Handbook of the new Library of Congress

by Unknown

THE PAVILION OF THE SEALS.

The third of the second-story pavilions is the Pavilion of the Seals, at the northeast corner of the building. The walls in this room, it may be noted, are treated differently from those of the other three pavilions. Instead of the frieze and the paired pilasters, one has wall-surfaces covered with gilding and ornamented with painted laurel-bands arranged in regular patterns recalling the designs of the parterres of an old-fashioned garden.

FIRE.—BY R. L. DODGE.

STATE AND TREASURY.—BY W. B. VAN INGEN.

The paintings in the tympanums are by Mr. W. B. Van Ingen, and illustrate the seals of the various Executive Departments of the United States Government. The disc of the domed ceiling was designed by Mr. Garnsey, and shows the Great Seal of the United States surrounded by allegorical emblems.

Mr. Van Ingen’s Paintings.—As in the previous pavilions on this floor, the general arrangement of the decoration is the same in all four tympanums. In each the artist has introduced a low terrace or wall of masonry running from end to end, thus serving both to ballast the picture, as it were, and to bind its parts more strongly together. A recess in the centre of the terrace allows space for a circular tablet, painted to represent wood, about six feet in diameter, or nearly the height of the tympanum. On this are inscribed, as if in raised letters, one or more quotations from the writings or speeches of great American statesmen. These were selected by the Librarian, Mr. Spofford, mainly for their general patriotic application, but, of course, as far as possible with some special reference to the subject of the decoration. The border of each tablet, as of the decoration itself, is a band of laurel-leaves, suggested by the laurel-roll which outlines the disc of the ceiling.

On either side of the tablet is a female figure, seated against the terrace, personifying a Department of the Government, in token of which she supports a shield or cartouche on which the seal of that Department is conspicuously displayed. The visitor will notice that these figures (in this respect like Mr. Reid’s in the Entrance Hall) illustrate the American type of woman, and wear modern gowns and not conventional Greek or Roman drapery.

The two figures and the tablet between form the necessary central pyramidal composition. For a limit and balance to the decoration the artist has painted, at either end, a cypress-tree and, in all but one of the tympanums, one or two nude children or geniuses, usually engaged in some action which shall be useful in explaining the purport of the picture, the meaning of which is still further brought out, in most cases, by introducing into the background a well known monument or building, or some conventional object, suggestive of the functions of the Department represented.

The west tympanum is devoted to the Department of the Treasury and the Department of State; the north tympanum to the Department of Justice and the Post-Office Department; the east tympanum to the Departments of Agriculture and the Interior; and the south tympanum to the War and Navy Departments.

Half a tympanum is devoted to each. The Department of the Treasury—to begin with the one first named in the above list—is sufficiently indicated by the introduction of the Treasury Building in the background. Two children are playing on the parapet, one of them with his foot on a strong-box. The background of the other portion of the tympanum—illustrating the Department of State—exhibits the dome and west front of the Capitol and, to the right, the Washington Monument. The vital thing about a nation—that which it is the first business of a Department of State to help preserve—is its independence. The Monument may be taken, therefore, as standing for the establishment of that independence, and the Capitol for its maintenance. A dog, typical of fidelity, lies in the foreground. The cypress trees, it may be noted before passing to the next tympanum, are introduced purely for their decorative effect, and are without any symbolical meaning. In all the decorations they are set in jars copied from Zuñi originals in the National Museum.

In the north tympanum, the figure of Justice is clad in ermine. On the terrace is a high bronze standard, carrying a pair of evenly balanced scales. The genius at the left holds a measuring rod, for exact justice. In the other half of the painting, devoted to the Post-Office Department, the genius is represented with a pair of compasses marking out mail routes on a globe. Mercury was the Messenger of the Gods, according to classic mythology, and a bronze statue of him with his winged sandals, staff, and cap, is appropriately set upon the stone terrace to typify the dispatch and celerity of the Department.

CEILING DISC.—BY ELMER E. GARNSEY.

Agriculture, in the next tympanum, is symbolized solely in the fertile and well cultivated landscape which forms the background of her portion of the decoration. The chief duty of the Department of the Interior—to protect and control the Indians—is indicated in the background of the other half of the picture by a representation of the curious method of burial, if one may use the word, which prevails among certain of the western tribes—the body, lashed to a few poles for a bier, being laid away in the branches of a tree.

In the last tympanum, that of War and the Navy, the terrace is nicked and shattered by the bullets of the enemy. The figure to the left, representing the Department of War, holds a regulation army sword, and the figure to the right a naval sword. To the left the two children are engaged in combat; one is falling, stained with blood, while the other presses upon him with a falchion, or Roman sword. The corresponding composition to the right is much the same; the chief difference being the trident which the victor aims at his opponent’s breast. War is accompanied by a Roman standard adapted to an American use by altering the old initials “S.P.Q.R.”—“The Senate and People of Rome”—to “U.S.A.” In the background is Bunker Hill Monument in Boston. On the other side are the masts of the recently constructed battleship Indiana, and a rostral column of the same sort as those used in the tympanum representing Water in the Pavilion of the Elements, but in this case copied exactly from the one erected in honor of Commodore Decatur and afterwards removed to Annapolis, where it is now. The inscriptions on the tablets in the four tympanums may most conveniently be inserted here. In the west tympanum, that of the State and Treasury Departments, the quotations are as follows:—

’Tis our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliance with any portion of the foreign world.—Washington.

Let our object be our country, our whole country, and nothing but our country.—Webster.

Thank God I also am an American.—Webster.

In the north tympanum:—

Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political: peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations—entangling alliance with none.—Thomas Jefferson.

In the west tympanum:—

The agricultural interest of the country is connected with every other, and superior in importance to them all.—Andrew Jackson.

Let us have peace.—U. S. Grant.

In the south tympanum:—

The aggregate happiness of society is, or ought to be, the end of all government.—Washington.

To be prepared for war is one of the most effective means of preserving peace.—Washington.

Mr. Garnsey’s Ceiling Painting.—The disc of the dome contains one of the most interesting and ingeniously arranged of the purely conventional decorations which ornament the Library. In the centre is the great seal of the United States, which puts the final touch of significance upon the series of paintings in the tympanums. Surrounding it is a circular band containing forty-eight stars, one for each State and Territory. On the diagonal axes of the room are four medallions containing heads symbolizing the Four Winds—North, South, East and West—each blowing a gale from his mouth, as in the classical representations. They stand, of course, for the four great natural divisions of the country. Below each medallion is a garland of fruits or grains, festooned from bunches of eagles’ feathers which spring from the central panel of the decoration, and indicating the nature of the products of each section. The garland under the medallion of the North Wind, for example, is composed of apples, pears, peaches, and similar fruits; that under the East Wind, of various vegetables and berries; under the West Wind, grains, as wheat, oats, and maize; and under the South Wind, bananas, pomegranates, oranges, lemons, and so forth.

Other emblematic objects introduced into the decoration are lyres, each flanked on either side by a horn of plenty filled with fruits; and flaming torches, set between a pair of dolphins. There are thus two sorts of groups, each of which occurs four times in the decoration in accordance with the standard fixed by the four medallions of the Winds. The four different objects depicted signify four of the great interests of the country—the lyre, the Fine Arts; the cornucopia, Agriculture; the torch, Learning and Education; and the dolphin, Maritime Commerce. Finally the composition is united by American flags festooned from the lyres to the garlands of fruit which underhang the medallions of the Winds. And around the whole is a narrow border, on which are inscribed the following words from Lincoln’s Gettysburg address, used also, in part, by Mr. Vedder in his decorations in the Entrance Hall:—

That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.