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| THE WONDERFUL GRAIN-PICTURE - In the western part
of the Illinois Building, covering
a large expanse of
wall, was a highly colored mosaic of grains and grasses made in the
semblance of a vast framed painting. It was designed by Mr. Fursman.
The frame was largely composed of sections of yellow corn - ears,
making disks of various sizes. Within this frame, which was very
deep, was the scene - an ideal Illinois prairie farm of one hundred
and sixty acres. Farm house, barns, and stock sheds were represented
by the ingenious treatment of corn husks, and a picket fence
surrounded the homestead. Stock and poultry were clustered in the
barnyard, and a country deep in its shadows, and vivid in its colors;
yet in the entire sweep of the great scene not a pigment nor an
element of construction was used, save the natural grasses, grains,
berries and leaves indigenous to Illinois. A curtain of great width
partly veiled the scene, and was also composed in the same clever
way. This curtain was caught up by a cunningly wrought rope, the
tassels of which were made of yellow corn. The heroic size of this
picture, its convenient setting as a mural decoration in an
agricultural exhibit, and the artistic value of its effects operated
to attract vast numbers of admirers. |
