The Sculpture and Mural Decorations of the Exposition - A Pictorial Survey of the Art of the Panama-Pacific international exposition by Stella George Stern Perry
page 24 of 93 (25%)
page 24 of 93 (25%)
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achievements at Panama and, indeed, at San Francisco. This spirited and
romantic presentation of the fearless conquistador, Hernando Cortez, shows him at the very height of his proud successes. Charles Niehaus, whose work is always direct and convincing, has made us feel the Spanish conqueror's own sense of victory. We know that now Mexico, the Tlascalans and the Emperor Montezuma have been vanquished, that the victor's ruthless ambition is already dreaming of the conquest of New Spain and the navigation of the Pacific. There are infused into the work a brilliancy and dash that fill the imagination with the glamor of that picturesque period of history. The perfect horsemanship, the restrained but vigorous motion, the whole bearing, have a stirring beauty. There is also intended and expressed in the countenance a sense of vision, as if Cortez had here a prophetic moment in which he saw the future of the continent he claimed. Pizarro In Front of Tower of Jewels Pizzaro, the companion equestrian to Cortez, is the work of Charles Cary Rumsey. The grim, stern and epic history of the bold, arrogant adventurer who was merciless in success and dauntless in failure is ruggedly suggested by this figure, mounted upon a heavily armored charger and advancing with drawn sword. The fact that Pizzaro was a member of Balboa's party when that explorer discovered the Pacific and that he himself was in charge of a Spanish colony at Darien in 1510, makes his appearance at this Exposition appropriate. But it is, after |
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