Handbook of the new Library of Congress

by Unknown

SECTION OF THE DOME DECORATION.—BY EDWIN H. BLASHFIELD.

France, standing for Emancipation and the great revolutionary upheaval of the eighteenth century, is dressed in a characteristic garb of the First Republic—a jacket with lapels, a tricolor scarf, and a liberty-cap with a tricolor cockade. She sits on a cannon and carries a drum, a bugle, and a sword—emblems of her military crusade in behalf of liberty. In her left hand she displays a scroll bearing the words “Les Droits de l’Homme,” the famous Declaration of the Rights of Man adopted by the French Assembly in 1789.

The twelfth and last figure, bringing us once more round to the east, is that of America—represented as an engineer, in the garb of the machine-shop, sitting lost in thought over a problem of mechanics he has encountered. He leans his chin upon the palm of one hand, while the other holds the scientific book which he has been consulting. In front of him is an electric dynamo—recalling the part which the United States has taken in the advancement of electrical science.

On the base of the dynamo, Mr. Blashfield has signed his work in an inscription which recalls also the name of the artist who assisted him in laying it upon the plaster: “These decorations were designed and executed by Edwin Howland Blashfield, assisted by Arthur Reginald Willett, A. D. MDCCCLXXXXVI.”

The visitor will perhaps have been a little perplexed by the familiar appearance of some of the faces in Mr. Blashfield’s decoration. It is an interesting fact that in several cases Mr. Blashfield has introduced a resemblance, more or less distinct, to the features of some real person in order to give greater variety, and, above all, greater vitality to his figures. The persons chosen were selected because the character of their features seemed to him peculiarly suited to the type which he wished to represent. In the case of Abraham Lincoln—the figure of America—and of General Casey—the Germany—the choice was fitting for other reasons. Among the female figures, The Middle Ages is Mrs. De Navarro (Mary Anderson), and England, Miss Ellen Terry. The faces of Italy and Spain are from sketches made from Miss Amy Rose, a young sculptor in New York, and Mr. William Bailey Faxon, the painter, respectively. France suggests the features of the artist’s wife. Throughout, however, it must be remembered that, to use Mr. Blashfield’s own words, “no portraiture has been attempted, but only characterization.”

HENRY.
BY HERBERT ADAMS.

The Rotunda Color Scheme.—One can hardly leave this description of the decoration of the Rotunda without a word respecting the general color scheme. Beginning with the brown, red, and yellow marbles at the base, one ends with the pure whites and bright greens and violets of Mr. Blashfield’s final decoration. The difference between these two extremes has been bridged over by the use of harmonizing colors on the walls and in the dome. The Pompeiian red of the alcove walls and the pendentives is suggested by the Numidian marble of the piers. A touch of brown on the wall below the semicircular windows echoes the brown Tennessee base, and the yellow predominant in the alcove arches above derives from the Sienna screens. These last, again, in their lightest portions, strike the key for the “old ivory”—the delicate gray yellow—which, either deeper or lighter, is always the ruling tone of the entablature, the dome, and the sculptural figures in plaster. The coffers of the dome, one will notice by looking closely, are defined by a narrow band of yellow or red—yellow throughout one whole compartment, and red in the next. The former carries up (more markedly than in the ivory-toned stucco) the color of the screens; the latter the color of the piers. The blue ground, moreover, and the yellow stripe create together, whether one will or not, an impression of green upon the eye, because green is compounded of blue and yellow; and the blue and the red, in turn, create an impression of violet, for a similar reason. Thus, the visitor, glancing up to the decorations of the collar, is already prepared for Mr. Blashfield’s two dominating tones. The white is expected as the natural result of a color scheme which has been steadily growing lighter from the beginning, and, after being used in Mr. Blashfield’s painting, it is at last appropriately employed almost solely in the lantern which crowns the whole Rotunda. Finally, considering the room as a whole, it will be noted that the profuse use of gold throughout the dome and lantern is not only legitimately suggested by the Sienna marble, but of itself helps to keep the various colors—in marble or stucco—in what may be called a more complete “state of solution” than would otherwise have been possible. By attracting attention to itself, it softens the contrasts between the other colors.

The floor of the Rotunda is a kind of mosaic, known as terrazzo, ornamented with great concentric bands of Tennessee marble. Terrazzo, sometimes called “chip mosaic” or “granito,” is made by sprinkling a layer of small pieces of marble upon a bed of Portland cement, rolling it all down so that the pieces are thoroughly embedded, and, after it is dry, rubbing it down smooth with sandstone. When carefully prepared, it makes an especially durable floor.