"It's curious that Hastings should have gone astray in the treatment of the tower. He must have known the psychological effect of parallel horizontal lines. When skyscrapers were first built in New York a few years ago they were considered unsightly on account of their great height. So the architects were careful to use parallel horizontal lines in order to diminish the apparent height as far as possible. Then people began to say that there was beauty in the sky-scrapers, and the architects changed their policy. They built in straight parallel lines that shot up to the sky. In this way they increased the apparent height."
The inscriptions on the south side of the tower's base reminded us of the Exposition's meaning, Conspicuously and properly emphasized here. The pagan note in the architecture was indicated in the ornamentation by the use in the design of the head of the sacred bull. And Triumphant America was celebrated in the group of eagles.
The dark stains on the yellow columns made us see how clever Guerin had been in his application of the coloring. In most places he had applied one coat only, trusting to nature to do the rest. Most of all, he wished to avoid the appearance of newness and to secure a look of age. On these columns the smoke from the steam rollers had helped out. One might imagine that they had been here for generations.
Here the builders had used the Corinthian column, with the acanthus leaves varied with fruit-designs and with the human figure. "It was a lucky day for architecture when the column came into use. It doubtless got its start from a single beam used for support. Then the notion developed of making it ornamental by fluting it and decorating the top. In this Exposition three kinds of columns are used, the Doric, which the Greeks favored, with the very simple top or capital; the Ionic, with the spiral scroll for the capital, and the Corinthian, with the acanthus flowing over the top, and the Composite which uses features from all the other three."
"Do you happen to know how the acanthus design was made? Well, Vitruvius tells the story. Anyone that wants to get a line on this Exposition ought to read that book, or, at any rate, to glance through it and to read parts of it pretty thoroughly. It is called 'The Architecture of Marcus Vitruvius Pollio.' There's a good translation from the Latin by Joseph Gwilt. It has become the architect's bible. According to Vitruvius, the nurse of Corinthian girl who had died carried to the girl's tomb basket filled with the things that the girl had particularly liked. She left the basket on the ground near the tomb and covered it with a tile. It happened that it stood over the root of an acanthus plant. As the plant grew its foliage pressed up around the basket and when it reached the tile the leaves were forced to bang back in graceful curves. Callimachus, a Corinthian architect, noticed the effect and put it into use."
IV
Under the Tower of Jewels
When we entered the arch we looked up at the magnificent ceiling used by McKim, Mead & White, in panels, with a pictorial design beautifully colored by Guerin. "The blue up there blends into the deeper blue of the Dodge murals just beneath. Those murals are in exactly the right tone. They give strength to the arch. But they are weakened by being in the midst of so much heavy architecture. Their subjects, however, are in harmony with the meaning of the tower. Guerin was right when he told the mural decorators that a good subject was an asset. By studying these murals you can get a glimpse of all the history associated with California and with the Panama Canal. Dodge has made drama out of Balboa's discovery of Panama and out of the union of the two oceans, a theme worthy of a great poet. And Dodge is one of the few men represented in the art on the grounds who have made pictorial use of machinery. There's the discovery by Balboa, the purchase by the United States, the presentation of the problem of uniting the two oceans, very imaginative and pictorial, the completion of the Canal, and the crowning of labor, with the symbolic representation of the resulting feats of commerce suggested by the want of the winged Mercury. Dodge is dramatic without being too individual. His murals don't call the attention away from their surroundings to themselves. They are a part of the architecture, as murals always should be."
On either side we found the columned niches designed by McKim, Mead and White, each ornamented with a fountain. The back wall made a splendid effect as it reached up toward the tower.
To the right we turned to view Mrs. Edith Woodman Burroughs' "Fountain of Youth," lovely in the girlish beauty of the central figure, and in the simplicity and the sincerity of the design as a whole. In some ways the figure reminded us of the celebrated painting by Ingres in the Louvre, "The Source," the nude girl bearing a jug on her shoulder, sending out a stream of water. There was no suggestion of imitation, however.