“Gods and Heroes,”
the masterpieces from the École des Beaux-Arts on display at the Portland
Art Museum, offers a serendipitous insight into the origins of the heroic statues adorning the nearby Park Blocks. http://portlandartmuseum.org/godsandheroes/ The leading school of the fine arts for two
centuries, the École des Beaux-Arts informed the civic art of the American
Renaissance, the artistic response to the nation's rapid urbanization in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Like their Florentine forbearers, Americans crafted an aesthetic drawn from classical forms to celebrate and order the city. Many studied at the École des Beaux-Arts and their efforts marked, Henry Hope Reed writes, "the last full flourish of the Renaissance that began in Italy in the 15th century."
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| Chicago World's Fair, Celebration of the American Renaissance |
The 1893 Chicago World's Fair unveiled the American Renaissance to the world. The influence of the École des Beaux-Arts was apparent, as monumental statues mixed with formal
groupings of classical revival buildings. Yet, it was uniquely American. Frederick Law Olmsted designed the Wooded Isle to grace the serpentine lagoon running from Lake Michigan to the center of the
fairgrounds, which was, in essence, a sacred grove that testified to the Arcadian strain
of the American design tradition. The École des Beaux-Arts undoubtedly influenced the
project, but Olmsted presented a vision of a city that integrated classical principles, romantic yearning, and pagan beauty.
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| Remnant of Wooded Isle from 1893 Chicago World's Fair |
The Chicago World's Fair drew over 12 million visitors, and it inspired local governments to invest in civic art. In 1903, John Charles Olmsted designed one of the nation’s first park systems for Portland. It set the foundation for the Edward Bennett, a École des Beaux-Arts graduate, who designed a far-reaching city plan in 1912. Grand Parisian style boulevards centered a future metropolis with a new downtown, set at the intersection of Burnside and the Park Blocks. Widening the North Park Blocks was to provide a formal entrance to the city at a repositioned Union Terminal. Acclaim greeted Bennet's grand vision, but recession and war dampened enthusiasm to implement it.
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| Bennett Plan, 1912 |
In 1918 Charles Cheney, who studied at the École des Beaux-Arts, was hired to implement a more practical conception of the city. After an initial setback, the City Council adopted a zoning code in 1924. Social science and statistics, not artistic blueprints would guide decision-makers. By the Great Depression the civic art of the American Renaissance was passé, but Portland had the means to manage the city as part of the political bargaining process.
The Park Blocks perhaps best document the American Renaissance in Portland. In 1852 Daniel H. Lownsdale allocated eleven blocks of public space on the western edge of town, but it took until 1885 to formalize the Park Blocks. For the next 40 years, it offered a landscape of cathedral trees and grass. During the 1920s, the apogee of the American Renaissance, a city devoted to industry made a bold humanist statement. The South Park Blocks became a setting for heroes based on the dictums of the École des Beaux-Arts.
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| South Park Blocks |
Alexander Phimister Proctor, the sculptor of Theodore Roosevelt, Roughrider, was trained at the École des Beaux-Arts. He gained his initial experience at the Chicago World's Fair, where his work was paired with figures created by Daniel French Smith, who lated designed the Abraham Lincoln statue for the Lincoln Memorial. In 1896, Proctor won the Rinehart Scholarship which sent him to study at the École des Beaux-Arts and practice in Paris for four years. He returned to the United States well versed in the Beaux-Arts tradition and, in Portland, he crafted a heroic figure, evoking determination, success, and strength.
Today, the classical style the École des Beaux-Arts championed is a memory, but it still inspires. In an age where celebrity trumps heroes, the South Park Blocks can still stir the spirit. After decades of neglect, the North Park Blocks are making a comeback. With the the redevelopment of the post office site, there is an opportunity to enliven the Pearl District's eastern edge. It demands a civic art that befits a free people: one that enlightens the spirit, celebrates the past, and illuminates the future.
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| North Park Blocks |
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