PARK AND CEMETERY. 
331 
FYLER MEMORIAL, TORRINGTON, CONN. 
HARRISON GRANITE CO., CONTRS. 
The best monuments of 1916 as rep- 
resented by specimens of the best work 
of several hundred leading retail firms 
throughout the country are distinctly better 
monuments. 
The high average of the work presented 
can be judged not only by the specimens 
we illustrate, but by the absence of the 
stock forms of abortions in design that 
would have been in the majority in any 
collection of this kind made ten or even 
five years ago. The old type of cap job 
that was two-thirds bulging cap and over- 
grown bases and one-third monument, and 
the huge mass of rock-faced waves with a 
name cut on it, that formerly passed as 
monuments, are in evidence by their ab- 
sence. In fact, even the rock-faced base 
has practically disappeared from the best 
work. 
The monument of good proportions, har- 
moniously finished in one kind of granite 
and in one style of treatment, is in the 
great majority in the better class of ceme- 
tery monuments. Monument dealers now 
quite generally recognize that a small ceme- 
tery monument is one simple composition 
and should be finished in one harmonious 
style and in one material. 
New forms with some attempt at real 
architectural character, good proportions 
and appropriate decoration are being devel- 
oped to stipplant the older stock forms that 
are being either abandoned or refined into 
more nearly correct proportions. While 
the artistic monstrosities erected from five 
to fifteen years ago are still unfortunately 
much in evidence in the cemeteries, the 
close student of monumental art can read- 
ily distinguish the higher general average 
of quality in the work erected within the 
last few years. It is to be hoped that there 
will come a time in the future when some 
of the older and more hideous forms now 
in the cemeteries will be replaced by mod- 
ern monuments. 
In the subjects presented in this year’s 
collection of best cemetery monuments the 
high average of design and quality is dis- 
tinctly noticeable. We have made the same 
effort that we made last year to collect the 
better e.xamples of the common, everyday 
types of cemetery monuments, such as are 
erected by lot holders of average means. 
It was not our intention to secure the un- 
usual or elaborate forms, the expensive me- 
morials that are occasionally erected where 
funds are unlimited. We have illustrated 
the best of these works individually from 
time to time, and our readers are familiar 
with the elaborate memorials of the rich, 
produced by exceptional sculptural or arch- 
itectural talent, and with the leading public 
memorials that are presented in these pages 
as they are completed. This record of cem- 
etery monuments is intended to demon- 
strate what may he done in rendering the 
simple monuments into worthy memoiials 
of respectable architectural form and ap- 
propriate decoration. 
.'\ careful study of the subjects illus- 
tr.'ited last year and those presented in this 
issue reveals a distinct tendency toward the 
nsc of the monumental tablet in both its 
upright and its horizontal style. The up- 
right tablet is supplanting what was once 
known as the “Cottage” style, and the low 
spreading tablet forms are in many cases 
taking the place of the sarcophagus. For 
('i;oss iiv \v. I’. COOK (:i:.\NiTE co. 
i 
