International studio (57.1915/1916)

Sculpture at the Panama-Pacific Exposition

corded the medallic art, a department in which
the French have attained unique distinction.
It might well have been inferred that the
master modeller of Meudon would triumph over
his colleagues in any collection of contemporary
French or other sculpture, and such is unques-
tionably the case at San Francisco. In the
spacious courtyard of the Pavilion sits the Pen-
seur brooding and stressful. Within is a series
of portrait busts which, in the final analysis,
will doubtless constitute Rodin’s chief title to
immortality. The general average of merit
is above that of Italy. There is less perfunctory
work, and distinct significance attaches to such
successful essays in simplified form as Joseph
Bernard’s Young Woman with a Vessel and Rene
Quillivic’s The Foot Bath. In these figures, both
of which reveal obvious sympathy with the
later archaistic spirit, we note a legitimate
indebtedness to Aristide Maillol. It is quite
frankly a welcome tendency, and one which, if
it does not relapse into mere mannerism, will
doubtless produce valuable results.
Should you pursue the impressionistic rather
than the scholastic method and pass with not
too rigid critical scrutiny through the remaining
galleries you will come upon certain works of
more than common interest. In the Swedish
Section the powerful and broadly monumental
conceptions of David Edstrom dominate all
others. Most modern sculpture is fictile, that
of Edstrom is glyptic. He gets his effects from
the hardest granite, not the ready tractability
of clay. The display of sculpture in the Nether-
land Section, while not otherwise important, is
notable through the inclusion of three subjects
by Charles Van Wyk, a young artist who possesses
something of Meunier’s vigour of handling and
deep sympathy with the downtrodden. The
generous representation accorded Hans St. Lerche,
and the decorative panels by Dagfin Werenskiold,
are the features of the Norwegian exhibit, while
the chief points of attraction in the Argentine
room are the work of Juan Carlos Oliva Navarro
and Alberto Lagos. Fluently and effectively,
Troubetzkoy furnishes the requisite flavour of
cosmopolitanism to the International Section.
You will presumably note in the sculpture as
seen at the Panama-Pacific Exposition not a
few encouraging signs. The endeavour to escape
from a fatal fixity of type, the attempt to attain
a more personal expression, and the realization

that sculpture must not stand alone in sterile,
melancholy isolation are all auspicious symptoms.
We can never, and we should never, aim to re-
capture the antique spirit. Yet if sculpture is to
survive it must be brought into closer accord with
current feelings and ideas. The desire, and the
power, to see objects plastically should be more
consciously cultivated, for to this craving sculp-
ture will surely not fail to respond. It was thus
when the form of man and woman first emerged
from the vase of potter, and the relief evolved
from rude hieroglyph, and thus it is to-day.
Note: Commencing with the June issue of The
International Studio, Dr. Christian Brinton
has each month contributed a paper upon the
art of the Panama-Pacific Exposition, concluding
with the above article on sculpture. These papers
are now being reprinted in book form with ad-
ditional illustrations and coloured frontispiece.
Obtainable from booksellers or the John Lane Co.
NEW MURAL DECORATION
BY ELMER E. GARNSEY
The Richardson Memorial Library was
recently installed in the City Art Museum, St.
Louis, Missouri, where a wing was redesigned
for the purpose by Cass Gilbert, architect of the
Museum. It occupies three rooms, two in which
the books are housed, and the monumental
vestibule shown in our illustration. The walls
and pendentive dome of the vestibule were
decorated by Elmer E. Garnsey, assisted by his
son, Julian E. Garnsey, mural painters.
The ornament, which was executed in a material
resembling the Italian “gesso,” was applied upon
a canvas ground, and delicately modelled before
it hardened. It was then gilded with gold-leaf
and its background was solidly painted in blue,
relieved by accents of violet, green, and red in
the cartouches, wreaths and masks. Finally
the entire wall surface was glazed with trans-
parent colour and scumbled with semi-opaque
pigment in order to suggest a little of the patina
of the Renaissance chapel walls. The four
figures enthroned upon the walls represent
Architecture, Sculpture, Painting, and Print-
ing—“the art preservative of the arts.” The
broad cove of the dome bears a conventionalized
vine-covered trellis, pierced by four octagonal
openings which give glimpses of sun-lit sky.


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