Page:The Carnegie institute and library of Pittsburgh (1916).djvu/20

 two stories in height and roofed with glass, has the proportions of a Greek temple, with columns of Pentelic marble and green-tinted walls. There is a pervading sense of stability and repose in this beautiful room. Around the ceiling, at the exact height of the original, runs the Parthenon frieze. The collection of casts, though small, is so well chosen that it gives a chronological view of the development of sculpture, beginning with Assyrian and Persian bas-reliefs and seated figures from Egyptian tombs—mysterious immobile forms surveying the hall as if they had solved the secret of the ages—and continuing through the glories of Greek art, including the metopes of the Parthenon and its eastern pediment. It is planned to complete the historic development of sculpture by extending the exhibits through the Renaissance period.

In the Hall of Architecture Mr. Beatty has cared less to convey bare archæological information than to create enduring and inspiring images. The average exhibition of architectural casts consists of dry fragments, interesting only to the expert; here we have a harmonious whole that gives delight to the veriest tyro.

There is a perfect illusion. We are suddenly transported, as if by some magic carpet, to France, and stand in the porch before the abbey church of Saint-Gilles, in the Department of Gard—not a fragment, but the entire porch itself, with its heavy doors swung open so that we may mount the worn step and cross its threshold. This beautiful Romanesque façade of the twelfth century, so exactly reproduced, true in color and accurate in detail, has an indescribable effect. Instinctively the beholder is hushed to silence. Indeed, reverence is the dominant emotion aroused by this noble Hall of Architecture, and one almost feels the visible presence of the company of saints and martyrs whose sculptured images look down from the church portals.