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The Jewel City By: Ben Macomber |
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The Jewel City: Its Planning and Achievement; Its Architecture, Sculpture, Symbolism,
and Music; Its Gardens, Palaces, and Exhibits By
Ben Macomber With Colored Frontispiece and more than Seventy Five Other Illustrations
Introduction No more accurate account of the Panama Pacific International Exposition
has been given than one that was forced from the lips of a charming
Eastern woman of culture. Walking one evening in the Fine Arts
colonnade, while the illumination from distant searchlights accented the
glory of Maybeck's masterpiece, and lit up the half domes and arches
across the lagoon, she exclaimed to her companion: "Why, all the beauty
of the world has been sifted, and the finest of it assembled here!" This simple phrase, the involuntary outburst of a traveled visitor, will
be echoed by thousands who feel the magic of what the master artists and
architects of America have done here in celebration of the Panama Canal.
I put the "artists" first, because this Exposition has set a new
standard. Among all the great international expositions previously held
in the United States, as well as those abroad, it had been the fashion
for managers to order a manufactures building from one architect, a
machinery hall from another, a fine arts gallery from a third. These
worked almost independently. Their structures, separately, were often
beautiful; together, they seldom indicated any kinship or common
purpose. When the buildings were completed, the artists were called in
to soften their disharmonies with such sculptural and horticultural
decoration as might be possible. The Exposition in San Francisco is the first, though it will not be the
last, to subject its architecture to a definite artistic motive. How
this came about it is the object of the present book to tell, how the
Exposition was planned as an appropriate expression of America's joy in
the completion of the Canal, and how its structures, commemorating the
peaceful meeting of the nations through that great waterway, have fitly
been made to represent the art of the entire world, yet with such unity
and originality as to give new interest to the ancient forms, and with
such a wealth of appropriate symbolism in color, sculpture and mural
painting as to make its great courts, towers and arches an inspiring
story of Nature's beneficence and Man's progress. Much of Mr. Macomber's text was written originally for The San Francisco
Chronicle, to which acknowledgment is made for its permission to reprint
his papers. The popularity of these articles, which have been running
since February, has testified to their usefulness. In many cases they
have been preserved and passed from hand to hand. They have also won the
endorsement of liberal use in other publications. It is proper to say,
however, that similarity of language sometimes indicates a common
following of the artists' own explanations of their work, made public by
the Exposition management. Mr. Macomber has revised and amplified his chapters hitherto published,
and has added others briefly outlining the history of the Exposition,
and dealing with the fine arts, industrial, and livestock exhibits, the
foreign and state buildings, music, sports, aviation, and the amusement
section. Apart from the smaller guides, the book is thus the first to
attempt any comprehensive description of the Exposition. Without
indiscriminate praise, or sacrificing independent judgment, the author's
purpose has been to interpret and explain the many things about which
the visitors on the ground and readers at home may naturally wish to
know, rather than to point out minor defects. For the general exhibit palaces, anything more than a brief outline of
their contents would fill several books. But the chapter entitled "The
Palace of Fine Arts and its Exhibit, with the Awards," supplies such an
account of the plan of the galleries and of the important works therein
as will furnish a clear and helpful guide to this great collection... Continue reading book >>
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