying the art which they represent. Architecture is conceived as the sternest and most dignified of the arts, as shown by her expression of proud abstraction and the severe lines of her drapery. She holds a miniature marble column, and her head is crowned with a circlet of battlements. Music is playing upon a violin, and looking the while upon the pages of a great music-book which a kneeling genius holds open before her. Beside her is a violoncello. Sculpture holds a statuette of a nude female figure, and talks with Painting, who has a palette and brushes. The latter, as representing the gentler and more luxurious art, is shown partly nude, and leaning her head affectionately upon the shoulder of her companion. In the corner of the picture are a vase and two large plates in different styles of decorated pottery—standing for the minor decorative arts.

SPRING.—BY BELA L. PRATT.

In the tympanum of The Sciences the central figure is Astronomy. She holds a pair of compasses, and leans forward on her throne to make measurements upon the celestial globe which a genius holds up before her. Another genius to the right looks through a telescope. To the left of the panel are Physics and Mathematics. Physics holds an instrument designed to show the law of the balance of different weights at different distances from the point of support. Mathematics has an abacus, or counting-frame, with which she is instructing a little genius in the elements of figures. The beads of the abacus are so placed that they give the date, “1896”—the year the picture was painted. Beside her, in the extreme left-hand corner, are various figures illustrating plane and solid geometry. The former kind are so arranged, as the visitor will see by looking carefully, that they form all the letters of the artist’s name—KENYON COX. On the other side of the throne are Botany, bearing a young oak tree, and wearing a green and white figured gown; and Zoölogy, a nude figure holding out her hand to caress a magnificent peacock perched on the coping of the balustrade. In the corner are a shell and various kinds of minerals, for Conchology, Mineralogy, Geology, and so forth.

On tablets over the doors and windows are the names of men distinguished in Science and Art. Those representing Art are Wagner, Mozart, Homer, Milton, Raphael, Rubens, Vitruvius, Mansard, Phidias, and Michael Angelo. The Scientists are Leibnitz, Galileo, Aristotle, Ptolemy, Dalton, Hipparchus, Herschel, Kepler, La Marck, and Helmholtz.