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Sculpture of the Exposition Palaces and Courts
Descriptive Notes on the
Art of the Statuary at the
Panama-Pacific International Exposition
San Francisco
By Juliet James
To A. Stirling Calder who has so ably managed the execution of thesculpture, and to the vast body of sculptors and their workmen who havegiven the world such inspiration with their splendid work, this book isdedicated.
Foreword
What accents itself in the mind of the layman who makes even a cursorystudy of the sculptors and their works at the Panama-PacificInternational Exposition is the fine, inspiring sincerity and upliftthat each man brings to his work. One cannot be a great sculptorotherwise.
The sculptor's work calls for steadfastness of purpose through longyears of study, acute observation, the highest standards, fineintellectual ability and above all a decided universalism - otherwisethe world soon passes him by.
It is astonishing to see brought together the work of so many reallygreat sculptors. America has a very large number of talented menexpressing themselves on the plastic side - and a few geniuses.
The Exposition of 1915 has given the world the opportunity of seeing thepurposeful heights to which these men have climbed.
We have today real American sculpture - work that savors of Americansoil - a splendid national expression.
Never before have so many remarkable works been brought together; andAmerican sculpture is only in its infancy - born, one might say, afterthe Centennial Exposition of 1876.
The wholesome part of it all is that men and women are workingindependently in their expressions. We do not see that effect here ofone man trying to fit himself to another man's clothing. The work is alldistinctly individual. This individualism for any art is a hopefuloutlook.
The sculpture has vitalized the whole marvelous Exposition. It is not anaccessory, as has been the sculpture of previous Expositions, but itgoes hand in hand with the architecture, poignantly existing for its ownsake and adding greatly to the decorative architectural effects. In manycases the architecture is only the background or often only a pedestalfor the figure or group, pregnant with spirit and meaning.
Those who have the city's growth at heart should see to it that thesemen of brain and skill and inspiration are employed to help beautify thecommercial centers, the parks, the boulevards of our cities.
We need the fine lessons of beauty and uplift around us.
We beautify our houses and spend very little time in them. Why notbeautify our outside world where we spend the bulk of our time?
We, a pleasure-loving people, are devoting more time every year tooutside life. Would it not be a thorough joy to the most prosaic of usto have our cities beautified with inspiring sculpture?
We do a great deal in the line of horticultural beautifying - we coulddo far more - but how little we have done with one of the mostmeaningful and stimulating of the arts.
Let us see to it, in San Francisco at least, that a few of these worksare made permanent.
Take as an example James Earle Fraser's "End of the Trail." Imagine theeffect of that fine work silhouetted against the sky out near FortPoint, on a western headland, with the an