Page:The Pacific Monthly vol. 14.djvu/111

DECORATIVE SCULPTURE AT THE LEWIS & CLARK EXPOSITION

By Anatel Parker McCann

NO feature of the Lewis and Clark Exposition is more pertinently suggestive of the mighty changes wrought by the century which has passed since the two great captains threaded the Oregon forests, than the display of deco- rative sculpture which adorns the plazas and terraces lof the grounds. The Ex- position harks back to days when the great Oregon land felt for the first time the tread of the white man; it slants, in long perspective, to the scenes of early settlement, when houses of rougli-hewn logs, furnished only with the simplest necessities and fashioned for comfort rather than beauty, nestled in the clear- ings; it recalls times of struggle, of lal)or, and of the increasing prosperity which was their reward.

But in all these days, beauty was yet afar off. Art had not brought her gifts into the homes of the Northwest. The first needs of daily life pressed so closely upon the Oregon home-builder that he was forced to think always of utility rather than of beauty.

The Exposition honors these days of the past. Its stately buildings, its beautiful lawns and gardens, its fountains and In'idges, its opulent embellishment on all sides — these, indeed, point the contrast between then and now. But in splendid unison they proclaim that the thousand- fold richer life of to-day was made pos- sible only by the strenuous living of the pioneer ; that the material prosperity whose foundation was laid by him paved the way for the leisure, the culture, and the intellectual attainment of his suc- cessors ; that the handsome cities, noble architecture, great libraries, public and

COWBOY AT REST. "Artistic in conception and beautiful in design," Solon H. Borgrlum, the sculptor, was born in Ogden, Utah, and his work reflects, in a marked degree, the true spirit of the West.