The Dream City, Paul V. Galvin 
Digital History Collection
 
 
Previous
Page Next Page
  View larger images: 750x500 pixels or 1500x1000 pixels
  MARTINY'S "CERES" - It is remembered that, when the architects of the Agricultural Building placed the charge of their sculpture in the hands of Philip Martiny, the pupil of St. Gaudens, it was left to him to operate as best he could. In less than a year's time he was to cover the long-stretching cornices and facades of the Agricultural Building with the richest ornamentation ever seen in America. To accomplish so much, and to secure a harmony of design, he must himself make the plan, and invent the groups - or, at least, decide upon their character, while a whole school of sculptors under his direction must labor incessantly, and with a certain kind of originality, to vanquish the stubborn element of time, and enliven the wide spaces of the south side of the Court of Honor with the company of statues on which the search-lights afterward shone at night. Mr. Martiny proved that wealth and grandeur of sculpture can be attained by the duplication of ideas in similar architectural positions, for although all his important groups appear several times on the fronts of Agricultural Hall, yet the very unity of appearance assures the observer that sculpture was here used in its true, subordinated relation - that is, it was the Agricultural temple as a whole which was to be admired. The figures that support this shield of Ceres in our engraving are remarkable for uncommon beauty of feminine contour, and betray the refined eye of the great designer.
Exposition Home Page || Previous Page || Next Page || Dream City Main Page

 
Copyright, Paul V. Galvin Library
Digital History Collection
Page created: August 26, 1998