Repository: UIHistories Project: Illio - 1895 [PAGE 74]

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all working for a perfect harmony when viewed as a whole. The receding lines of the perspective are a i t short of the lake by the Peristyle and its Bankings, the Casino and Music Hall. But if his would be the view of a bird in flight, let the visitor ascend to the loggia, screened by graceful Ionic columns, which forms the second stage in the lofty spring of the great dome; here, the elevation of some sixty feet, aided by a good field-glass for far-distant detail, enables him to study with greater advantage, the picture as a whole. T h e sun is well on its way from the horizon, and the Peristyle is seen in relief against the waters of Lake Michigan. This long bank of columns is broken only by a central arch on which is placed the Columbus Quadriga, portraying the triumphal return of the discoverer. Such is the animation embodied in every form and figure of the group—the horses, the trumpeters, the charioteers—that one may almost imagine them as having just swept down some trackless path of the sky, and at rest for a moment on the summit of the arch. About the colossal statue of the Republic in the lower end of the basin, there is nothing of the ethereal; here indeed is unmistakable repose. The robing is represented as falling unswerved by the wind. The Republic having thrown all her resources in materials, art, and science for

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the end which we here see accomplished, holds in her upstretched hands emblems of the achievement, and calmly awaits the judgment of the nations. This is the thought which the great statue would seem to convey. At the right, but beyond a monumental bridge, the eye is most pleasingly arrested by the low-domed entrance to the Agricultural building, generally pronounced the most beautiful classic example. The total effect of the massive dome and its porch much resembles the Roman Pantheon; but in place of the dingy brick hulk with its battered mouldings, we see a snow white outline against the sky, and the clean-cut shadows of the highly ornamental Corinthian order of the faeade, the whole embellished by hundreds of groups and figures of beautifully modeled architectural statuary, and at the crown of the dome there trips the gilded Diana of St. Gaudens. This temple to the goddess Ceres is balanced by the lesser frontage of that great civic palace the Manufacturers* building, directly opposite and across the basin. In the Manufacturers' building the continuity of the massive arcade of the long, low curtain walls is broken only by the great central and end pavilions, which here take the form of a major and two minor Triumphal Arches. modeled after the old Roman type of Titos, and all seen in white relief against the blue sk the lake, or the mountainous roof. It s mscxtxemeh <