DOI issue:
No. 89 (Aug. 1900)
DOI article:The decorations of the peninsular and oriental pavilion at the Paris exhibition
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19785#0181
The Peninsular and Oriental Pavilion
'THE SPIRITS OF THE GULF STREAM ' BY G. E. MOIRA
however, conventionalised his work so much that it working. They follow, so far as their arrange-
has ceased to be spontaneous, and he has not ment goes, the fashion that artistic custom has
warped his decorative instincts into a common- prescribed, but in execution they are to some
place groove. But at the same time he has wisely extent different from the ordinary run of modelled
disregarded the pictorial element that has played a work. Instead of being built up from a fiat
useful part in much of the modelling that he has surface into relief they have been treated in the
done before as a basis for colour treatment, and he reverse way and, as it were, carved out of a plain
has turned to very good account the opportunity that slab of clay by cutting away the parts that needed to
he has had in this pavilion of doing what is perhaps be recessed. By this method of handling a certain
the most scholarly work he has as yet accomplished, level quality has been secured that is specially suited
The subjects of these panels symbolise the by its comparative slightness of relief for panels
various operations carried on by the great ship- which form, as these do, an actual part of the wall
ping company by which the building has been surface. Mr. Jenkins has really applied to clay the
erected, and summarise various details of its practice of the marble carver, and a most satisfactory
iS5
'THE SPIRITS OF THE GULF STREAM ' BY G. E. MOIRA
however, conventionalised his work so much that it working. They follow, so far as their arrange-
has ceased to be spontaneous, and he has not ment goes, the fashion that artistic custom has
warped his decorative instincts into a common- prescribed, but in execution they are to some
place groove. But at the same time he has wisely extent different from the ordinary run of modelled
disregarded the pictorial element that has played a work. Instead of being built up from a fiat
useful part in much of the modelling that he has surface into relief they have been treated in the
done before as a basis for colour treatment, and he reverse way and, as it were, carved out of a plain
has turned to very good account the opportunity that slab of clay by cutting away the parts that needed to
he has had in this pavilion of doing what is perhaps be recessed. By this method of handling a certain
the most scholarly work he has as yet accomplished, level quality has been secured that is specially suited
The subjects of these panels symbolise the by its comparative slightness of relief for panels
various operations carried on by the great ship- which form, as these do, an actual part of the wall
ping company by which the building has been surface. Mr. Jenkins has really applied to clay the
erected, and summarise various details of its practice of the marble carver, and a most satisfactory
iS5