The planting of the court is quiet and stately, and notably carries out its spirit, with the gray-green of foliage plants and eucalyptus trees and the gnarled stems of gray old olive trees. In its vistas from any angle or point of view, the Court is peculiarly satisfying and beautiful.
Court of the Four Seasons
The North Colonnade by Night
To stand in the midst of this curving octagonal court and hear, above the whisper of the trees, the murmur of the four hidden fountains that gush unseen from the base of allegorical groups of statuary, glimpsed through colonnades, is to stand in Hadrian's villa of old, where we hear
"Fitly the fountains of silver leap,
Whose sound is as soft as the listless flow
Of streams that forever linger and go
Down delicate, dream-far valleys of sleep."
As in a dream, one looks down the last vista to the open rotunda and crescent hemicycle of the Palace of Fine Arts beyond a lagoon that mirrors them on its surface. Rising from the rich, green massing of shrubbery and mossy banks, the rotunda lifts its proud head, encircled with garlands of symbolical figures, as above a grove of Academe. Behind it the soft red walls of the place glow like the fading embers of sunset. These courts, strung like a rope of pearls between the two poles of man's achievement—mechanics and art—are the heart of the Exposition, and in them are treasures of color and form untold.
—Edwin Markham
Palace of Food Products
The Portal from the Gardens
The north facade of the Palaces which line the Marina is bare almost to severity, except for the rich adornment of the portals, the same detail being repeated for each palace. Spanish models served as the patterns for these handsome doorways, the three fine arches, with their supporting columns, suggesting the earlier Spanish Gothic, while the decorative features reflect the Moorish influence of a later period.
The motif is appropriate for the waterfront, reminiscent as it is of the epoch of the Spanish Main. This hint is carried out in the sculptured figures in the alcoves above each arch. Allen Newman modeled them, giving to his work the dash and daring of the domineering conquistadors and piratical deckhands of those stirring days. The portal here pictured leads directly to the Esplanade near the Gardens adjoining the California Building.
Palace of Food Products
A Detail of the Main Portal