The Sculpture and Mural Decorations of the Exposition | Page 4

influences the sculpture will have will be in the direction of a new impulse to inventive decoration. This field has remained relatively undeveloped, partly owing to our fondness for the portrait idea, but the direction is legitimate and worthy. Architecture, which is the growth of a selective precedence, must be continually supplied with new impulses - new blood to re-energize, rehumanize its conventions - and on the other hand, all such new impulses must be trained into order with architecture. Within the last few years a school devoted to the development of this, as it might be styled, applied sculpture, has been maintained by a group of public-spirited architects under the management of the Society of Beaux Arts Architects and the National Sculpture Society of the United States of America.
The Star Goddess on the colonnades of the Court of the Universe amounts to a definite creation of a new type of repeated architectural finial - a human figure conventionalized to be come architecturally static - yet not so devitalized as to be inert. Based on another style of architecture the finials of the cloister of the Court of Ages serve a correspondingly related purpose, and the crouching figures on columns in this court are excellent examples of decorative crestings.
The groups of the Nations of the East and the Nations of the West are new types in motif and composition of arch-crowning groups - to be seen in silhouette against the sky at all points.
Both of these are grandly successful solutions of problems never before attempted since the ancients imposed the quadriga form of composition. They were first of all made possible by the receptive attitude of the distinguished architects, Messrs. McKim, Mead and White - which proves conclusively to me that those who are most versed in the various forms of antique arts are also those who are most capable of accepting the application of new motifs when sufficiently proven, and of quickly assimilating genuine contributions to the growth of progressive art. By so doing they lend to them all that wealth of refined elegance that has come down through the ages. This acceptance in itself is fraught with much encouragement to the growing school of public sculpture that aims to understand the principles of co-operation and to weld them to an ideal.
The above is true also of the Column of Progress, which was again made possible by the instant comprehension of the architect, Mr. W. Symmes Richardson. The Column illustrates a new use for an ancient motif. A type of monument which while distinctly architectural in mass has been humanized by the use of sculpture embodying a modern poetic idea. Now, Mr. Critic, it does not matter in the least whether you care for this idea or not. The fact remains, and is all important, that as a type of sculptured column it is new and fills architectural and aesthetic requirements, so that other columns of the same or kindred types will be designed.
The Fountain of Energy and the Fountain of the Earth are the two original fountain compositions. By which is meant that while there are many other very charming fountains on the grounds they are distinctly conceived within the rules of precedent and offer no new suggestion of type. An exposition is the proper place to offer new types in design and execution and happy are they who accept the challenge.
The fountains in the Court of the Universe are examples of how the charm of sculpture can vitalize architectural conventions. The crowning figures of these fountains, representations of the Rising and the Setting Suns, have achieved great popularity.
The still potent charm of archaic methods applied to modern uses is well illustrated in the groups of the "Dance" and of "Music" on the terraces of the Court of the Universe. Again on the rotunda of the Fine Arts Palace and elsewhere this tendency crops out and always with the assurance of pleasing. The group representing the "Genius of Creation" lends a modifying note of refinement against the vigorous Western facade of Machinery Building, and adds much to the interest of the vistas north and south of the Avenue of Progress.
There are figures and reliefs of genuine feeling that do not gain by resemblances to the mannerisms of Rodin and Meunier, that are not in harmony with the surrounding architecture. The original figures in the south portal of the Palace of Varied Industries and the panel over the entrance to the Palace of Liberal Arts are quite successful inserts of new thought in old frames in spite of a touch, of this influence. Rodin, the emancipator of modern sculpture, and a notorious anarchist as regards architecture, is not always applicable. The imitation of his style induces a negation of modeling only in evidence in one of his manners of