The Ford paintings are a complete representation of all the Missions and were made by Henry Chapman Ford, of Santa Barbara, mainly during the years 1880-1881, though some of them are dated as early as 1875.
The Glenwood Mission Inn proved so popular that in the summer and fall of 1913 two new wings were added, surrounding a Spanish Court. This Court has cloisters on two sides and cloistered galleries above, and is covered with Spanish tile, as it is used for an open air dining-room. One of the new wings, a room 100 feet long by 30 feet wide, and three stories high, with coffered ceiling, is a Spanish Art Gallery. Here are displayed old Spanish pictures and tapestries, many of which were collected by Mr. Miller personally on his European and Mexican trips.
At the same time the dining-room was enlarged by more than half its former capacity, one side of it looking out through large French windows on the cloisters and the court itself. This necessitated the enlargement of the kitchen which is now thrown open to the observation of the guests whenever desired.
Taking it all in all, the Glenwood Mission Inn is not only a unique and delightful hostelry, but a wonderful manifestation of the power of the Franciscan friars to impress their spirit and life upon the commercial age of a later and more material civilization.
CHAPTER XXXV
THE INTERIOR DECORATIONS OF THE MISSIONS
We cannot to-day determine how the Franciscans of the Southwest decorated the interiors of all their churches. Some of these buildings have disappeared entirely, while others have been restored or renovated beyond all semblance of their original condition. But enough are left to give us a satisfactory idea of the labors of the fathers and of their subject Indians. At the outset, it must be confessed that while the fathers understood well the principles of architecture and created a natural, spontaneous style, meeting all obstacles of time and place which presented themselves, they showed little skill in matters of interior decoration, possessing neither originality in design, the taste which would have enabled them to become good copyists, nor yet the slightest appreciation of color-harmony. In making this criticism, I do not overlook the difficulties in the way of the missionaries, or the insufficiency of materials at command. The priests were as much hampered in this work as they were in that of building. But, in the one case, they met with brilliant success; in the other they failed. The decorations have, therefore, a distinctly pathetic quality. They show a most earnest endeavor to beautify what to those who wrought them was the very house of God. Here mystically dwelt the very body, blood, and reality of the Object of Worship. Hence the desire to glorify the dwelling-place of their God, and their own temple. The great distance in this case between desire and performance is what makes the result pathetic. Instead of trusting to themselves, or reverting to first principles, as they did in architecture, the missionaries endeavored to reproduce from memory the ornaments with which they had been familiar in their early days in Spain. They remembered decorations in Catalonia, Cantabria, Mallorca, Burgos, Valencia, and sought to imitate them; having neither exactitude nor artistic qualities to fit them for their task. No amount of kindliness can soften this decision. The results are to be regretted; for I am satisfied that, had the fathers trusted to themselves, or sought for simple nature-inspirations, they would have given us decorations as admirable as their architecture. What I am anxious to emphasize in this criticism is the principle involved. Instead of originating or relying upon nature, they copied without intelligence. The rude brick, adobe, or rubble work, left in the rough, or plastered and whitewashed, would have been preferable to their unmeaning patches of color. In the one, there would have been rugged strength to admire; in the other there exists only pretense to condemn.
