Framing the panels, while also indicating the separation in time of their stories, stand archaic figures of Hermes, such as the ancients employed to mark distances on the roads. Their outstretched hands hold up the beginnings of life in the form of rude primeval beasts, from whose mouths issue the jets of the fountain.
At night this fountain glows deep red, from lamps concealed within the panels, while clouds of rosy steam rising around the globe create an illusion of a world in the making.
The Fountain of Beauty and the Beast was originally intended for the Court of Palms, which was conceived as the Court of Occidental Fairy Tales, just as the Court of Flowers was to have been that of Oriental Fairy Tales. Mrs. Whitney's fountain of the Arabian Nights, a creation of whimsical beauty, was to have stood in the latter court. It was modeled, but was never enlarged; and its place was taken by Beauty and the Beast, the work of Edgar Walter. (p. 100.)
This is another harmonious fountain, rightly conceived, so that its sculpture does not overbalance its use in the play of water, and admirably in tune with the flowery grace of the court. Beauty, pouring water from a Greek amphora, sits lightly upon the ugly Beast. Why she wears a smart Paris hat no one has discovered. Four cheery pipers, lively as crickets in the sun, support the upper bowl. Around the lower basin is a frieze in low relief, figuring Hanuman, the King of Monkeys, leading a bear with one hand and prodding a lion with the other. All this is part of the original fairy-tale significance of the court.
The fountains are of the glories of the Exposition. There is always charm in the movement of the waters, rest in their music. The appeal is elemental, and therefore, universal. Artificial jets can never equal the play of water in Nature, but when adorned with harmonious sculpture, as here, they become that significant and satisfying imitation which is Art.
XI.
The Palace of Machinery
A vast rectangular hall, saved by Ward's successful architecture from being a huge barn—Modeled on the Roman Baths of Caracalla—Patigian's finely decorative sculptures, symbolizing the mechanical forces and labor—Beauty of the interior—A Cathedral of Dynamics.
A mighty hall is the Palace of Machinery. (See p. 105, 106.) Beachey flew in it. The Olympic might rest in its center aisle with clear space at both bow and stern, and room in the side aisles for two ocean greyhounds as large as the Mauretania. Vastness is the note of the architecture which Clarence Ward has employed to give body to this enormous space. It is an architecture of straight lines in all the outer structure, lending itself admirably to the expression of enormous proportions. In general ground plans the palace is a simple rectangular hall. Think, then, of the task the architect had before him to avoid making the palace a huge barn. His work succeeded, as any great work succeeds, because he used simple means.
First of all, a Roman model was well chosen for so vast a building. The Greeks built no large roofed structures. Their great assemblages were held in open-air theaters and stadia. The Greek masterpiece, the incomparable Parthenon at Athens, was considerably smaller than Oregon's timbered imitation at the Exposition. On the other hand, the solid Roman style lends itself to bulk. The models followed in the Machinery Palace were the Roman Baths, particularly the Baths of Caracalla. They have been used once before as a model in this country, in the building of the Pennsylvania Railway station in New York. There, too, travertine was first successfully imitated by Paul Deniville. Looking at the Palace of Machinery, indeed, it is not difficult to imagine it as the noble metropolitan terminal of a great railway system. It would hold many long passenger trains, and an army of travelers. The distinctive feature of the perspective is the triple gable at the ends of the palace and over the great main entrance. By thus breaking up the long roof lines, as well as by lowering the flanks of the building to flat-roofed wings, a barn like effect was avoided. In the triple gables, also, the three central aisles which distinguish the interior show in the outer structure. Under the gables the huge clerestory windows above the entrances relieve the great expanse of the end walls. Similar windows open up the walls above the flat-topped wings. In the main entrance, the gables are deepened to form a huge triple vestibule where the row of columns is repeated. The long side walls are relieved by pairs of decorated columns flanking the minor entrances.