第24章

The Palace of Fine Arts From Across the LagoonIn returning to the Court of the Four Seasons, we started along another of those inner courts, made charming by those Spanish doorways and by the twisted columns, a favorite of the Romans, evidently borrowed from the Orientals."All through the Exposition," the architect remarked, "we are reminded of the Oriental fondness for the serpent.Some people like to say that it betrays the subtlety and slyness of the Oriental people.

But they admired the serpent chiefly because, in their minds, it represented wisdom, the quiet and easy way of doing things, a little roundabout perhaps, but often better than the method of opposition and attack."Before us, looking down as if from an eminence, stood, the Palace of Fine Arts.The architect reminded me of the clever planning that had placed this magnificent conception in so commanding a position, looking down into the courts, on what he called "the main axis.""It's the vision of a painter who is also a poet, worked out in terms of architecture.Maybeck planned it all, even to the details.He wanted to suggest a splendid ruin, suddenly come upon by travelers, after a long journey in a desert.He has invested the whole place with an atmosphere of tragedy.It's Roman in feeling and Greek in the refinement of its ornamentation.That rotunda reminds one of the Pantheon in Rome.Those Corinthian columns, with the melancholy drooping of the acanthus and the fretwork and the frieze, by Zimm, are suggestive of Greece.Maybeck says that his mind was started on the conception, 'The Island of Death,' by Boecklin, the painting that the German people know so well as the 'Todteninsel,' and by 'The Chariot Race,' of Gerome."The architect went on to say that the resemblance was remote and chiefly interesting as showing how a great artist could carry a suggestion into an entirely new realm.The Boecklin painting merely suggested the general scope of the work, and the chariot race gave the hint for that colonnade, which Maybeck had made so original and graceful by the use of the urns on top of groups of columns with the figure of a woman at each corner.He had used that somewhat eccentric scheme on account of its pictorial charm.All through the construction Maybeck had defied the architectural conventions; but he had been justified by his success.

My attention was directed to a group of columns at the end of the colonnade."There's just a hint of the Roman Forum over there.Perhaps it's accidental.Perhaps it's developed from a picture way down in Maybeck's consciousness.However, the idea of putting two columns together in just that way comes from the French Renaissance.The great French architect, Perrault, used it in the Louvre.In the competition he won out over Bernini, who is living again in the Court of the Universe.

It gives great architectural richness."

People had wondered what McLaren had meant to indicate by the high hedges he had made over there with his dew plant.He had merely carried out the designs put into his hands.Maybeck had intended the hedge to be used as a background for willow trees that were to run up as high as the frieze, in this way gaining depth.Through those trees the rotunda was to be glimpsed.Willow trees, with overhanging boughs, were also to be planted along the edge of the lagoon, the water running under the leaves and disappearing.

In the lagoon swans were swimming and arching their long necks."The old Greeks and Romans would have loved this scene, though they would, of course, have found alien influences here," said the architect."They would have enjoyed the sequestration of the Palace, its being set apart, giving the impression of loneliness.The architects were shrewd in making the approach long and circuitous.""They might have done more with the water that was here before they filled in," I said."It offered fine chances.""Yes, and they thought of them and some ambitious plans were discussed.

But the expense was found to be prohibitive."At that moment a guard, in his yellow uniform with brass buttons, came forward with a questioning lady at his side.They stood so close to us that we could not help hearing their talk.

"What are those women doing up there?"

The guard looked at the urns, surmounting the columns."They're supposed to be crying," he said.

"What are they crying about?"

The guard looked a little embarrassed."They are crying over the sadness of art," he said.Then he added somewhat apologetically, "Anyway, that's what the lecturer told us to say."The lady appealed to us for information."What this gentleman says is true," remarked the authority at my side."The architect intended that those figures should express something of the sadness of life as reflected in art.""Oh," said the lady, as if she only half understood.

Then she and the guard drifted away.

"Those people have unconsciously given us a bit of art criticism, haven't they? One of the most pictorial notes in this composition of Maybeck's is the use of these figures.But it's also eccentric and it puzzles the average looker-on who is always searching after meanings, according to the literary habit of the day, the result of universal reading.Perhaps the effect would have been, less bewildering if those urns were filled with flowers as Maybeck intended they should be.Then the women would have seemed to be bending over the flowers.The little doors were put into the urns so that the man in charge of the flowers could reach up to them.But this item of expense was included among the sacrifices."The coloring of the columns had been a subject of some criticism.The ochre columns were generally admired; but the green columns were considered too atmospheric to give the sense of support.And that imitation of green marble directly under the Pegasus frieze of Zimm's, near the top, had been found to bear a certain resemblance to linoleum.

But in applying, the colors Guerin had worked with deliberate purpose.