Fountain of the Great Lakes
Encyclopedia
Fountain of the Great Lakes or Spirit of the Great Lakes Fountain is an allegorical
sculpture
by Lorado Taft
in the Art Institute of Chicago
South Stanley McCormick Memorial Court south of the Art Institute of Chicago Building
in the Loop
community area
of Chicago in Cook County
, Illinois
, United States
. It is a bronze
work of art
created between 1907-1913. The fountain depicts five women arranged so that the water flows through them in the same way water passes through the Great Lakes. Note that the Great Lakes waterflow starts in Lake Superior
at 600 feet (182.9 m) above sea level
and continues eastward through each lake until it reaches Lake Ontario
and then passes into the St. Lawrence River. The Fountain is one of Taft's best known works.
The fountain was originally installed facing south where it remained until 1963 when it was moved next to the Morton Wing addition facing west where it sits today. In its original location it was visible from the Jackson and Michigan Avenue
intersection once known as "route center" to the south. The fountain was commissioned by the Benjamin Ferguson
fund and one surface references the title B. F. Ferguson Fountain of the Great Lakes. There is a relief sculpture
of Benjamin Ferguson on the rear panel that has been hidden from view since the fountain was moved.
As the first commission from the Ferguson Fund, it experienced various funding delays. Additionally, the legal environment for land use in Grant Park
was in flux at the time the commission was made, which caused delays in location selection. Once erected, the fountain received largely positive reviews, but a few critics questioned symbolism of the sculpture. Others were caught up in sociopolitical subtexts of the day, with regard to obscenity laws as it related to public art and this semi-nude work.
's 1905 $1 million charitable trust gift to "memorialize events in American History" funded The Fountain, and many other public works in Chicago. As the city attempted to determine a policy for the fund's use, Taft argued for fountains, allegorical statuary, discretely placed portrait busts, and the adornment of bridges and park entrances in order to create long-lasting beauty in addition to supporting the style of art he pursued. By September 1905 his name was linked in the press to the fund as a possible deserving recipient of its first commission. During the 1905–1906 year he began to place greater emphasis on sculpture in the classes he taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, while simultaneously refining earlier allegorical.
The fountain is Taft's response to Daniel Burnham
's complaint at the Columbian Exposition in 1893 that the sculptors charged with ornamenting the fairgrounds failed to produce anything that represented the great natural resources of the west, especially the Great Lakes
. In Spring 1902, Taft had assigned his students a work entitled Spirit of the Great Lakes. Five women had molded individual figures in response to an assignment and joined them in a tiered group with an imagined waterflow from the containers that they held. By mid-January 1906, Taft cast a plaster version, which he exhibited to Ferguson Fund Trestee Charles L. Hitchinson on January 17 at Taft's Midway Studios
. By the end of January, The Art Institute of Chicago
displayed the work during its annual local works exhibition. It gained support during its four-week display and won the Chicago Municipal Art League top sculpture award, and along with two other bust works he won the Society of Chicago Artists' Medal for general excellence. The Municipal art League exhibition Chairperson, Mrs. William F. Grower, decided to form a subcommittee to help satify public support for the work to be the first Ferguson fund commission. However, even after the probate court released the bequest to the trustees on May 23, 1906, no commission was made because the trustees were undecided between a statuary and a portrait commission.
Additionally, Grant Park has been protected since 1836 by "forever open, clear and free" legislation that has been affirmed by several Illinois Supreme Court rulings. Aaron Montgomery Ward
twice sued the city of Chicago to force it to remove buildings and structures from Grant Park and to keep it from building new ones. The second suit was still pending in 1906 and the legal cloud regarding deliberations of architectural limitations in Grant Park
caused inaction. While the trustees remained silent, Taft sought wider public support by publishing a picture of Spirit of the Great Lakes in Century Magazine, which drew interest from as a host of the final work. By February 1907, Buffalo Illustrated Times published a cover with an image of the work and a caption describing the anticipation of the Beautifying Buffalo Society for obtaining the work for the city. However, by the end of 1907 Taft and his connections with the Trust Fund resolved his commission.
On October 31, 1907, the Ferguson Trust Board voted Taft a commission, and on December 16, he signed a $38,000 contract to commence work. The commission was the first commission from the Ferguson fund. Despite the financial agreement it would be some time before a determination of a site for the work. Ward's suit continued to loom over the deliberations. One proposal was to locate it in Grant Park south of the Art Institute and another was to locate it at the 35th Street and Grand Boulevard (Now Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive) intersection that now hosts the Chicago Landmark
and National Register of Historic Places
-listed Victory Monument
. The 1909 Art Institute annual report mentioned a proposal for a sunken garden with a focal fountain south of the Institute. Legal issues regarding land use intensified in 1910, and the Art Institute began to make modest plans for the fountain almost attached to the south wall of its own building. For the next few years there was little mention of the fountain as Taft focused on other work. Then in May 1913, the fountain model at Taft's Midway Studios was disassembled and taken to Jules Berchem's foundry
for bronze casting. Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge designed the base for the sculpture. It was subsequently assembled by mid-August in preparation for a September 9, 1913 dedication date.
In 1963 with the construction of the new Morton wing of the Art Institute of Chicago Building
, the fountain was moved from its south facing position adjacent to the original building that was visible from the Historic Michigan Boulevard District
to the west wall of the new wing in a position facing westward. The sculpture was positioned so that the plaque on the back, which reads that the "fund must be used for erecting and maintaining enduring statuary and monuments", is no longer legible.
Although Taft is now better remembered for his books such as The History of American Sculpture, which is regarded as the first comprehensive work on the subject in the title, he was in his day well-known for portrait
s and allegorical public sculpture, especially public fountains. The fountain was produced in the period following his assignment to design sculptures for William Le Baron Jenney
's Horticultural Building when he designed several large-scale public works, including Fountain of Time
.
At the time of the dedication, Taft described the Ferguson Fund commission to sculpt the fountain as a turning point in his career that led to increased publicity, more commissions, and growing recognition in the community, which combined to give him the encouragement for further commitment to the arts. He hoped that the Fountain of the Great Lakes would mark a new era of civic beautification and that it would also mark the beginning of the Chicago school of sculpture. The dream that Chicago would be the epicenter of the sculpting universe had been bread during the World's Columbian Exposition twenty years earlier and rekindled with the Ferguson bequest. Fountain of the Great Lakes was a major career accomplishment for Taft, which propelled him beyond the level of a portraitist.
, a general supporter of Taft's artistic efforts, was disappointed in the lack of representative geographic configuration and the lack of spirit of the lakes as inland seas. With respect to this specific piece she had gone from being an ardent supporter who felt the model was "stupendous" to finding herself in "doubt" about the work. Taft's human form depictions of the lake failed to capture the imagery of contemporary literature
as it related to the power and fury of nature and the heroism of those struggling against those forces in works such as those of Hamlin Garland
, Charles Eugene Banks, Willa Cather
, or Robert Morss Lovett
. Taft's representations of Lakes with quiet trickling water was in keeping with his general theme of quiet dignity for public sculpture. On the day of the dedication the Chicago Daily News
expressed this point with a photomontage
juxtaposition of Taft's fountain and Lake Michigan
in all its fury.
After one got past the symbolism of the ladies as lakes, complaints existed about the lack of recognition of the contemporary form of female representation in art and literature which had gone from the Lillian Russell
-type to the Gibson Girl
to the Lillie Langtry
image while Taft had apparently chosen "packing house ladies" as his female form. When Taft presented live depictions of his sculptures with quintets of women, he faced complaints that three of his five sculptural compositions had nude upper torsos, while his live representations were fully clothed. The degree to which nudity in public art was more for the "sake of nudity than for the sake of art." was a contemporary issue involving confiscated Paul Chabas fully nude painting, the Roman Catholic Church, critics, art dealers and collectors. All this led to a 1913 amendment to the Chicago municipal obscenity laws proposed by Mayor of Chicago
Carter Harrison, Jr.
to the Chicago City Council
, which passed three months before the dedication of Taft's partially nude fountain. Chicago Tribune
writers stood behind Taft's fountain using humor against what they described as a "streak of over-accentuated puritanism
" that could adversely affect public art.
Taft had Beaux-Arts training that lent itself well to allegorical sculpture
. For Fountain of the Great Lakes, Taft claimed a inspiration from the Greek mythology
. Danaus
ordered his 49 daughters to kill their husbands and condemned them to delivering water to a bottomless vessel in Hades
. This was in keeping with Taft's penchant for classical inspiration although this was a loose association where the number of daughters was reduced from 49 to 5 and the artist's task did not seem to be nearly as cruel as the mythological one.
Allegory
Allegory is a demonstrative form of representation explaining meaning other than the words that are spoken. Allegory communicates its message by means of symbolic figures, actions or symbolic representation...
sculpture
Sculpture
Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...
by Lorado Taft
Lorado Taft
Lorado Zadoc Taft was an American sculptor, writer and educator. Taft was born in Elmwood, Illinois in 1860 and died in his home studio in Chicago in 1936.-Early years and education:...
in the Art Institute of Chicago
Art Institute of Chicago
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago is one of America's largest accredited independent schools of art and design, located in the Loop in Chicago, Illinois. It is associated with the museum of the same name, and "The Art Institute of Chicago" or "Chicago Art Institute" often refers to either...
South Stanley McCormick Memorial Court south of the Art Institute of Chicago Building
Art Institute of Chicago Building
The Art Institute of Chicago Building houses the Art Institute of Chicago, and is located in the Chicago Landmark Historic Michigan Boulevard District in the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois. The building is also located in Grant Park on the east side of Michigan Avenue, and marks the third...
in the Loop
Chicago Loop
The Loop or Chicago Loop is one of 77 officially designated Chicago community areas located in the City of Chicago, Illinois. It is the historic commercial center of downtown Chicago...
community area
Community areas of Chicago
Community areas in Chicago refers to the work of the Social Science Research Committee at University of Chicago which has unofficially divided the City of Chicago into 77 community areas. These areas are well-defined and static...
of Chicago in Cook County
Cook County, Illinois
Cook County is a county in the U.S. state of Illinois, with its county seat in Chicago. It is the second most populous county in the United States after Los Angeles County. The county has 5,194,675 residents, which is 40.5 percent of all Illinois residents. Cook County's population is larger than...
, Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. It is a bronze
Bronze
Bronze is a metal alloy consisting primarily of copper, usually with tin as the main additive. It is hard and brittle, and it was particularly significant in antiquity, so much so that the Bronze Age was named after the metal...
work of art
Work of art
A work of art, artwork, art piece, or art object is an aesthetic item or artistic creation.The term "a work of art" can apply to:*an example of fine art, such as a painting or sculpture*a fine work of architecture or landscape design...
created between 1907-1913. The fountain depicts five women arranged so that the water flows through them in the same way water passes through the Great Lakes. Note that the Great Lakes waterflow starts in Lake Superior
Lake Superior
Lake Superior is the largest of the five traditionally-demarcated Great Lakes of North America. It is bounded to the north by the Canadian province of Ontario and the U.S. state of Minnesota, and to the south by the U.S. states of Wisconsin and Michigan. It is the largest freshwater lake in the...
at 600 feet (182.9 m) above sea level
Sea level
Mean sea level is a measure of the average height of the ocean's surface ; used as a standard in reckoning land elevation...
and continues eastward through each lake until it reaches Lake Ontario
Lake Ontario
Lake Ontario is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is bounded on the north and southwest by the Canadian province of Ontario, and on the south by the American state of New York. Ontario, Canada's most populous province, was named for the lake. In the Wyandot language, ontarío means...
and then passes into the St. Lawrence River. The Fountain is one of Taft's best known works.
The fountain was originally installed facing south where it remained until 1963 when it was moved next to the Morton Wing addition facing west where it sits today. In its original location it was visible from the Jackson and Michigan Avenue
Michigan Avenue (Chicago)
Michigan Avenue is a major north-south street in Chicago which runs at 100 east south of the Chicago River and at 132 East north of the river from 12628 south to 950 north in the Chicago street address system...
intersection once known as "route center" to the south. The fountain was commissioned by the Benjamin Ferguson
Benjamin Ferguson
Benjamin Franklin Ferguson was an American lumber merchant and philanthropist whose 1905 $1 million charitable trust gift funded seventeen of the most notable public monuments and sculptures in Chicago, Illinois, United States...
fund and one surface references the title B. F. Ferguson Fountain of the Great Lakes. There is a relief sculpture
Relief
Relief is a sculptural technique. The term relief is from the Latin verb levo, to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is thus to give the impression that the sculpted material has been raised above the background plane...
of Benjamin Ferguson on the rear panel that has been hidden from view since the fountain was moved.
As the first commission from the Ferguson Fund, it experienced various funding delays. Additionally, the legal environment for land use in Grant Park
Grant Park (Chicago)
Grant Park, with between the downtown Chicago Loop and Lake Michigan, offers many different attractions in its large open space. The park is generally flat. It is also crossed by large boulevards and even a bed of sunken railroad tracks...
was in flux at the time the commission was made, which caused delays in location selection. Once erected, the fountain received largely positive reviews, but a few critics questioned symbolism of the sculpture. Others were caught up in sociopolitical subtexts of the day, with regard to obscenity laws as it related to public art and this semi-nude work.
Background
Benjamin FergusonBenjamin Ferguson
Benjamin Franklin Ferguson was an American lumber merchant and philanthropist whose 1905 $1 million charitable trust gift funded seventeen of the most notable public monuments and sculptures in Chicago, Illinois, United States...
's 1905 $1 million charitable trust gift to "memorialize events in American History" funded The Fountain, and many other public works in Chicago. As the city attempted to determine a policy for the fund's use, Taft argued for fountains, allegorical statuary, discretely placed portrait busts, and the adornment of bridges and park entrances in order to create long-lasting beauty in addition to supporting the style of art he pursued. By September 1905 his name was linked in the press to the fund as a possible deserving recipient of its first commission. During the 1905–1906 year he began to place greater emphasis on sculpture in the classes he taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, while simultaneously refining earlier allegorical.
The fountain is Taft's response to Daniel Burnham
Daniel Burnham
Daniel Hudson Burnham, FAIA was an American architect and urban planner. He was the Director of Works for the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. He took a leading role in the creation of master plans for the development of a number of cities, including Chicago and downtown Washington DC...
's complaint at the Columbian Exposition in 1893 that the sculptors charged with ornamenting the fairgrounds failed to produce anything that represented the great natural resources of the west, especially the Great Lakes
Great Lakes
The Great Lakes are a collection of freshwater lakes located in northeastern North America, on the Canada – United States border. Consisting of Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario, they form the largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth by total surface, coming in second by volume...
. In Spring 1902, Taft had assigned his students a work entitled Spirit of the Great Lakes. Five women had molded individual figures in response to an assignment and joined them in a tiered group with an imagined waterflow from the containers that they held. By mid-January 1906, Taft cast a plaster version, which he exhibited to Ferguson Fund Trestee Charles L. Hitchinson on January 17 at Taft's Midway Studios
Lorado Taft Midway Studios
The Lorado Taft Midway Studios consist of a converted and relocated barn that became the art studio of one of the early 20th century's most important sculptors, Lorado Taft. It is located in the Woodlawn community area of Chicago, Illinois and is now owned by the University of Chicago. It was...
. By the end of January, The Art Institute of Chicago
Art Institute of Chicago
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago is one of America's largest accredited independent schools of art and design, located in the Loop in Chicago, Illinois. It is associated with the museum of the same name, and "The Art Institute of Chicago" or "Chicago Art Institute" often refers to either...
displayed the work during its annual local works exhibition. It gained support during its four-week display and won the Chicago Municipal Art League top sculpture award, and along with two other bust works he won the Society of Chicago Artists' Medal for general excellence. The Municipal art League exhibition Chairperson, Mrs. William F. Grower, decided to form a subcommittee to help satify public support for the work to be the first Ferguson fund commission. However, even after the probate court released the bequest to the trustees on May 23, 1906, no commission was made because the trustees were undecided between a statuary and a portrait commission.
Additionally, Grant Park has been protected since 1836 by "forever open, clear and free" legislation that has been affirmed by several Illinois Supreme Court rulings. Aaron Montgomery Ward
Aaron Montgomery Ward
Aaron Montgomery Ward was an American businessman notable for the invention of mail order.The mail-order industry was started by Aaron Montgomery Ward in 1872 in Chicago...
twice sued the city of Chicago to force it to remove buildings and structures from Grant Park and to keep it from building new ones. The second suit was still pending in 1906 and the legal cloud regarding deliberations of architectural limitations in Grant Park
Grant Park (Chicago)
Grant Park, with between the downtown Chicago Loop and Lake Michigan, offers many different attractions in its large open space. The park is generally flat. It is also crossed by large boulevards and even a bed of sunken railroad tracks...
caused inaction. While the trustees remained silent, Taft sought wider public support by publishing a picture of Spirit of the Great Lakes in Century Magazine, which drew interest from as a host of the final work. By February 1907, Buffalo Illustrated Times published a cover with an image of the work and a caption describing the anticipation of the Beautifying Buffalo Society for obtaining the work for the city. However, by the end of 1907 Taft and his connections with the Trust Fund resolved his commission.
On October 31, 1907, the Ferguson Trust Board voted Taft a commission, and on December 16, he signed a $38,000 contract to commence work. The commission was the first commission from the Ferguson fund. Despite the financial agreement it would be some time before a determination of a site for the work. Ward's suit continued to loom over the deliberations. One proposal was to locate it in Grant Park south of the Art Institute and another was to locate it at the 35th Street and Grand Boulevard (Now Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive) intersection that now hosts the Chicago Landmark
Chicago Landmark
Chicago Landmark is a designation of the Mayor of Chicago and the Chicago City Council for historic buildings and other sites in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Listed sites are selected after meeting a combination of criteria, including historical, economic, architectural, artistic, cultural,...
and National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
-listed Victory Monument
Victory Monument (Chicago)
The Victory Monument, created by sculptor Leonard Crunelle, was built to honor the Eighth Regiment of the Illinois National Guard, an African-American unit that served in France during World War I. It is located in the Black Metropolis-Bronzeville District in the Douglas community area of Chicago,...
. The 1909 Art Institute annual report mentioned a proposal for a sunken garden with a focal fountain south of the Institute. Legal issues regarding land use intensified in 1910, and the Art Institute began to make modest plans for the fountain almost attached to the south wall of its own building. For the next few years there was little mention of the fountain as Taft focused on other work. Then in May 1913, the fountain model at Taft's Midway Studios was disassembled and taken to Jules Berchem's foundry
Foundry
A foundry is a factory that produces metal castings. Metals are cast into shapes by melting them into a liquid, pouring the metal in a mold, and removing the mold material or casting after the metal has solidified as it cools. The most common metals processed are aluminum and cast iron...
for bronze casting. Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge designed the base for the sculpture. It was subsequently assembled by mid-August in preparation for a September 9, 1913 dedication date.
In 1963 with the construction of the new Morton wing of the Art Institute of Chicago Building
Art Institute of Chicago Building
The Art Institute of Chicago Building houses the Art Institute of Chicago, and is located in the Chicago Landmark Historic Michigan Boulevard District in the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois. The building is also located in Grant Park on the east side of Michigan Avenue, and marks the third...
, the fountain was moved from its south facing position adjacent to the original building that was visible from the Historic Michigan Boulevard District
Historic Michigan Boulevard District
The Historic Michigan Boulevard District is a historic district in the Loop community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States encompassing Michigan Avenue between 11th or Roosevelt Road , depending on the source, and Randolph Streets and named after the nearby Great Lake...
to the west wall of the new wing in a position facing westward. The sculpture was positioned so that the plaque on the back, which reads that the "fund must be used for erecting and maintaining enduring statuary and monuments", is no longer legible.
Although Taft is now better remembered for his books such as The History of American Sculpture, which is regarded as the first comprehensive work on the subject in the title, he was in his day well-known for portrait
Portrait
thumb|250px|right|Portrait of [[Thomas Jefferson]] by [[Rembrandt Peale]], 1805. [[New-York Historical Society]].A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant. The intent is to display the likeness,...
s and allegorical public sculpture, especially public fountains. The fountain was produced in the period following his assignment to design sculptures for William Le Baron Jenney
William Le Baron Jenney
William Le Baron Jenney was an American architect and engineer who became known as the Father of the American skyscraper.- Life and career :...
's Horticultural Building when he designed several large-scale public works, including Fountain of Time
Fountain of Time
Fountain of Time, or simply Time, is a sculpture by Lorado Taft, measuring in length, situated at the western edge of the Midway Plaisance within Washington Park in Chicago, Illinois, in the United States. This location is in the Washington Park community area on Chicago's South Side...
.
At the time of the dedication, Taft described the Ferguson Fund commission to sculpt the fountain as a turning point in his career that led to increased publicity, more commissions, and growing recognition in the community, which combined to give him the encouragement for further commitment to the arts. He hoped that the Fountain of the Great Lakes would mark a new era of civic beautification and that it would also mark the beginning of the Chicago school of sculpture. The dream that Chicago would be the epicenter of the sculpting universe had been bread during the World's Columbian Exposition twenty years earlier and rekindled with the Ferguson bequest. Fountain of the Great Lakes was a major career accomplishment for Taft, which propelled him beyond the level of a portraitist.
Critical response
The general opinion of Fountain of the Great Lakes was positive with some describing it as a cultural achievement for Taft and Chicago. The detractors conceded that as a figural composition, it was ideal in an Old World way. Critics voiced concern over the sculpture's confusion and decorum. One of the basic problems for the critics was the propriety of the symbolism of artistic and attractive bronze figures posed as bodies of water. There had for some time been discussion of the depictions representing relative elevations and the flows of the waters as they seem to do. There were grumblings for closer association of the figures to the lakes by use of physical features, directional orientation and definite contours. Harriet MonroeHarriet Monroe
Harriet Monroe was an American editor, scholar, literary critic, poet and patron of the arts. She is best known as the founding publisher and long-time editor of Poetry Magazine, which made its debut in 1912. As a supporter of the poets Ezra Pound, H. D., T. S...
, a general supporter of Taft's artistic efforts, was disappointed in the lack of representative geographic configuration and the lack of spirit of the lakes as inland seas. With respect to this specific piece she had gone from being an ardent supporter who felt the model was "stupendous" to finding herself in "doubt" about the work. Taft's human form depictions of the lake failed to capture the imagery of contemporary literature
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
as it related to the power and fury of nature and the heroism of those struggling against those forces in works such as those of Hamlin Garland
Hamlin Garland
Hannibal Hamlin Garland was an American novelist, poet, essayist, and short story writer. He is best known for his fiction involving hard-working Midwestern farmers.- Biography :...
, Charles Eugene Banks, Willa Cather
Willa Cather
Willa Seibert Cather was an American author who achieved recognition for her novels of frontier life on the Great Plains, in works such as O Pioneers!, My Ántonia, and The Song of the Lark. In 1923 she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for One of Ours , a novel set during World War I...
, or Robert Morss Lovett
Robert Morss Lovett
Robert Morss Lovett was an American academic, writer, editor, political activist, and government official....
. Taft's representations of Lakes with quiet trickling water was in keeping with his general theme of quiet dignity for public sculpture. On the day of the dedication the Chicago Daily News
Chicago Daily News
The Chicago Daily News was an afternoon daily newspaper published between 1876 and 1978 in Chicago, Illinois.-History:The Daily News was founded by Melville E. Stone, Percy Meggy, and William Dougherty in 1875 and began publishing early the next year...
expressed this point with a photomontage
Photomontage
Photomontage is the process and result of making a composite photograph by cutting and joining a number of other photographs. The composite picture was sometimes photographed so that the final image is converted back into a seamless photographic print. A similar method, although one that does not...
juxtaposition of Taft's fountain and Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America and the only one located entirely within the United States. It is the second largest of the Great Lakes by volume and the third largest by surface area, after Lake Superior and Lake Huron...
in all its fury.
After one got past the symbolism of the ladies as lakes, complaints existed about the lack of recognition of the contemporary form of female representation in art and literature which had gone from the Lillian Russell
Lillian Russell
Lillian Russell was an American actress and singer. She became one of the most famous actresses and singers of the late 19th century and early 20th century, known for her beauty and style, as well as for her voice and stage presence.Russell was born in Iowa but raised in Chicago...
-type to the Gibson Girl
Gibson Girl
The Gibson Girl was the personification of a feminine ideal as portrayed in the satirical pen-and-ink-illustrated stories created by illustrator Charles Dana Gibson during a 20-year period spanning the late nineteenth and early twentieth century in the United States.Some people argue that the...
to the Lillie Langtry
Lillie Langtry
Lillie Langtry , usually spelled Lily Langtry when she was in the U.S., born Emilie Charlotte Le Breton, was a British actress born on the island of Jersey...
image while Taft had apparently chosen "packing house ladies" as his female form. When Taft presented live depictions of his sculptures with quintets of women, he faced complaints that three of his five sculptural compositions had nude upper torsos, while his live representations were fully clothed. The degree to which nudity in public art was more for the "sake of nudity than for the sake of art." was a contemporary issue involving confiscated Paul Chabas fully nude painting, the Roman Catholic Church, critics, art dealers and collectors. All this led to a 1913 amendment to the Chicago municipal obscenity laws proposed by Mayor of Chicago
Mayor of Chicago
The Mayor of Chicago is the chief executive of Chicago, Illinois, the third largest city in the United States. He or she is charged with directing city departments and agencies, and with the advice and consent of the Chicago City Council, appoints department and agency leaders.-Appointment...
Carter Harrison, Jr.
Carter Harrison, Jr.
Carter Henry Harrison, Jr. served as Mayor of Chicago . The City's 30th mayor, he was the first actually born in Chicago....
to the Chicago City Council
Chicago City Council
The Chicago City Council is the legislative branch of the government of the City of Chicago in Illinois. It consists of 50 aldermen elected from 50 wards to serve four-year terms...
, which passed three months before the dedication of Taft's partially nude fountain. Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
writers stood behind Taft's fountain using humor against what they described as a "streak of over-accentuated puritanism
Religious fanaticism
Religious fanaticism is fanaticism related to a person's, or a group's, devotion to a religion. However, religious fanaticism is a subjective evaluation defined by the culture context that is performing the evaluation. What constitutes fanaticism in another's behavior or belief is determined by the...
" that could adversely affect public art.
Taft had Beaux-Arts training that lent itself well to allegorical sculpture
Allegorical sculpture
Allegorical sculpture refers to sculptures that symbolize and particularly personify abstract ideas as in allegory.Common in the western world, for example, are statues of 'Justice', a female figure traditionally holding scales in one hand, as a symbol of her weighing issues and arguments, and a...
. For Fountain of the Great Lakes, Taft claimed a inspiration from the Greek mythology
Greek mythology
Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...
. Danaus
Danaus
In Greek mythology Danaus, or Danaos , was the twin brother of Aegyptus and son of Achiroe and Belus, a mythical king of Egypt. The myth of Danaus is a foundation legend of Argos, one of the foremost Mycenaean cities of the Peloponnesus...
ordered his 49 daughters to kill their husbands and condemned them to delivering water to a bottomless vessel in Hades
Hades
Hades , Hadēs, originally , Haidēs or , Aidēs , meaning "the unseen") was the ancient Greek god of the underworld. The genitive , Haidou, was an elision to denote locality: "[the house/dominion] of Hades". Eventually, the nominative came to designate the abode of the dead.In Greek mythology, Hades...
. This was in keeping with Taft's penchant for classical inspiration although this was a loose association where the number of daughters was reduced from 49 to 5 and the artist's task did not seem to be nearly as cruel as the mythological one.
External links
- Encyclopedia of Chicago 1929 image (before more recent building additions)