"What are they crying about?"
The guard looked a little embarrassed. "They are crying over the sadness of art," he said. Then he added somewhat apologetically, "Anyway, that's what the lecturer told us to say."
The lady appealed to us for information. "What this gentleman says is true," remarked the authority at my side. "The architect intended that those figures should express something of the sadness of life as reflected in art."
"Oh," said the lady, as if she only half understood.
Then she and the guard drifted away.
"Those people have unconsciously given us a bit of art criticism, haven't they? One of the most pictorial notes in this composition of Maybeck's is the use of these figures. But it's also eccentric and it puzzles the average looker-on who is always searching after meanings, according to the literary habit of the day, the result of universal reading. Perhaps the effect would have been, less bewildering if those urns were filled with flowers as Maybeck intended they should be. Then the women would have seemed to be bending over the flowers. The little doors were put into the urns so that the man in charge of the flowers could reach up to them. But this item of expense was included among the sacrifices."
The coloring of the columns had been a subject of some criticism. The ochre columns were generally admired; but the green columns were considered too atmospheric to give the sense of support. And that imitation of green marble directly under the Pegasus frieze of Zimm's, near the top, had been found to bear a certain resemblance to linoleum. But in applying, the colors Guerin had worked with deliberate purpose. The green under the frieze was really a good imitation of marble, and the shade used on the column suggested the weather-beaten effect associated with age.
"There are columns that, in my opinion, have more beauty than those Maybeck used. But that's a matter of taste. In themselves those columns are fine and they blend into impressive masses. That altar under the dome, with the kneeling figure, only a great artist could have conceived in just that way. Ralph Stackpole, the sculptor of the figure, worked it out in perfect harmony with Maybeck's idea. To appreciate his skill one ought to get close and see how roughly it has been modeled in order that the lines should be clear and yet give an effect of delicacy across the lagoon. And those trees along the edge of the lagoon, how gracefully they are planted, in the true Greek spirit. The lines in front of the rotunda are all good, as they run down to the water's edge. And how richly McLaren has planted the lagoon. He has given just the luxuriance that Maybeck wanted."
The Western Wall
We turned to get the effect of the western wall looking out on this magnificence. "Faville has done some of his finest work there. All over the Exposition he has expressed himself; but as his name is not connected with one of the great courts we don't hear it very much. When he tackled the Western Wall he had one of the hardest of his problems. There was a big expanse to be made interesting and impressive, without the aid of towers or courts. It was a brilliant idea to break the monotony with those two splendid Roman half-domes."