The three figures are almost invariably represented in a group, in both ancient and modern art. Taken together, they stand, of course, for beauty and graciousness, and typify, also, the agreeable arts and occupations. In separating them, Mr. Benson has considered Aglaia as the patroness of Husbandry; Thalia as representing Music; and Euphrosyne, Beauty. The first, therefore, has a shepherd’s crook, the second a lyre, and the last is looking at her reflection in a hand-mirror. All are shown sitting in the midst of a pleasant summer landscape, with trees and water and fertile meadows.
For the four circular panels Mr. Benson has chosen as his subject The Seasons. Each is represented by a beautiful half-length figure of a young woman, with no attempt, however, at any elaborate symbolism to distinguish the season which she typifies. Such distinction as the painter has chosen to indicate is to be sought rather in the character of the faces, or in the warmer or colder coloring of the whole panel—in a word, in the general artistic treatment.
At either end of the vault is a rectangular panel painted in the same style as those depicting the ancient games in the North Corridor, but in this case representing the modern sports of Football and Baseball. The former, occurring at the east end of the vault, is a more or less realistic picture of a “scrimmage.” The latter is more conventionalized, showing single figures, like the pitcher and catcher, in the attitude of play, and others with bats, masks, and gloves.
Instead of the swans and dragons of the North Corridor, the printers’ marks in the penetrations of the present corridor are supported between the figures of mermen and fauns, and mermaids and nymphs, the male figures, with their suggestion of greater decorative strength, occurring at the ends of the corridor, and the nymphs and mermaids alternating between. Altogether there are thirty-two figures, each painted by Mr. Frederick C. Martin.
On the pendentives, the series of trophies begun in the North Corridor is continued, giving place, as before, in every other pendentive, to a tablet bearing an inscription. Beginning on the south side, at the east end, the trophies are as follows: Printing, with a stick, inking-ball, and type-case; Pottery, three jugs of different kinds of clay; Glass-making, three glass vases of different shapes; Carpentry, a saw, bit, hammer, and right angle; Smithery, the anvil, pincers, hammer, bolt, and nut; Masonry, a trowel, square, plumb, and mortar-board.
The following are the eight inscriptions:—
Studies perfect nature and are perfected by experience.
Bacon.
Dreams, books, are each a world; and books, we know,
Are a substantial world, both pure and good.