The vaulting of the broad passageway leading to the Reading Room consists of a series of six small domes, the ornamentation of which is similar, in its more modest way, to that of the vaulted corridors which the visitor has just left. The colors are light and bright, and the three different patterns employed consist mainly of garlands and ribbons, and of simple bands of color radiating from a central medallion. Swans, eagles, or owls are introduced both in the domes and as the ornament of the pendentives, and eagles occur between the double consoles which receive the weight of the domes upon the east wall. In the medallions just referred to are various objects symbolizing the Fine Arts—tragic and comic masks, for Acting; a lyre, for Music; a block of marble, half shaped into a bust, and sculptors’ tools, for Sculpture; a lamp, scrolls, and an open book, for Literature; and the capital of an Ionic column, a triangle, and some sheets of parchment, for Architecture.
JUSTICE.
BY GEORGE W. MAYNARD.
The trophies of Sculpture and Architecture, it should be added, are accompanied by appropriate names—comprising those of cities, statues, and buildings—inscribed both in the arabesques and in the pendentives of certain of the domes. For Architecture, the buildings commemorated are the Colosseum, the Taj Mahal, the Parthenon, and the Pyramids; while the cities are those with whose fame these four great monuments are connected—Rome, Agra, Athens, and Gizeh. The sculptures are the Farnese Bull, the Laocoön, the Niobe, and the Parthenon Pediment, and in the bordering arabesques are the names of the four divinities often taken as the subject of ancient statuary—Venus, Apollo, Hercules, and Zeus.
Mr. Van Ingen’s Paintings.—In the centre of the passage a marble staircase, dividing to the right and left at a landing halfway up, leads to the gallery of the Reading Room. Beneath, on either side, is a little bay, giving access to the elevators. In the decoration of the ceiling the effect aimed at is that of an arbor, with a vine, climbing over a trellis, painted against a sunny yellow background. Each contains a small tympanum, in which Mr. Van Ingen has suggested the subjects of Milton’s well-known companion poems, L’Allegro and Il Penseroso—Mirth, and Melancholy or Thoughtfulness. The decorations are not illustrations, as the word is usually understood, like some of Mr. Walker’s panels, already described; they have no reference to any particular scene or incident in the poems, but are intended as an interpretation of their general spirit and meaning. In the first, Il Penseroso, the time of year is autumn; in the other it is spring. Similarly, in L’Allegro the landscape is shown in morning light, while in Il Penseroso the time is evening. The latter panel is in the bay to the north of the staircase. A single figure, that of a beautiful woman with dark hair and soft, pensive eyes, is shown at half length, leaning her head upon her hand in an attitude and with an expression of deep contemplation. L’Allegro is represented by a young woman, light-haired and sparkling with laughter, who is playing under the trees with two little children.
In the pendentives of the bays are inscribed portions of the two poems illustrated. The lines from L’Allegro are as follows:—
... Come, thou Goddess fair and free,
In heaven yclept Euphrosyne,
And by men heart-easing Mirth;