a frieze with rearing horses, bulls, oxen drawing a cart of ancient form, and other small groups of agricultural subjects. The focus of the decorative scheme is naturally at the main portico, the entrance to the Rotunda, called the Temple of Ceres, with the statue of the goddess in the mysterious twilight of the graceful and impressive interior. The portico is treated on much the same plan as the side pavilions, but as it provides a much greater area of wall surface, Mr. Maynard has been able to introduce a richer combination of colors and a greater variety of figures. “Abundance” and “Fertility,” two colossal
“PEARL,” BY WALTER SHIRLAW, IN A DOME OF THE NORTH PORTAL, MANUFACTURES BUILDING.
female figures, occupy, with the richly ornamented borders, great flat niches on either side of the entrance, and are flanked in turn on the side-walls by the figure of King Triptolemus, the fabled inventor of the plough, and the goddess Cybele, symbolical of the fertility of the earth, the one in a chariot drawn by dragons, the other leading a pair of lions. These figures, as well as those in the four porticos, are treated in a broad, simple manner, so that they carry perfectly to a great distance and at the same time lose nothing by close inspection.
The sumptuousness of the color decoration is balanced by the lavish abundance of sculpture work which fills the pediments and crowns the piers and pylons, and, in general terms, the main features of the façades. The main pediment is by Mr. Larkin G. Mead; and the other statues—figures of abundance with cornucopiæ, a series of graceful maidens holding signs of the Zodiac, groups of four females representing the quarters of the globe supporting a horoscope, and various colossal agricultural animals—are all by the hand of Mr. Philip Martiny, who joins Mr. Olin L. Warner in supplementing the architectural ornamentation of the Art Building with various figures and bas-reliefs. Dominating the grand outlines of the edifice, perched high on the flat dome, is the gilded figure of Diana, by Mr. Augustus St. Gaudens, familiar as the finial of the tower of the Madison Square Garden in New York, a fitting apex of the monumental structure.
The north front of the Agricultural Building, with the Peristyle and the south façade of the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building, form a grand court of honor, so to speak, facing the Administration Building, which may be appropriately termed the Gateway of the Exhibition, for it rises directly in front of the Terminal Station, a building of vast proportions and noble aspect, designed to accommodate the thousands of visitors who reach the Fair by the numerous lines of railways concentrated at this point. Six rostral columns, surmounted by a figure of Neptune, by Mr. Johannes Gelert, accent this court at different points. Mr. Frederick MacMonnies’s fin-de-siècle colossal fountain fills the west end of the basin with a busy group of symbolical figures and a flood of rushing water. Opposite, at the east end of the glittering sheet of water which reflects the architectural glories of the colonnades, the dignified, simple statue of the Republic, by Mr. D. C. French, towers high in air, relieved against the beautiful screen of the Peristyle, with its forest of columns showing clear cut against the blue waters of the lake. Every column and every pier of the Peristyle has its crowning figure, the work of Mr. Theodore Baur, and the great central arch, or Water-Gate supports a colossal Quadriga executed