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Updated: May 1, 2025
Once within the court we found ourselves under the spell of Mullgardt's genius. The architecture, the cauldrons sending out pink steam, the flaming serpents, the torches on the tower, the warm lights from within the tower, the great ecclesiastical stars, brilliant with electricity, all carried out the idea of the earth, cast off by the sun.
The most striking court, in its mysteriousness, is Mullgardt's Court of Abundance, particularly so on a foggy night. Large volumes of vapor are lazily rising from huge bowls and torches, below, and in the tower, suggesting the early days of the cosmic All, cooling off from the turbulent period of its creation.
Leo Lentelli's style is particularly well adapted to Mullgardt's Court of Abundance. Its care-free, subtle quality, full of animation, presenting new motives at every turn, is most helpful in the general spirit of festivity which characterizes this most interesting of all the courts. Aitken's Fountain of Life in the center of the court is totally different.
"Is there really such a thing as independence in art?" I ventured to ask. The architect began to smile. "I'm afraid there isn't much independence. If there were this Exposition would not be quite so intimately related to Europe and the Orient. But wait till we get into Mullgardt's Court of the Ages. Then you'll find an answer to your question."
Many of the "small fry" of the architectural profession enjoy themselves in picking out its faults, which are really, as suggested above, the reason for its supreme beauty. Save for Mullgardt's court, it is the only building that seems to be based on the realization of a dream of a true artistic conception.
Mullgardt's title gives a key to the cipher of the statues. Read by it, the groups on the altar of the Tower become three successive Ages of Civilization. Tower of the Ages. This is the most admired of all the Exposition towers, and with reason.
At the same time, it is truly religious in its effect of turning the mind away from the ordinary world into the realm of the mystic and the supernatural. I never realized what our San Francisco fogs could produce in artistic effects until I visited Mullgardt's court on a foggy night. The effect of the fog is absolutely ennobling.
An artist's dream in romantic Orientalism Mullgardt's own title for it His great "Tower of the Ages" Mullgardt interprets his architectural masterpiece Brangwyn's splendid murals, "Earth," "Air," "Fire" and "Water" The "Fountain of Earth," by Robert Aitken, realism set amidst the romantic. The Court of the Universe is not Oriental, the Court of the Ages is.
The frieze pictures the dance of joyous nature. Fountain of Earth. In Mullgardt's Court of Ages is the Fountain of Earth, by Robert Aitken, the most magnificently virile of all the Exposition fountains, conceived of a powerful imagination and executed in strength and beauty. The sculpture of the fountain must be described in three parts.
The central court at the Exposition, the largest and the most splendid, is the Court of the Universe. Whether it is also the most beautiful is a matter about which opinions differ. Many persons admire Mullgardt's romantic Court of Ages beyond anything else, while others are in love with the calm Court of Seasons. Paradoxically, the Court of the Universe suffers from its very magnificence.
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