Studio: international art (51.1911)

Mural Decoration in America

composition are depicted the Hebrew people, nude
kneeling forms, twelve in number, representing the
Tribes, dominated by the colossal forms of the
Pharaoh and the Assyrian monarch, who advance
from each side, as if to dispute for their posses-
sion ; and the theme of God’s deliverance of His
people is developed further in the great frieze of
the Prophets, who here correspond to the Chorus
of the Greek drama.

The second portion of the decoration treats
the Dogma of the Redemption. Here the treat-
ment is, very appropriately, Byzantine, and the
whole composition centres in the figure of Christ
Crucified. The Cross itself is of an archaic
Byzantine design, and the Crucified One holds the
figures of Adam and Eve swathed to him upon the
Cross, at whose feet the symbolic pelican, in gold
relief, feeds her young with her own blood.
Beneath, in the lower tier, the eight Angels of
the Passion bear its instruments—the spear, the
pillar or column, the crown of thorns.

These Angels are of great imaginative beauty
and dignity: we feel here that the subtle loveliness
of the veiled Astarte has been transfused with soul.
Above the Christ are the Three Persons of the
Trinity, co-equal in dignity and majesty; and the
legend beneath (taken, I believe, from the Cathedral
of Cefalii in Sicily), “ Factus Homo, Factor Hominis,
Factique Redemptor, Corporeus redimo Corpora,
Corda Deus ”—gives the key note of this portion of
the subject.

The Boston Public Library is a noble creation,
worthy in every way of the great city of which it
forms a central point. Yet it must be admitted
that the Library of Congress in Washington, taken
as a whole, represents the high-water mark hitherto
attained by American Decorative Art. The
building of the present Library was approved by
Congress in 1886, and General Casey took charge
of the work from 1888 up to his death in 1896,
when he was succeeded by Mr. Green, with
Mr. Pearce Casey as architect and art adviser, and
Messrs. Garnsey and Weinhart in charge of the
decoration—the Library itself being completed in
i897-

On the ground floor Mr. Pearce’s decorations
represent the life of the family in primitive times—
his Religion being, perhaps, the most successful;
and the “ North Curtain Corridor ” is entirely
filled with Mr. Simmons’ nine lunettes of the
Muses. These mark the highest point reached
here in purely decorative art—most of all Calliope,
in the lunette at the end of the corridor, draped in
loose flowing folds of blue, which shade the half
of her face, while they leave unveiled her bosom
and throat, and her superbly-formed shoulders.
The whole conception recalls Michael Angelo’s
paintings—in its strength of simplicity. For, like
the great Florentine, Edward Simmons uses as his
entire theme the human figure, nude or very simply
draped, and with the fewest possible accessories.
Like him, too, his types are grandly forceful, and

“WILLIAM PENN LISTENING TO A QUAKER FIELD-PREACHER AT OXFORD.” PANEL OF FRIEZE IN THE GOVERNOR’S

RECEPTION ROOM AT THE STATE CAPITOL, HARRISBURG. PAINTED BY VIOLET OAKLEY

(Copyright Photo., Curtis dr Cameron, Boston)

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