Handbook of the new Library of Congress

by Unknown

Upstairs, in the corridors beyond the arcades, the marble impression is prolonged in the mosaic floors, delicate in their play of color, and splendid in their very spaciousness. But the main impression is still that of painted ornament. In the adjacent galleries marble is continued in the floors, but the chief architectural interest here is in the stucco work. It is true we are attracted by the painted lunette at the end, but simultaneously we feel how superbly framed it is by the vista of vaulted ceiling. The importance of the four pavilions is emphasized by painted compositions, but here again an equipoise of interest is maintained by the mosaic floors, and the beautiful lines of the stucco, which weave the octagon of walls into the circle of the vault. Beneath the great central dome of the Rotunda all these forces are massed with excellent judgment. The dome itself rests upon massive columns of Numidian marble connected by two tiers of arcades of Sienna marble; mounts up in successive gradations of stucco, from bold accentuation to tender elaboration, till it melts into the calm of Mr. Blashfield’s painting and ends in the dreamy spirituality of his figure in the cupola.

In the little corridors to the north and south of the Entrance Hall the architect has epitomized his methods. They are miniature éditions de luxe, in which arch and vault, marble, stucco, mosaic, and pictures are blended with the daintiness of an Elzevir.

THE SCULPTURE.

Including under Sculpture the plastic, carved, and bronze work, it will be convenient to consider the sculpture of the Rotunda by itself and apart from that of the rest of the building, for it consists mainly of statues linked together by a common thread of thought, while elsewhere the motive is solely decorative.

One of the prominent features of the Entrance Hall is the balustrade of the staircase, executed by Mr. Martiny. The coil of babies and garlands is irresistibly fascinating. Bold in line and generous in massing of light and shade, as befits the grandeur of the construction, the design has, besides, much daintiness of detail. Joined to an exquisite fancy, playful without grotesqueness, are a fluency and certainty of technique in the best sense French. In somewhat the same vein is Mr. Adams’s tympanum over the Senate Reading Room door. The main masses have an exuberance, boldly contrasting with the delicate details that overspread the entire panel. The modelling and lines are so excellently adjusted that the animation of the laughing faces seems to circulate to the very tips of the tails. In Mr. Perry’s Sibyls the balance between the filled and empty spaces and the simple force of the beautiful lines and masses are admirable. The thought embodied is equally admirable. The sculptor has chosen the four races to which we immediately owe our modern civilization, and pictured each Sibyl as the personification of the special quality or genius of that race: Religion, Beauty, Order, Progress. Conspicuous in the four pavilions are Mr. Pratt’s Seasons. The composition of each is simple and united, while the circle is well filled with an embroidery of light and shade. In Winter, for example, the design converges towards the patiently folded hands; in Autumn it revolves around the infant; we note the circling solicitude of the mother, centering on the baby at her breast.

In the Rotunda, the statues embody the basic elements of civilization, and some of its noblest exponents; a theme beautifully appropriate to the soaring edifice. Primarily, however, the statues have an architectural purpose; the larger ones to prolong the lines of the columns and emphasize the spring of the arches, the smaller to break the level of the balustrade with a series of upward accents. The sculptors have not been as one in interpreting this obligation, for their work varies from monumental simplicity to extreme characterization. Mr. Pratt’s Philosophy is grandly simple and reposeful. A little intricacy of drapery upon the bosom serves to isolate the bowed head and give more severity to the unbroken folds below. By a calm immobility, also, Mr. Bissell, Mr. Boyle, and Mr. Dallin have secured impressiveness in their statues of Kent, of Bacon, and of Newton. Much the same, too, may be said of Mr. St. Gaudens’s Art.

In Mr. Donoghue’s Science the repose is re-inforced with movement. The strong masses of drapery on one side contrast with the supple line along the right of the figure, and with the placidly extended hands. The hands conform to the spread of the arches, while the whole figure prolongs the columns. Symbolically, it suggests the combined restlessness and contemplation of Science.

In this brief analysis we must include in one group Mr. Niehaus’s Moses and Gibbon, Mr. French’s Herodotus, and Mr. Potter’s Fulton. All of them are rich in characterization, extremely picturesque, and yet sober and controlled in contour. We shall find examples of exquisite technique in modelling in Mr. French’s History, Mr. St. Gaudens’s Homer, and Mr. Macmonnies’s Shakespeare. In Mr. Ruckstuhl’s Solon and Mr. Bauer’s Religion and Beethoven characterization seems the foremost thought.

Mr. Macmonnies’s door is very noble, with increased richness and emphasis in the lunette. In thus giving a sense of greater elevation and dignity by lifting the eye upwards, it is interesting to note how he has adopted a form of composition similar to that introduced by Mr. Vedder for the same purpose over the entrance to the Rotunda. The main composition is a square, modelled in such bold relief that the attention is immediately arrested and directed upwards. Yet there is no sense of emptiness in the accessory portions of the lunette, which are richly encrusted with ornament. To assist this elevation the figures in the panels are in low relief, broadly and simply treated. But the comparatively emphatic folds of the drapery on each side strengthen the figures, while the torches seem as a bold frame to the design, with pronounced accent at the four corners.