A memorable demonstration of the value of landscape to architecture— Simplicity the foundation of Maybeck's achievement—The Colonnade and Rotunda—Altar, Friezes and Murals—Equestrian statue of Lafayette— Night views—The Palace should be made permanent in Golden Gate Park— The Fine Arts Exhibit—Its contemporaneous character and great general merit—American art well shown—The foreign collections—Sweden's characteristically national art—Exhibits of France, Italy, Holland, Argentina, and other countries—Japan and China exhibit ancient as well as modern art—The Annex—Work of the Futurists—Notable sculptures in the Colonnade—Grand Prizes, Medals of Honor and Gold Medals Awarded.
If everything else in the beautiful architecture of the Exposition were forgotten, the memory of the Palace of Fine Arts would remain. It should be a source of pride to every Californian that this incomparable building is the work of a Californian, and a source of deep satisfaction to the architect himself that it so completely points the lesson which he intended it to convey. For the Palace of Fine Arts is a sermon in itself. In it old Roman models have been used to elaborate a California text. Its structure and setting are the demonstration of a theorem,— the finished word of the preachment of a lifetime. The Exposition gave the preacher his opportunity. Bernard Maybeck, the Berkeley architect, had long been telling California that architecture here, to be beautiful, needed only to be an effective background for landscape. His theory is that as trees and plants grow so easily and so quickly here, Californians are wasting their finest source of beauty if they do not combine landscape with building.
When Maybeck was called upon to design a palace of fine arts at the Exposition, one fact enabled him to exemplify his theory in the finest way. The old Harbor View bog was found to have a bottom impervious enough to hold water, and the trees of the demolished resort were still standing. When the mud was scooped out, a lake was left. That gave not only growing trees, in addition to the resources of the Exposition's forestry, but also a real sheet of water, for the landscape. (See p. 112.)
Maybeck surprised me by saying that there is nothing specially remarkable about the Palace itself. "What is it the people like?" he asked, and himself replied, "it is the water and the trees." When I reminded him of the beauty of the colonnade seen from points in the enclosed passageway, where no water is in view, he answered: "The public was bribed to like that. Leaving off the roof between the colonnade and the gallery was a direct bribe. A few other simple devices give the effect the people like. One of these is the absence of windows in the walls, a device well known to the old Italians. Others are the water, the trees, and the flower-covered pergolas on the roof."
Maybeck's modesty is genuine, but he deserves more credit than he gives himself. I quote him because his point is worth emphasizing. The highest beauty can be attained by simple means. If all our architects could see that, we should have less straining for effect, less over doneness, and more harmony and significance in our buildings. The people can and do appreciate this kind of beauty. It was surely inspiration that made it possible for Maybeck to produce this masterpiece.
Sweeping in a great arc around the western shore of the lagoon, the Palace, in the architect's view, is merely a background for the water, the trees and the plants on the terraced walls and pergolas. Certainly it is a beautiful setting to a beautiful scene. So perfectly are the Palace and its foreground fitted to each other that the structure looks as though it might have stood there for twenty centuries, a well-preserved Roman villa, while generations of trees grew, and decayed, and were reproduced around its base.
The great detached colonnade, with its central rotunda, is the climax of the entire structure. It is backed up and given solidity by the walls of the gallery behind it, 1,100 feet long. These walls, unbroken save for the entrances, are relieved and beautified by shrubbery set on a terrace halfway between the ground and the eaves. (p. 113.) At the extremities of the double colonnade, and spaced regularly along it, are groups of four columns, each crowned with a great box designed for flowers and vines. Unfortunately, the architect's plan to place growing plants in these receptacles was vetoed because of the cost. The weeping women at the corners, by Ulric Ellerhusen, expressive of the melancholy felt on leaving a great art collection, were intended to be only half seen through drooping vines. On the water side of the rotunda, a novel effect of inclusion is obtained by semi-circular walls of growing mesembryanthemum.
Around the entablature of the noble octagonal rotunda are repeated Bruno Louis Zimm's three panels, representing "The Struggle for the Beautiful." (p. 114.) In one, Art, as a beautiful woman, stands in the center, while on either side the idealists struggle to hold back the materialists, here conceived as centaurs, who would trample upon Art. In another, Bellerophon is about to mount Pegasus. Orpheus walks ahead with his lyre, followed by a lion, representing the brutish beasts over whom music hath power. Back in the procession come Genius, holding aloft the lamp, and another figure bearing in one hand the pine cones of immortality, in the other a carved statue which she holds forward as a lesson in art to the youth before her. In the third panel appears Apollo, god of all the arts, in the midst of a procession of his devotees bearing garlands. Between the panels are repeated alternately male and female figures, symbolizing those who battle for the arts.
On an altar before the rotunda, overlooking the lagoon, kneels Robert Stackpole's figure of Venus, representing the Beautiful, to whom all art is servant. The panel in front of the altar is by Bruno Louis Zimm, and pictures Genius, the source of Inspiration. Unfortunately, this fine altar has been made inaccessible; it can be seen only from across the lagoon. (p. 137.) The friezes decorating the huge circular flower receptacles set around the base of the rotunda and at intervals in the colonnade are by Ellerhusen. Eight times repeated on the lofty columns within the rotunda is "The Priestess of Culture," a conventional but pleasing sculpture by Herbert Adams.
Above, in the dome, Robert Reid's eight murals, splendid in color, are too far away to be seen well as pictures. Two separate series are alternated, one symbolizing the Progress of Art, the other depicting the Four Golds of California. The panel in the east, nearest the altar, is "The Birth of European Art." The sacred fire burns on an altar, beside which stands the guardian holding out the torch of inspiration to an earthly messenger who leans from his chariot to receive it. On the right is the Orange panel, representing one of the California golds.