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| NORTH PORTICO OF THE AGRICULTURAL BUILDING -
While the general effect of the Agricultural
Building was doubtless the riches in adornment and most
symmetrical in form of any modern construction which the world has
seen, its central portico did not perhaps equal in beauty the
vestibules of Machinery Hall. We may
here study the ornamental porch (sixty feet wide), whose stairway led
down to the waters of the Grand Basin.
The Corinthian columns are five feet in diameter and forty feet high.
Behind these are the Pompeian mural paintings of George W. Maynard,
of New York. Finishing this classic porch is a pediment on whose
tympanum the sculptor, Larkin C. Mead, of Florence, Italy, modeled
Ceres in the centre with Cybele drawn by lion's cubs on the left, and
King Triptolemus drawn by winged dragons on the right, going forth to
teach agriculture to the earth. The statuary of Philip Martiny next
comes into consideration, and we here note that the now celebrated
sculptor placed but a tithe of his statuary hereabouts. He seats his
two groups of Ceres on the abutments,
and ranges ten of his abundant caryatides under the cornice. Three
winged figures further decorate the pediment, only one being in
position in the picture. Rising to the superstructure, we have the
unclassical array of turkey-cocks, and on the expansive dome there
revolves the slight brazen Diana of St. Gaudens, from the Madison
Square Garden in New York. |
