Beneath the rule of men entirely great,
The pen is mightier than the sword.
Bulwer Lytton.
The noblest motive is the public good.
Virgil.
The Decoration of the Walls.—The decoration of the vaults of the four corridors is distinctly Renaissance in character; the walls beneath, however, are colored and decorated in accordance with a Pompeiian motive. It may seem at first thought illogical thus to join two styles so remote from each other in point of time, but it must be remembered that, in both art and literature, the Renaissance was literally, as has been pointed out, the new birth of Greek and Roman forms, in the course of which the Italian painters adapted to their use and subdued to their style the sort of wall decoration which we know as Pompeiian, from the discovery of so many examples of it in the excavations at Pompeii. The two styles, as used in conjunction in the Library of Congress, not only in these corridors but throughout the building, are perfectly harmonious in color and design; from the explanation just given the visitor will see that they have long ago been brought into a historical unity as well, through the conventions established by the great and authoritative school of the Renaissance artists.
AGLAIA.—BY F. W. BENSON.
Mr. Maynard’s Pompeiian Panels.—The frequent occurrence of windows, doors, and pilasters cuts the wall into narrow spaces, which, at the north and south, are colored a plain olive, and at the east and west the familiar rich Pompeiian red, ornamented with simple arabesques and, at the ends, with female figures representing The Virtues, by Mr. George Willoughby Maynard. There are eight of these figures in all, two in each corner of the hall. Each figure is about five and a half feet high, clad in floating classic drapery, and represented to the spectator as appearing before him in the air, without a support or background other than the deep red of the wall. The style of the paintings is Pompeiian; the general tone is somewhat like that of marble, although touched with color so as to remove any comparison with the marble framing.
Beginning at the left in each case, the names and order of the Virtues are as follows: At the northeast corner, Fortitude and Justice; at the southeast corner, Patriotism and Courage; at the southwest corner, Temperance and Prudence; at the northwest corner, Industry and Concord. The number of virtues to be represented was determined beforehand, of course, by the number of spaces at the disposal of the painter. The selection, therefore, was necessarily somewhat arbitrary.