PARK AND CEMETERY. 
438 
OBJECT LESSON in PLACING PARK SCULPTURE 
The exhibition of plastic art just 
brought to a close in Humboldt Park, 
Chicago, became a greater success than 
its patrons had ever hoped for. The 
exhibit was under the auspices of the 
Municipal Art League of Chicago, and 
was well supported by the local profes- 
sion. Most of the exhibit was loaned 
by the Field Museum of Natural His- 
tory, and was part of the plastic deco- 
rations of the World’s Fair exhibit. 
The purpose of this sculptural exhib- 
it was to educate the people to an ap- 
preciation and understanding of plastic 
making belongs to the Fine Arts, and 
every detail of the park composition 
should be in absolute harmony, or the 
composition as a whole will inevitably 
become a failure. Parks that in area 
are large enough to reflect the country 
landscape, and really are country — 
country within the citj' gates — must re- 
main, as far as possible, from the intru- 
sion of such material as makes up the 
city. They are supposed to be exactly 
the opposite of what the city represents. 
Structural work of any kind that has 
the feeling of intrusion, or disturbing 
must be greatly disturbed when one fol- 
lowing a pastoral, path in a summer 
night is suddenly presented with the 
fighting attitude of a war hero. And 
how many parks are free from the 
actual facts of this illustrafian ? 
Monumental or portrait sculpture fits 
best in city squares. The pictorial, or 
allegorical only, belongs to the rural 
park, and is best where park and city 
meet. The sculpture reproduced here 
needs no explanation further than it 
must not be judged as the most fitting 
for the location it occupies, but as the 
A Youthful Bather; Leonard Crunelle, So. 
APPROPRIATE LANDSCAPE SETTING FOR SCULPTURE; 
Crunelle’s Fisher Boy Fountain and Panther and Cubs by 
Edward Kemeys. 
OUTDOOR ART EXHIBIT, HUMBOLDT PARK, CHICAGO. 
art in harmonious relation to its sur- 
roundings. The different groups were 
placed with this object in view as far as 
was possible with the material on hand. 
The question of sculpture in our 
parks was discussed at the annual din- 
ner of the Municipal Art League early 
last Spring. This discussion, figurative- 
ly speaking, terminated in the exhibi- 
tion just concluded. The proper plac- 
ing and selecting of sculpture in our 
parks is of the utmost importance. Park 
the quiet and peaceful scenic effects, is 
detrimental to the purpose for which 
the parks are designed, and, therefore, 
does not belong to the parks. 
Sculpture is one of the arts that is 
used with more or less lavishness for 
“beautifying” the parks. Indeed, the de- 
sire for sculpture in our parks has be- 
come so common that pastoral mead- 
ows and sylvan dells are intruded upon 
in the most barbaric manner. No one 
will doubt that the tender sentiments 
only material at our disposal, and as 
iuch it received the best setting possible 
on the exhibition grounds with a view 
to obtaining that relation between the 
different exhibits that would tend to 
make the show as a whole a harmonious 
composition. 
Some of the exhibits have l)een 
loaned to public schools since the close 
of the exhibition. 
Jens Jensen. 
THE SCULPTURE SHOW IN HUMBOLDT PARK, CHICAGO 
If the practical reasoning citizen of the “hard-headed busi- 
ness man” type who is commonly supposed to be the typical 
American and impervious to art, is waiting for a practical, 
useful, beautiful art, he is referred with much satisfaction to 
the outdoor sculpture exhibit described above by Superinten- 
dent Jensen, and jointly planned and arranged by officials of 
the Field Museum, the Art Institute, the V/est Park Board, 
and the Municipal League Art League, and “staged’’ by Super- 
intendent Jens Jensen of the West Park System, Messrs. 
Lorado Taft and Charles J. Mulligan, sculptors, of the Art 
Institute, and other officials of the Municipal Art League. If 
there be a “practical” art, this exhibition was a long step 
toward it. It was a unique object lesson in the placing of 
sculptural and monumental art in public places that the pro- 
fessional sculptor, landscape architect and monument builder, 
can all equally profit by and a valuable education to tlie public 
in the kind of statues that are fitting adornments for piildic 
parks. 
