This is the only one of the three central courts in which everything is
in harmony. There is nothing obtrusive about it. The effect is that of a
perfect whole, simple, complete. The round pool, smooth, level with the
ground, unadorned, gives its note. The colors are warm, the massive
pillars softly smooth. The trees press close to the walls, the shrubbery
is dense. Birds make happy sounds among the branches. Water falls from
the fountains in the alcoves, not with a roar, but with something more
than a woodland murmur. These fountains touch one of the purest notes in
nature. In cool, high, bare-walled alcoves the water falls in sheets
from terrace to terrace, at last into a dark pool below. The sound is
steady, gently reinforced by echo from the clean walls behind, and
pervasive. It is a very perfect imitation of the sound of mountain
waters.

Nothing in this court takes effort. The pictures and the sculpture of
the alcoves and the half-dome tell their own story. Here is no elusive
mysticism, no obscure symbolism to be dug out with the help of
guidebooks, like a hard lesson. The treasures of the Seasons are on the
surface, glowing in the face of all.

The Seasons are sheltered in the four alcoves, distinguished from each
other only by the fountain groups of Furio Piccirilli and the murals by
H. Milton Bancroft. Neither pictures nor statues need much explanation.
The first alcove to the left of the half-dome is that of Spring. In the
sculptured group of the fountain, flowers bloom and love awakens. It is
a fresh and graceful composition. The murals are on the faces of the
corridor arches. No one can mistake their meaning. Springtime shows her
first blossoms, and the happy shepherd pipes a seasonal air to his
flock, now battening on new grass. In the companion picture, Seedtime,
are symbols of the spring planting.