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Before each of the four pairs of murals, the painter indicated to us the happy way in which, by the deft use of the coloring, each blended into the other, and she called my attention to the clearness of the symbolism. So often, she remarked, the mural decorators used compositions that seemed like efforts to hide secrets, a childish way of working, sure to defeat itself. Brangwyn had no secrets.
The Mine is in feeling and mass Rembrandtish; and as we have used the name of the great Dutchman we may as well admit that to him, despite a world of difference, Brangwyn owes much. He has the sense of mass. What could be more tangibly massive than the plate called Breaking Up of the Hannibal?
It is evident that Trumbull is a disciple of Brangwyn, though a personal note is not lacking in his work. The tea-room of the California building harbors some mural decorations by Miss Florence Lundborg which the male part of the population can enjoy only by special invitation.
He loved repose. In nearly all of these eight canvases, so brimming with life, there were figures looking on serenely, calmly, conveying the impression of being absolutely at rest. In every particular, according to the searching observer, Brangwyn was successful, with the exception of one, his treatment of birds. He evidently didn't know birds.
And how decorative those men in the background are, with the baskets on their heads. Brangwyn loves to use figures in this attitude. They are interesting and picturesque and dramatic at the same time." "But they're too conscious," the architect insisted, "too posed. "Remember, they're not paintings," the painter insisted. "They're formal decorations."
"But what a chance Brangwyn had to do something new with this magnificent subject," the architect went on. "At last, after centuries of effort, men are actually conquering the air. They've learned to fly. They've become birds. Now why didn't Brangwyn give us a pictorial expression of that miracle?
Corridors, walls red, blue vault above, arches of smoked ivory, lines of blue on wall. Illumination by half-globes in cups on inner side of columns. Murals, by Frank Brangwyn, of London, representing Elements. Best placed of all murals. At corners of court in corridors. Northeast corner, "Fire." "Primitive Fire," figures around fire nursing it, or feeding it.
Brangwyn as well as Anders Zorn has been called a rough-and-ready artist. For exquisite tone and pattern we must go to Whistler and his school. Brangwyn is never exquisite, though he is often poetic, even epical. Look at that Bridge, Barnard Castle. It is noble in outline, lovely in atmosphere. Or at the Old Hammersmith "swell," as the artist slang goes.
His allegorical theme on the north side will linger in the minds of the people as one of the best of the Exposition decorations, particularly for its graceful drawing. It seems hardly possible to do adequate justice to the very unusual genius of Frank Brangwyn, who charms thousands of Exposition visitors with his eight panels, representing the Four Elements, in the Court of Abundance.
He knew she would not have summoned him without having something grave to say, and saw that his surmises were correct by her method of receiving him. She was not in the drawing-room, but in Emery Bland's library, with a background of bindings of red and blue and green and gold, a few Brangwyn and Meryon etchings, and one brilliant, sinister spot of color by Félicien Rops.
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