Handbook of the new Library of Congress

by Unknown

That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

THE PAVILION OF ART AND SCIENCE.

The entablature and paired pilasters which decorate the walls of the two pavilions to the south, are resumed in the Northwest Pavilion, or Pavilion of Art and Science, if one choose to name it, as the three corresponding rooms on this floor were named, from the subject of the paintings which it contains.

Mr. W. de L. Dodge’s Paintings.—These paintings, both in the tympanums and in the ceiling disc, are the work of Mr. William de Leftwich Dodge. The subjects are as follows: in the west tympanum, Literature; north tympanum, Music; east tympanum, Science; south tympanum, Art; and in the ceiling disc, Ambition, considered as the incentive of all human effort, whether in art, science, or affairs. Comparing them with the other decorations in the Library, the visitor will be struck with the unusually large number of figures which Mr. Dodge has introduced into his canvases, all, of course, helping to illustrate some phase of the subject under which they are grouped. Throughout, however, the meaning is unusually clear, the special significance of every figure being indicated either by some expressive attitude or action, or by the introduction of some appropriate and typical object.

Literature shows a varied group of male and female figures sitting or standing. The scene is along the steps of an old Greek temple. The God of Letters—or Apollo, if one wishes—sits in the foreground holding an open book. Behind him is a company of maidens reading in an ancient scroll, which they unroll from hand to hand. To the right, a woman is instructing two children in the rudiments of learning. Comedy, a nude and easy figure, is looking at the ludicrous features of a comic mask, and Tragedy stands in an attitude of recitation, lifting her arms in an emphasizing gesture. In the corner is a little boy working over an ancient hand-press. To the left a poet sits with his head bowed in thought, perhaps in despair that his verses have not received their due meed of applause; but Fame stands behind him holding out the wreath of laurel with which, after many years, she means to crown him. Further on is another poet, who, as he reclines half dreaming on the ground, is suddenly inspired with the rapture of the Muse. In the corner is a bust of Homer, with a pile of books for pedestal.

In Music, Apollo, as the God of Song and Harmony, is seated in the centre of a long marble bench playing upon a lyre. Other figures, variously disposed throughout the panel, play upon a number of different musical instruments, illustrating at once the development and present scope of the art. One plays a violin, two others are blowing trumpets, a fourth has the double pipes, another a mandolin—and so on.

The central figure of Science—the background of which is again the columns and marble steps of a temple—is a winged female figure descending through the air to crown the inventor of the phonograph, who kneels on the steps before her with a simple electrical instrument beside him. More broadly considered, the group typifies the triumphs of modern electrical science, summed up indeed, in the invention of the phonograph, but including as well the electric telegraph and the telephone. To the right is a man holding the model of a propeller steamship, and further on a husbandman with his team of horses, gathering the fruits of Agriculture. To the left is a table, on which are set two alembics for Physics, and around which is gathered a group of scientists, one holding a human skull, which forms the subject of their discussion. The group may be taken to represent the various medical and surgical sciences, such as Physiology, Anatomy, and so forth. Further to the left is a figure looking at a kite lying on the ground—a reminder of Benjamin Franklin’s famous electrical experiment with the kite and the key. In the background is a little camp-fire over which a tea-kettle is suspended, for Watt’s celebrated discovery of the power of steam.

Art shows a student sketching a nude model. Behind him is his instructor criticizing his work. Sculpture is symbolized to the left, and, to the right, a young woman is painting a design upon a great Greek vase. Behind her are the capitals of a number of the more familiar orders of Architecture, as the Egyptian and the Doric.

In the painting of Ambition in the ceiling, the scene is supposed to be the top of a high mountain, but only the marble terrace which marks the summit is actually visible in the painting. Here is gathered a group which has toiled along a weary path up the mountain side to comparative success; but none is satisfied. Above them, the Unattainable Ideal, a figure holding aloft in mockery the palm branch of complete achievement, rides through the air on a great winged horse. In front is Fame, grasping the horse’s bridle with one hand, and turning to those below to sound a derisive note on her trumpet. The figures on the mountain top are involved in a scene of mad confusion; some for the moment are distracted by crime or lust, or cynical contempt, but most reach out their arms in ineffectual eagerness to attain the glorious vision above them. They have leapt to the top of the terrace in their fierce desire to gain the slightest advantage. To the left, a murderer shrinks back in horror from the body of the miser whom he has just slain; as he starts away, aghast at his crime, he topples over a flaming tripod which had been set on a post of the terrace. Conspicuous figures in the mad struggle for success are a warrior, with sword, greaves, and helmet, and a sculptor, bearing a statuette of the Venus of Milo. In front of them is the seated figure of a poet, with a bandage over his eyes to indicate the abstraction and ideality of his thought. Further on, a man flings out both arms in a mad appeal, and on the moment is grasped in the arms of a woman, who drags him back to the level of her own baseness. A jester, one of Shakespeare’s fools, in his cap and parti-colored coat, stands near by, holding a bauble surmounted by a skull in one hand, and a statuette of Victory in the other. That fame comes only after death, and that the promptings of personal ambition are but a hollow mockery, is the moral that he preaches.