| Home -> Paul Elder - > The Sculpture and Mural Decorations of the Exposition - The Golden Wheat | |||
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
The Golden Wheat
Rotunda, Palace of Fine Arts |
|||
 |
|||
|
|
|||
| The richly ornate ceiling of the Rotunda of Fine Arts is embellished by a double series of eight panels from the brush of Robert Reid, in the luminous, fervid, joyous vein that characterizes the method of this highly honored American artist. The task assigned him here was a test of skill. The arched effect, so beautifully achieved, and the great accomplishment of merging the huge, brilliant panels into the decorative plan, were not the only difficulties. He had also to calculate the scale of proportion to a mathematical nicety, to make the figures large enough to appear the proper size when viewed so high overhead. The panels are in two sequences, four of them devoted to each subject. The sequence of which an example is illustrated is the Four Golds of California: "The Golden Poppy," the "cup of gold" that makes the spring a glory on California hills; "The Golden Fruit," the citrus fruits that are her pride; "The Golden Metal" that called the world to her hill-sides, and "The Golden Wheat," here shown, the treasure of her fields, borne high in honor. These alternate with the sequence of the Golden Arts, described on the succeeding page. | |||
|
|
|
|