In connection with the color, scheme, the mural decorations invite
attention at many places. The outdoor character of the Exposition has
given unusual locations to some of these decorations. There are in all
some thirty. Mr. Guérin, as the director of color, had full charge of
their production, and all of them were painted by men he trusted
personally as regards their ability to execute and to finish on time.
That his choice fell largely on Eastern men was only too natural.

Few people have a proper idea of the magnitude of the work involved in
painting a huge decoration, and Mr. Guérin can hardly be blamed for
his choice of the men of experience who finally did the work, although
not all of them justified the confidence placed in them. The work of
painting such huge decorations is necessarily a big undertaking,
involving many preliminary studies and much physical and mechanical
labor in the end. Many painter-decorators employ large numbers of
trained men, apprentices and independent artists, to assist in the
execution of their commissions, and very frequently the temptation of
yielding the pleasure of execution to other hands is the cause of the
lowering of standards.

Probably, none of the canvases by Mr. Robert Reid, in the dome of the
Fine Arts Palace, can be said to do justice to the remarkable decorative
talent of Mr. Reid. He is so well and prominently known as a painter of
many successful decorations, in the East, that it is to be regretted
that he was not in a happier mood when he came to the task of painting
his eight panels of irregular shape for the Exposition.

The very scattered style of painting so effective in many of his easel
paintings, which show all the fine qualities of a modern impressionistic