RON HENGGELER

January 27, 2008
A baby Oculus, and The Thinker

January 27th.
On this day in 1894, the California Midwinter Fair opened in Golden Gate Park.

The California Midwinter International Exposition of 1894, commonly referred to as the "Midwinter Exposition" or the "Midwinter Fair", was a World's Fair that operated from January 27 to July 5 in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. The San Francisco fair was the brainchild of de Young, then editor and sole proprietor of the San Francisco Chronicle. Golden Gate Park Superintendent John McLaren fought against holding the exposition in the park claiming,"the damage to the natural setting would take decades to reverse."

The fair encompassed 200 acres centered on the park's current Music Concourse. More than 100 buildings were erected for the exposition, and more than 2 million people visited. The most enduring legacies are the Palace of Fine Arts, which became the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum (and has been rebuilt in a much different design); and the park's famed Japanese Tea Garden.

Oculus

Hermina

Grace Cathedral on Nob Hill

Lincoln Park

The Golden Gate Bridge as seen from Lincoln Park

The Thinker by Rodin at the Legion of Honor The Thinker (French: Le Penseur) is a bronze sculpture by Auguste Rodin, usually placed on a stone pedestal. The work shows a nude male figure of over life-size sitting on a rock with his chin resting on one hand as though deep in thought, and is often used as an image to represent philosophy. There are about 28 full size castings, in which the figure is about 186 centimetres (73 in) high, though not all were made during Rodin's lifetime and under his supervision, as well as various other versions, several in plaster, studies, and posthumous castings, in a range of sizes. Rodin first conceived the figure as part of another work in 1880, but the first of the familiar monumental bronze castings did not appear until 1904.

 

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