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The Struggle for the Beautiful
Frieze, Fine Arts Rotunda

The Struggle for the Beautiful

A surpassingly beautiful contribution to the Exposition art has been made by Bruno Louis Zimm in his panels of Greek culture. These lovely panels in low relief, surely worthy of a permanent medium, are set in the attic of the Rotunda or Belvedere before the Palace of Fine Arts, used and known as the Temple of Sculpture. The panels express not so much the historical Greek tradition - though they are, indeed, produced in the purest Greek manner - as they do the high spirit and ideals of Greek art, the devoted seeking for divine fire, the determined opposition to the trivial and the base. Each of the panels is once repeated. The panel of "The Triumph of Apollo" shows the fiery god of Inspiration, Music and the Sun in a procession of worshipers; his flaming wings are the rays of the sun. The panel of "The Unattainable in Art" might well be called "The Struggle for the Beautiful." It pictures the unending struggle with the gross and stupid, both objective and subjective, that confronts the champion of the beautiful. Art stands serene, aloof, unassailable in the center of the fray. The panel of "Pegasus" shows the winged steed of the poets controlled by a true aspirant, attended by Music, Literature and Art.

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