RON HENGGELER

High on the headlands above the Golden Gate—where the Pacific Ocean spills into San Francisco Bay—stands the California Palace of the Legion of Honor, the gift of Alma de Bretteville Spreckels to the city of San Francisco. Located in Lincoln Park, this unique art museum is one of the great treasures in a city that boasts many riches. The museum’s spectacular setting is made even more dramatic by the imposing French neoclassical building.

Constructed on a remote site known as Land’s End—one of the most beautiful settings imaginable for any museum—the California Palace of the Legion of Honor was completed in 1924, and on Armistice Day of that year the doors opened to the public. In keeping with the wishes of the donors, to “honor the dead while serving the living,” it was accepted by the city of San Francisco as a museum of fine arts dedicated to the memory of the 3,600 California men who had lost their lives on the battlefields of France during World War I.

To read more on the museum's history: https://legionofhonor.famsf.org/about/history-legion-honor

The Legion of Honor's collections include Rodin's Thinker, which sits in the museum's Court of Honor, European decorative arts and paintings, Ancient art, and one of the largest collections of prints and drawings in the country.

Rodin's Thinker is perhaps his best known monumental work, first conceived circa 1880–1881 as a depiction of poet Dante. The image evolved until it no longer represented Dante, but all poets or creators.

Architect George Applegarth’s design for the California Palace of the Legion of Honor was a three-quarter-scaled adaption of the 18th-century Parisian original, incorporating the most advanced ideas in museum construction. The walls were 21 inches thick, made with hollow tiles to keep temperatures even, and the heating system design eliminated aesthetically offensive radiators and cleansed the air that filtered through it with atomizers to remove dust.

To read more on the museum's history: https://legionofhonor.famsf.org/about/history-legion-honor

On the front lawn to the left of the Legion of Honor's main entrance stands the bronze statue of Joan of Arc by Anna Hyatt Huntington. This statue was one of her earliest public works and was exhibited at the Salon of 1910 in Paris. Several replicas were made, and the statue won Anna the Legion of Honor from the French government.

Near the Joan of Arc, on the left side of the building, and framed by trees, is a marble statue of Laocoön and His Sons.

 

Laocoön and His Sons

Athanadoros, Hagesandros, and Polydoros of Rhodes early 1st century

One of the major discoveries of the Italian Renaissance, this sculptural grouping was lost for centuries but found 1506 near Rome, by a farmer plowing a field in the ruins of Titus' palace. It depicts an event in Vergil's Aeneid (Book 2). Michelangelo (1475-1564) had been in Rome twice,(1505-06) to start work on the Tomb of Pope Julius II; on that visit he and the pope, upon hearing the news of the Laocoön discovery, rode horseback outside of Rome, to witness the unearthing of the ancient Laocoön Group.Realizing that the sculpture was indeed the long lost famous Laocoön, it was mounted on a special wagon and brought back into Rome with a traditional hero¹s welcome. Along with the "ticker tape parade", there were three days of city wide celebrations.

Laocoön in Greek Mythology

Laocoön was an intriguing character in Greek mythology. He played a small but significant role in the notorious Trojan War, and his memorable contributions to myth were celebrated in a famous Hellenistic statue. According to ancient authors, Laocoön was a blind Trojan priest of Poseidon (note, however, that some sources claim that he was instead one of Apollo's priests). In mythology, Laocoön was the brother of the hero Anchises and son of Capys. One of our best sources for the story of Laocoön is found inVirgil's Aeneid.

 

In this epic tale, the Roman poet Virgil describes the dramatic scene in which the Trojans discover an enormous Wooden Horse standing outside the city of Troy. The prescient priest Laocoön warns against bringing the gigantic Horse into Troy in a famous speech:

"'O my poor people,

Men of Troy, what madness has come over you?

Can you believe the enemy truly gone?A gift from the Danaans, and no ruse?

Is that Ulysses' way, as you have known him?

Achaeans must be hiding in this timber,

Or it was built to butt against our walls,

Peer over them into our houses, pelt

The city from the sky.

Some crookedness Is in this thing.

Have no faith in the horse!

Whatever it is, even when Greeks bring gifts

I fear them, gifts and all.'"

(Virgil, The Aeneid, Book II, 59-70)

Immediately after saying these words, Virgil has Laocoön hurl his spear into the flank of the Wooden Horse. However, this gesture was to come back to haunt Laocoön. For soon after this incident, while the priest is sacrificing to his god Poseidon, a pair of giant sea serpents emerge from the sea and envelope both Laocoön and his two sons (this tragic scene is immortalized inthe Hellenistic image). The Trojans interpret this grotesque punishment as a sign that Laocoön offended the gods - either Athena or Poseidon in particular - for attacking the Wooden Horse. In the end, the Horse is brought into Troy, which is a fatal mistake and seals the city's doom.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Joan of Arc by Anna Huntington

Joan of Arc, nicknamed “The Maid of Orléans” is a national heroine of France and a Roman Catholic saint. A peasant girl born in eastern France who claimed divine guidance, she led the French army to several important victories during the Hundred Years’ War, which paved the way for the coronation of Charles VII. She was captured by the Burgundians, transferred to the English for money, put on trial by the pro-English Bishop of Beauvais, and burned at the stake when she was 19 years old.

Oh friends, put aside these sounds!

Let us be more civil to each other,

And speak more joyfully.

Beethoven

On the front lawn to the right of the Legion of Honor's main entrance stands the bronze statue of El Cid by Anna Hyatt Huntington

 

Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar

(1043 – July 10, 1099), known as El Cid Campeador (“The lord-master of military arts”), was a Castilian nobleman, military leader, and diplomat. Exiled from the court of the Spanish Emperor Alfonso VI of León and Castile, El Cid went on to command a Moorish force consisting of Muladis, Berbers, Arabs and Malians, under Yusuf al-Mu’taman ibn Hud, Moorish king of the northeast Al-Andalus city of Zaragoza, and his successor, Al-Mustain II.

The name El Cid comes from the article el (which means “the” in both Spanish and Arabic), and the dialectal Arabic word ??? sîdi or sayyid, which means “Lord” or “The Master”. The title Campeador means “champion” or “challenger” in Spanish.

El Cid by Anna Hyatt Huntington

Anna Hyatt Huntington

(b. 1876 Cambridge, MA – d. Redding, CT 1973) became one of the best-known and most prolific sculptors of the 20th century. Her father, a paleontologist, interested her in animals. She began to make sculptures of animals that she observed on farms and at the New York City Zoo. She trained as a sculptor, first in Boston, then at the Art Students League in New York, and was taught by Hermon Atkins MacNeil and George Barnard. She also worked for the sculptor Gutzon Borglum.

 

 

The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.

Aristotle

 

The Joan of Arc by Anna Hyatt Huntington enveloped in San Francisco's fog

In 1923, Anna Hyatt Huntington married the wealthy philanthropist/poet/Spanish scholar Archer M. Huntington (Archer was the adopted son of Collis P. Huntington, the railroad magnate). The couple later (1929) bought 10,000 acres of land near the Atlantic Ocean in South Carolina, named it Brookgreen Gardens and made it a showplace for Anna’s work and for the work of dozens of American figurative sculptors. It was also a sanctuary for plant and animal life of the region. The couple gave the estate, with an endowment, to the state of South Carolina in 1935. It is still a major tourist attraction.

 

 

 

An assessment performed in the 1980s showed that the landmark building needed to be made seismically secure. Between March 1992 and November 1995—its seventy-first anniversary—the Legion underwent a major renovation that included seismic strengthening, building systems upgrades, restoration of historic architectural features, and an underground expansion that added 35,000 square feet. Visitor services and program facilities increased, without altering the historic façade or adversely affecting the environmental integrity of the site. The architects chosen to accomplish this challenging feat were Edward Larrabee Barnes and Mark Cavagnero.

The 1995 renovation realized a 42 percent increase in square footage, including six additional special exhibition galleries set around the pyramid skylight visible in the Legion courtyard. The glass pyramid sits atop the Rosekrans Court and special exhibition galleries located below. It is a key second focal point in a formal courtyard otherwise focused solely on Auguste Rodin’s The Thinker, as well as a light and tensile counterpoint to the heavy stone materials of the Court of Honor, lending scale and interest.

Read more here:

https://legionofhonor.famsf.org/about/history-legion-honor

Lincoln Park at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco.

 

“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.”

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin