The planting of trees consumed many months.The best effects McLaren found he could get by massing.He was particularly successful with the magnificent Fine Arts Palace, both in his groupings and in his use of individual trees.About the lagoon he did some particularly attractive planting, utilizing the water for reflection.There was a twisted cypress that he placed alone against the colonnade with a skill that showed the insight and the feeling of an, artist.On, the water side, the Marina, he used the trees to break the bareness of the long esplanade.And here and there on the grounds, for pure decoration, he reached some of his finest effects with the eucalyptus, for which he evidently had a particular regard.As no California Exposition would be complete without palm trees, provision was made for the decorative use of palms along of the main walks.
About two weeks before the opening, the first planting of the gardens was completed, the first of the three crops to be displayed during the Exposition.The flowers included most of the spring flowers grown here in California or capable of thriving in the California spring climate.
In June they were to be re-placed with geraniums, begonias, asters, gilly-flowers, foxglove, hollyhocks, lilies and rhododendrons.The autumn display, would include cosmos and chrysanthemums and marguerites.
The HedgeAs the work proceeded, W.B.Faville, the architect, of Bliss and Faville, made a suggestion for the building of a fence that should look as if it were moss-covered with age.The result was that developing the suggestion McLaren devised a new kind of hedge likely to be used the world over.It was made of boxes, six feet long and two feet wide, containing, a two-inch layer of earth, held in place by a wire netting, and planted with South African dew plant, dense, green and hardy and thriving in this climate.Those boxes, when piled to a height of several feet, made a rustic wall of great beauty, Moreover, they could be continuously irrigated by a one-inch perforated line of pipe.In certain lights the water trickling through the leaves shimmered like gems.In summer the plant would produce masses of small purple flowers.
McLaren found his experiment so successful that he decided to build a hedge twenty feet high, extending more than a thousand feet.He also used the hedge extensively in the landscape design for the Palace of Fine Arts.
The SculptorsThe department of sculpture was placed under the direction of one of the most distinguished sculptors in the country.Karl Bitter, of New York, whose death from an automobile accident took place a few weeks after the Exposition opened.He gathered around him an extraordinary array of co-operators, including many of the most brilliant names in the world of art, with A.Stirling Calder as the acting chief, the man on the ground.
Though he did not contribute any work of his own, he was active in developing the work as a whole, taking special pains to keep it in character and to see that, even in it its diversity, it gave the impression, of harmony.
Calder welcomed the chance to work on a big scale and to carry out big ideas.With Bitter he visited San Francisco in August, 1912, for a consultation with the architectural commission.Minutely they went over the site and examined the architectural plans.Then they picked the sculptors that they wished to secure as co-operators.
In December, 1912, Bitter and Calder made another visit to San Francisco for further conferring with the architectural commission, bearing sketches and scale models.Bitter explained his plans in detail and asked for an appropriation.He was told that he should be granted six hundred thousand dollars.The amount was gradually reduced till it finally reached three hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars.
It was at this period that Calder submitted his plan for the Column of Progress.He had worked it out in New York and had the scale models made by MacNeil and Konti.It won the approval of McKim, Mead & White, who declared that it made an ideal feature of the approach from the bay side to their Court of the Universe, then called the Court of the Sun and Stars.
The next few months of preparation in New York meant getting the sculptors together and working out the designs.The first meeting of the sculptors took place in January, 1913, in Bitter's studio, with a remarkable array of personages in attendance, including D.C.French, Herbert Adams, Robert Aitken, James E.Fraser, H.A.MacNeil, A.A.
Weinman, Mahonri Young, Isidore Konti, Mrs.Burroughs and several others.In detail Bitter explained the situation in San Francisco and outlined his ideas of what ought to be done.Already Henry Bacon had sent in his design for his Court of the Four Seasons and sculptors were set to work on its ornamentation, Albert Jaegers, Furio Piccirilli, Miss Evelyn Beatrice Longman and August Jaegers, a time limit being made for the turning in of their plans.
Developing the SculptureIn June, 1913, Calder returned to San Francisco to stay till the Exposition was well started.On the grounds he established a huge workshop.Then he began the practical developing of the designs, a great mass, which had already been carefully sifted.Hitherto, in American expositions the work had been done, for the most part, in New York, and sent to its destination by freight, a method costly in itself and all the more costly on account of the inevitable breakage.San Francisco, by being so far from New York, would have been a particularly expensive destination.From every point of view it seemed imperative that the work should be done here.
