DOI issue:
Nr. 343 (December 1925)
DOI article:Breuning, Margaret: Tendencies in mural decoration
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19986#0179
decorated a charming ballroom with Venetian
scenes and then attacked the problem of a court
formerly between the hotel and another building,
but now connecting both as a narrow corridor.
The effect gained was that of looking out over a
balustrade between columns and pilasters into a
serenely lovely landscape. No impression of
crampedness was suffered, but rather a vista was
added to a whole suite of rooms.
The wide range of subjects from which modern
mural work is drawn has been indicated, but a
few more examples might be added. The old
necessity of clothing ideas in the garb of mythol-
ogy and finding allegorical trappings to dress up
abstract qualities and natural forces is no longer
felt. We have fewer large-limbed goddesses
holding sheafs of wheat or streaming torches, but
we have the real figures of actual contemporary
life in effective arrangement. Arthur Covey, for
example, takes as the theme of his handsome
decorations for the Kohler Company offices in
Kohler, Wis., the real processes of metal working
in such panels as "Pouring the Mould," or "Tap-
ping a Cupola," where the figures of the workmen,
the pillars of steam and jets of flame, the strange
fierce radiance and the grimy shadows of the
works are all wrought into a dignified conception
of unusual interest.
Clara Fargo Thomas made a map for the office
of a steamship company that shows the round
globe of the world swinging in space and from our
city's towers and spires the lines of travel radiating
to the other cities of the world in a web that holds
the farthest spots of the earth together. D. Put-
nam Brinley makes murals of such subjects as
"Village Gossip," "Market Day" or "The Picnic"
weaving all the enormous amount of detail into a
clear harmony of design. Maria R. Rother
chooses as her decoration for a trade school the
actual workshop—and effective decoration does
she make of it. Lauren Ford's delightful children,
the veritable Indians of the murals of Irving
Couse, Edward Deming or Allen True, the sages
and philosophers of Henry Caro-Devaille's "Philos-
ophy," "Religion," "Theology" all illustrate how
concretely mural subjects are treated with
thoroughly decorative effect with little of the old
linear perspective or conventional symbolic im-
agery. There is a whole chapter of mural hang-
ings waiting to be recorded—names must suffice
now—Arthur Crisp, Lydia Bush-Brown, Fred
Dana March, Homer Conant, Marguerite Zorach,
Bertram Hartmann—are only a few of the artists
who make tapestries, batiks, and painted silk
hangings that must also be reckoned murals of
serious importance.
DECEMBER I 925
one seventy-nine
scenes and then attacked the problem of a court
formerly between the hotel and another building,
but now connecting both as a narrow corridor.
The effect gained was that of looking out over a
balustrade between columns and pilasters into a
serenely lovely landscape. No impression of
crampedness was suffered, but rather a vista was
added to a whole suite of rooms.
The wide range of subjects from which modern
mural work is drawn has been indicated, but a
few more examples might be added. The old
necessity of clothing ideas in the garb of mythol-
ogy and finding allegorical trappings to dress up
abstract qualities and natural forces is no longer
felt. We have fewer large-limbed goddesses
holding sheafs of wheat or streaming torches, but
we have the real figures of actual contemporary
life in effective arrangement. Arthur Covey, for
example, takes as the theme of his handsome
decorations for the Kohler Company offices in
Kohler, Wis., the real processes of metal working
in such panels as "Pouring the Mould," or "Tap-
ping a Cupola," where the figures of the workmen,
the pillars of steam and jets of flame, the strange
fierce radiance and the grimy shadows of the
works are all wrought into a dignified conception
of unusual interest.
Clara Fargo Thomas made a map for the office
of a steamship company that shows the round
globe of the world swinging in space and from our
city's towers and spires the lines of travel radiating
to the other cities of the world in a web that holds
the farthest spots of the earth together. D. Put-
nam Brinley makes murals of such subjects as
"Village Gossip," "Market Day" or "The Picnic"
weaving all the enormous amount of detail into a
clear harmony of design. Maria R. Rother
chooses as her decoration for a trade school the
actual workshop—and effective decoration does
she make of it. Lauren Ford's delightful children,
the veritable Indians of the murals of Irving
Couse, Edward Deming or Allen True, the sages
and philosophers of Henry Caro-Devaille's "Philos-
ophy," "Religion," "Theology" all illustrate how
concretely mural subjects are treated with
thoroughly decorative effect with little of the old
linear perspective or conventional symbolic im-
agery. There is a whole chapter of mural hang-
ings waiting to be recorded—names must suffice
now—Arthur Crisp, Lydia Bush-Brown, Fred
Dana March, Homer Conant, Marguerite Zorach,
Bertram Hartmann—are only a few of the artists
who make tapestries, batiks, and painted silk
hangings that must also be reckoned murals of
serious importance.
DECEMBER I 925
one seventy-nine