The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1904-02-19
FREAKlSH ART IN MARBLE.
Some of the Stntuary in Washington
Is Far From Pleasing.
From the Washington Post.

From the Washington Post.
Much has beeen written on the sub
ject of the tall columns in the pension
Office building and of the pictures"
outlined thereon by the artist, in inn
itating the color and grain of Sienna
marble, but there are few, doubtless,
who realize that this is an old trick
of decorators the world over, or who
are familiar with how the fad origin
ated. The facts, however, are that in
polishing a slab of marble certain Gu
rious twists and turns of the grain
oftentimes bear a close resemblance to
wellknown objects. This, of course,
is merely accidental, and due to what
biologists call the "faulting," "over-
tapping" and distortion of the strata
in past ages. producing knots and
pockets in the grain of the marble not
unlike the whorls and convolutions in
piece of blrdseye maple. Some of
the figures thus produced in cutting
slab of marble across the grain" are
truly remarkable. the most noted, per-
haps. being the following:
During the early part of the Middle
Ages certain sanity men founded a
monastery near Moscow, Russia. In
the course of time the monkish COM
munity became quite rich, and sought
to embellish their establishment with
all manner of interior finish and dec
Grafton. Now it happened that among
the slabs of polished marble for one
of the inner walls there happened to
be one that. in its center, had a white
inclusion of some quartz-like rock
which for all the world looked like a
picture of st. Jacob as he appears in
the ideal figure pictured in old religi-
Gus works and on the bottle contain
ing. that celebrated nostrum said to-
cure all pain" The monks were
struck with the resemblance and quick
TO profit by it, and from that day to
this the figure of st. Jacob has been
an object of veneration among the
peasants who make annual pilgrim
ages to the monastery to see and wor-
ship this miracle in marble.
There is another house belonging to
one of the European orders in which
one of the marble panels in the chapel
wainscoting shows the figure of a cross
standing on a hill and a pilgrim bow
ing before 1t. Like the first. this fig
ure was simply formed by accident
The cross on the hilltop is startlingly
plain and realistic. but the kneeling fig
ure is more indistinct, and one has
to draw on his imagination to fill out
of rock formations to look like fam
liar objects that first started decora-
tors in the way of painting pictures"
when they decorated some wall or col
umn in imitation of marble.
Therefore, while much has been said
about the pictures on the pension Of
flee columns very little attention has
been paid to some of the really curious
marble pictures on the walls of the
different department buildings Per-
haps the most notable of these are
three very striking pictures on the
walls of the library in the Navy De-
partment. Part of the Navy Depart
ment library walls are lined with verd
antique marble and on the larger of
the two panels to the left of the main
door as one entrs are the outlines of
what has received the name of The
Boot on the Snowdrift. :" Part of the
marble panel is profusely veined with
white, while certain section of the
lower part, having the exact outline of