The Carnegie Institute and Library of Pittsburgh/Chapter 3
JOHN W. ALEXANDER'S MURAL DECORATIONS
ENTITLED
"THE CROWNING OF LABOR"
BY MRS J. W. ALEXANDER
In undertaking the decorations for the entrance hall of the Carnegie Institute Mr Alexander considered as absolutely essential a subject appropriate to the city of Pittsburgh.
He finally selected as a subject for the entire series "The Crowning of Labor."
The decorations consist of a frieze of fifteen panels surrounding the first floor, a series of large panels at the top of the main staircase and surrounding the gallery of the second floor, twelve panels grouped about the third floor staircase and a completing set of twenty-one panels on the third or top floor which have not yet been placed.
In the panels of the frieze of the first floor the idea has been to show the energy and force of labor. These panels are filled with toiling figures seen in and out of smoke and steam from the furnaces, the immense harnessed energy of which is directed by labor into various useful channels.
From these panels the smoke and steam rise up into the larger panels at the head of the main staircase, where emerges a mailed figure typifying Pittsburgh.
Pittsburgh has been depicted as a knight in steel armor in order to suggest the strength and power of the city. Labor having reached its highest expression, the city is being crowned and heralded by hosts of winged figures blending with the smoke and steam, which have partially dispersed. These figures bear tributes to the city, such as Peace, Prosperity, Luxuries and Education. To the left of the mailed figure the ugliness and impurities roll away in clouds of dark vapor twisted into the forms and faces of grotesque demons.
These winged figures appear on all sides of the second floor except in the alcoves, where the panels again represent the energy and power of the city, but differ from the frieze of the first floor, for here we find depicted the high buildings in process of erection, the heavy trains of cars, the boats on the rivers, the blast-furnaces and the hills which are so much a part of Pittsburgh.
At each end of these alcoves high narrow panels, representing men at work against the sky as if at a great elevation, connect the frieze with the larger panels of the second floor.
About the third floor stairway is a series of twelve panels containing nearly four hundred figures which represent the ceaseless, resistless onward movement of the people. In these panels crowds of men, women and children press on toward progress and success. The types selected are the ordinary types of American working people. No effort has been made to idealize them either in dress or feature.
The panels for the third floor are not yet completed, but when finished will represent the result made possible by labor and depict the various arts and sciences represented in the work of the Institute and Library, the study of which uplifts and beautifies life.[1]
- ↑ Mr Alexander died on June 1, 1915, before he had had time to complete the panels for the third floor.