The Sculpture and Mural Decorations of the Exposition / A Pictorial Survey of the Art of the Panama-Pacific international exposition

by Stella G. S. Perry

The Man with the Pick
Palace of Varied Industries

In the repeated niches following the line of the archway in the portal of Varied Industries, described in the foregoing page, appears Ralph Stackpole's "Man With the Pick," a manly tribute to the intelligent, self-respecting workman who is the basis of our national life. There is a frank and unaffected realism in the work that attracts by its uncapitulating sincerity. Its impression of rugged power and self-respect saves it from becoming merely photographic, and its plastic feeling is excellent. In this and the preceding group, as also in the keystone figure and the tympanum, the courageous employment of the actual commonplace garments of everyday labor instead of idealized draperies has met success. The tympanum group is called "Varied Industries." It appreciates the various daily labors of mankind through which civilization continues and is almost devotional in its expression - "in the handicraft of their work is their prayer."

The Useful Arts
Frieze Over South Portals

Another artist who appreciates the spirit and enterprise of our own day and finds inspiration in its humble labors is Mahonri Young. This feeling appears in much of his work and is notable in the panel of "Useful Arts," as also in the niche figures that flank it and are really part of the conception. These appear over the handsome portal arch of the Liberal Arts Palace. The beautiful grouping of the many figures in the panel is a delight; the planes of perspective are skillfully handled, without in the least marring the flat surface requisite in a mural panel. This panel of "Useful Arts" does honor to skilled labor. Men and women are shown busy with the spinning-wheel, the anvil, the forge and other implements of skilled craft. Satisfying figures in the niches, the Woman with the Distaff and the Man with the Sledge-Hammer, continue the same idea. Mr. Young's place in art is unique in that he has won distinguished consideration in three branches - painting, etching and sculpture. In the Palace of Fine Arts he exhibits twelve etchings and nine works of sculpture, several of each devoted to the phases of life expressed in this panel.

Triumph of the Field
Niches West Facade of Palaces

In the western facade of the Palaces of Food Products and Education are examples of the new tendency in sculpture. These are "The Triumph of the Field" and "Abundance" by Charles R. Harley, the modernist. He has made them intricate and teeming with imagery, giving the beholder much food for study and personal interpretation. These works have been useful in arousing much artistic discussion. They endeavor to express a mood of richness, fullness and success and have the effect of laden chariots in a triumphant pageant. In "The Triumph of the Field," Man sits upon the skeleton head of a steer, surrounded by a multitude of symbols indicative of festivals of agricultural success in the past. Some are pagan, some Christian. Above his head is the wheel of an antique wagon; he holds crude farm implements of long-past days. In "Abundance," the companion piece, Nature, a female figure, sits in the prow of a ship, surrounded by the abundance of land and sea. Her hands are extended; one, in order to receive greatly; the other, that she may greatly give.

Worship
Altar of Fine Arts Rotunda

This lovely, adoring figure, pure, devoted, appealing, emblematic of Art Tending the Fires of Inspiration, is placed upon the Altar before the Palace of Fine Arts and can be seen only from across the waters of the lagoon. Her perfect self-surrender to her holy task of guarding inspiration's flame is a sermon and a poem. She is the worshipful spirit for whose reward the glow of genius is sent. She is an image of the perfect reverence for an ideal. It is interesting to note that she is by the same hand that fashioned those rugged laborers on the portals of the Palace of Varied Industries, that of Ralph Stackpole. The altar of Fine Arts, separated from the beholder by the whole width of the beautiful lagoon, set before the great rotunda and surrounded by sculptured barriers and growing green buttress walls of flowers that quite shut it off from all access of the passerby, has the effect of a shrine. This sense of seclusion adds much to the impressiveness of the statue.

The Struggle for the Beautiful
Frieze, Fine Arts Rotunda

A surpassingly beautiful contribution to the Exposition art has been made by Bruno Louis Zimm in his panels of Greek culture. These lovely panels in low relief, surely worthy of a permanent medium, are set in the attic of the Rotunda or Belvedere before the Palace of Fine Arts, used and known as the Temple of Sculpture. The panels express not so much the historical Greek tradition - though they are, indeed, produced in the purest Greek manner - as they do the high spirit and ideals of Greek art, the devoted seeking for divine fire, the determined opposition to the trivial and the base. Each of the panels is once repeated. The panel of "The Triumph of Apollo" shows the fiery god of Inspiration, Music and the Sun in a procession of worshipers; his flaming wings are the rays of the sun. The panel of "The Unattainable in Art" might well be called "The Struggle for the Beautiful." It pictures the unending struggle with the gross and stupid, both objective and subjective, that confronts the champion of the beautiful. Art stands serene, aloof, unassailable in the center of the fray. The panel of "Pegasus" shows the winged steed of the poets controlled by a true aspirant, attended by Music, Literature and Art.