The Relation of Mural Painting to Architecture 
top or bottom ; because it is frequently too 
distant; and finally because it is seldom well 
or evenly lighted. Yet the ceiling is one 
of the places which architects are fondest of 
reserving for mural painting. When Mr. 
George B. Post made the decision to have 
certain decorative paintings in the Liberal 
A rts Building at the Chicago World’s Fair, 
thereby beginning the recent movement 
toward mural painting in this country, the 
only spaces available were certain pendentive 
domes fifty feet above the pavement and 
illuminated only by reflected light. The 
artists chosen were untried decorators, and 
they had to discover a treatment that should 
not too grossly deny structure, that should be 
visible in such a light and at such a distance, 
and that should give scope to their pictorial 
training. Mr. Blashfield undoubtedlv solved 
the problem better than the others by build¬ 
ing up a simulated dome with open top, and 
by painting his pendentive figures in front of 
this simulated architecture. The collar of the 
dome of the Congressional Library is much 
too high for painting, and architecturally 
considered, it seems to me a lapse of con¬ 
tinuity. This fault is minimized by the simu¬ 
lated mosaic background, but the lantern 
still seems cut off from its natural support 
by the intercalated band of painting. The 
hardest of hard problems, however, is that of 
a flat ceiling like that of the ball-room of 
the Waldorf-Astoria. H ere the ceiling, 
being treated as the canvas for a vast paint¬ 
ing, is set back from and above the cornice, 
so that it has no visible place or architectural 
function, while it can only be lighted from 
the edge, and the picture painted upon it is 
invisible. Such good painting as Mr. Blash¬ 
field put there is wasted, save in so far as it 
adds to the splendor and luxury of the room. 
After the ceiling we come naturally to the 
tympanum and the lunette. From the archi¬ 
tectural point of view, there is no objection 
to be found to these spaces as fields for paint¬ 
ing. Architecturally they are filled-in pene¬ 
trations, and therefore natural places for simu¬ 
lated penetrations. Pictorially they have 
the merit of being perpendicular surfaces, and 
their forms are interesting and stimulating 
to invention, though somewhat monotonous 
in their limitations, and allowing little 
freedom of composition. Their position is 
apt to be in an important axis of the build¬ 
ing, and in such a situation a strictly formal 
and symmetrical arrangement is advisable. 
Minor lunettes sometimes admit of more 
freedom, as has been well shown by Mr. 
Walker in the Library of Congress. The 
chief objection of the painter to the lunette 
is that it is apt to be high and ill-lighted. 
Below the lunette comes the frieze. If 
this is a part of the architectural framework 
—something in the nature of a lintel con¬ 
necting the piers—it is evident that it is not 
better suited to full pictorial treatment than 
the piers themselves, and not very well 
suited for figure painting of any kind. The 
best method of treating it would be with pure 
ornament. If however, as is more commonly 
the case, the frieze is the upper portion of 
the wall curtain, there can be no architectural 
reason for not using it as a field for pictorial 
decoration, provided it is not so continuous 
as to cut the ceiling from the walls and cause 
it to appear hung in air. When the frieze 
is continuous, it would be better to avoid 
distance or any suggestion of space. 1 n the 
entrance hall of the Appellate Court in New 
York, we have an admirable instance of 
proper treatment by Mr. Mowbray. The 
frieze, turning round the elevator shaft, has 
figures upon it relieved, against a flat tone, 
with stencilled monograms. Even here, 
however, the artist felt the need of a break at 
the salient angles, and introduced little pilas¬ 
ters there. Where the frieze is broken by 
engaged columns or pilasters, which seem to 
support the cornice, greater liberty of treat¬ 
ment is admissible, and such broken friezes 
form good spaces for paintings, though not 
the best. They are apt to be cramped for 
room, are seldom the best lighted portion of 
the wall and are not well within the line of 
vision. 
There can be no doubt that the best place 
for mural painting of a high order is the wall 
screen itself. I f the wall has strong features, — 
piers or pilasters with arches or cornice,— 
there is no reason why the whole space be¬ 
tween these features should not be given up 
to painting. If the wall is of a continuous 
or united surface, it would be better to make 
the simulated openings cover a part of the 
space only, and to surround them with painted 
borders or flat tones. In any case the pic- 
ioo 
