PARIS AND VIENNA.

Evening Star, Issue 14044, 27 April 1909, Page 2

PARIS AND VIENNA.

.the creation, of modern -. cities; &UNSFOR3UTioN AND BEAUTY. xn. ■ [By Charles C. Reade.] There lived in Paris in the last century an impressionist painter who was Each a genius the people. thought hiu. mad. He had painted a wonderful vista of _ the. Seine, reaching from bridge to bridge, far into the distance and marshalling between linrpid river and sky. an immense composition of towers ami spires. It was a scene at sunset—n sunset that burst in splendor far b yond the distant towers of Notre Dam pointing to an ocean of cloud rai digged in fire, and stretching out t iuMity. The radiance of the west tha. l!Js| the city spellbound with beauty trajfsligured the floating images in the noc& below. With daring imagination and wild, vivid masses of color, the painter had laid the soul of Paris bare. Genius had come to him in the hour of his need and misery. —A Painter's Dream.— His friends and fellow-artists crowded round his studio and called it his masterpiece, but he was ngt satisfied. Ho wanted it to bo more than a painting—to be an apotheosis of the most beautiful city in the world. His only conception was to paint, with all the purity of aspiration his art engendered, floating above the river against the glory of the sunset, the nude figure of a girl with arms outstretched. To him, that was the spirit of illie city, the highest incarnation of its beauty. But his friends filled his studio with laughter at the idea, and when ho argued they only jeered. The painter fled from them in anger and grief. _ He brooded far into the night alone in his studio before his canvas, where the flesh tints glowed still wet ■Hid daring. At length, in a fit of renewed anguish, he flung his palette, to jbe floor, ripped the canvas from corher to corner with a knife, and hung himself in despair. One has not to be deeply concerned with the art that has made modern Paris, or spend many hours by the classic hanks of the Seine, to know that poor "Claude L'antier " was far from erring. His art had produced for him the highest conception with which he could personify the city he loved. His friends were blind to any other belief than it represented Paris as they had found it, just as many find it to-day. That aspect of the gay city, the realities of which can but present so much human wreckage and social disaster, is but a phase. '?-—The True Beauty of Parislies '■ in its splendid gardens and thoroughfares, its buildings and monuments, its priceless art collections, and the,;romance of its emancipation from the :black, bitter days that culminated scarcely a generation ago. Whether it is by the river gliding away like a shining strip in the dusk, by its classic bridges and trcc-hung banks, or thrgugh the woodland sweetness and grago of the Champs Elysees, there is tiiaj pure spirit of beauty which was pe|f|onified in a nation's lost masterP l .j#: Paris is tne pioneer of a trausiorming and modernising influence which has set all European cities in search of beauty and pure environment. What has been done in the brilliant French capital kr.s found a reflex in the development of Berlin, St. Petersburg Budapest, Milan, Home, Dresden' Munich, Brussels, and more particularly Vienna. Paris is the fountain head of European municipal progress, although, in later years, "its advanced methods have been surpassed by the German cities. The effect of its example is felt least of all in Britain, whilst America and Australasia, for difforent reasons, inavbe, have lawed behmd. "° —lmitation Everywhere. —•

The example of Paris haa even penetrated Eastern Europe. Sofia, the centre of the Balkans, from which one hears mutterings of war and lawlessness, has, since the eighties been\. transformed from a dirty, overcrowded village into a pretentions city complete with modern shops, bouleTards > electric lighting, cars, and other modern municipal appointments. Modern Athens can he considered quite up-to-date in these respects, whilst in the Italian cities, from Rome north particularly Milan—there are vivid evidences oP'fnTiniei'pal development. In the the nineteenth century Pans*T7alFmainly a maze of dark, narrow, fcjagiecl streets, sprawling around hisjaprie; places, churches, and monastic structures. What to-day is the finest square in Europe, the Pla.ce de la Concorde, was the site of the guillotine snd some of the most ter- , rible episodes of the revolution. It was on the smoking ruins of palacas and churches? that wider thoroughfares and up. That fanatic spirit of rerolt 3 'which had overturned an empire and drained a nation of its blood, becamocembodied in the creative spirit of the new...era. Pari3 had no mercy for theri-Architecture of past generations. Buildings and churches were -torn down ruthlessly to make broad, straight avenues through the hopeless muddle of medieval congestion. Everything was sacrificed to secure to the c ? 7 v, S P :im Sr y of d^S ll ) spaciousness of tfloraigttfares, squares, parks, emof order and beauty. The revo4o±Tart> that had culminated in blood/and horror continued long after it ha&.epeht its fury on the hapless aristocrat? ;• In its march to municipal consciousness it swept away what Mr Freden'ckrHarrison had described as " a jshaos of-competing authorities, a tangle Df obsofetei-jtrivileges, and a net of scandalous* abuses." Since 18-55 something- .'life'?l44,ooo,ooo francs of inbeen spent—a prodigiOOS^«S OS * ?;:Jtrilly ~ bnt of which some 50,000,000 remains unpaid to-day. The result is^thafe'Paris was planned into » series boulevards and ■«" de, tree-tared thoroughfares radiating out from the centres in such a way AS to make.it one of the most convenient cities in the world. Nowhere la its geometrical symmetry more evident than from the summit of the great Arc de Triomphe—the Charing Cross of Paris.

—The Greatest Boulevard in the ~. __ World.— On all sides twelve magnitteent thoroughfares radiate out, of which the finest, and one of the most remarkable avenues in Europe, is the Champs ElyBees, sloping,' with its hundreds of trees, its cafe chantants, and beautiful buildings, down* to the Place de la Concorde, the Tigljriqs; Gardens, and the crowning pile of the Louvre itself. Beyond the -Ar**—de Triompho, through an avenue of surpassing loveliness, is the Bpis de Boulogne, a wooded pa-Tk that covers 2,200 acres. It is there one romes upon another evidence of that passion for beauty, which was lost with the Greeks, only'to be recovered by the French—the passion for landscape gardening, statuary, classic fountains, and 'cascades. The placing of these tilings for. effect, the making of charming perspectives by inclining rows of trees,- are higlr arts with the Parisians. Nowhere in the wide world, unless it is in .the grounds of the Royal Palace, Vienna, are there such picturesque and artistic public gardens as in or about Paris. The grounds of the Royal Palace at Versailles or the classic terraces and flower-beds that lino the gardens of Saint Cloud, by the Seine, are notable examples. The city, in fact, is the most varied in its beauty of any of the European capitals, unless it is Vienna.

—The Transformation of Vienna—is even more remarkable and dramatic than that; of the French capital. In 1848, when the Emperor Francis Joseph, camo to the throne as a boy-of eighteen Summers, the ; . capital was one of the *" toast crowded; iinconvenient,. and jnsig-

nificant in Europe. It was hemmed in by. a ring of military fortifications, moat, and glacis ground. Within this encircling---felt.- lay the citv, about a mile in extent, huddled together, palaces, churches, business and residential areas, in a congestion that -was- as intolerable as it was insanitary. Beyond the walls were nearly forty villages commencing to grow together in an ill-regulated and uriimposing mass. Population was spreading fast, and commerce ■ had long demanded reform. It was Vienna's great opportunity, and everybody, from the Emperor downwards, rose to the occasion. By a Royal decree in 1857 it was decided that the girdle of fortifications must go. The project was so vast that it was managed by the Imperial authorities with the co-operation of the municipal bodies. In the place of the medieval fortifications rose a magnificent thoroughfare two hundred feet in width

—The Famous Ring Strassc.— In its wealth of architectural grandeur it has no parallel in Europe. The Champs Elysees is 'remarkable for its wooded and park-like splendor, its public monuments, and matchless perspective ; but for spaciousness, dignity, and composition of architecture, and grandour of structure, the broad, tree-lined encircled belt of the King Strassc in the \uoft imposing in the world. Cortipnri«;on between the two can but accentuate the beauties of both. Vienna summoned all the finest talent in Europe to her aid. There was no waste or undue extravagance. Structure after structure was raised, each distinct for monumental grandeur and dignity. The most careful consideration was given to placing them in generous garden spaces and to secure the finest effects in composition and perspective. It resolved itself into a great artistic achievement. Practically all the public buildings requisite to a great capital were marshalled there, the structures including the Eathaus (City Hall), a superb example of Gothic architecture, Houses of Parliament, a Greek building adorned with magnificent sculpture, the Royal Opera House . (the finest in Europe), the University of Vienna, Imperial Museums of Art and Science, Palace of Justice, the Royal Theatre and Imperial Palace, and various other beautiful structures, all -oonforming to the symmetry and magnificence of the whole. They soar above one another amid gardens and wooded splendor, harmonising with the tree-lined spaciousness and immensity of the street itself. —A Remarkable Factor.— One of the remarkable things about the project was that it was practically self-sustaining. When the fortifications were razed and the moat filled up. one-fifth of the total area was setaside to be sold as private building sites,, which in all realised £15,000,000. Once the retaining walls were burst asunder the city "spread like magic. Magnificent new suburbs sprang up over the squalor of the outlying villages. New arterial thoroughfares were constructed, radiating out from the broad Ring Strasse. In the city itself old thoroughfares were broadened and straightened, new sewerage and pavements laid down, until what had been a tangle of antiquated, crowded courts and streets emerged into a splendid scheme of convenient thoroughfares and new buildings. The liberation of so much land as was held by the old fortifications, and the wise "policy of the Imperial authorities, led to an era of rebuilding and commercial activity. —A Complete Transformation.—

There was from both public and private effort almost an entire reconstruction of the capital. The expansion and rebuilding were governed b}- the most exacting regulations prescribing solid and durable construction throughout. The height of buildings, the street lines, balconies, and other considerations were all subject to the most rigid supervision. Nowhere, probably, were such drastic conditions imposed, they beiug, of course, the effect of revulsion in the public mind against the squalor and overcrowding of the past. Later years have seen the dangers of imposing a cast-iron set of regulations upon a community, but.Vienna has little to repent in this respect. In the vicinity of the lling Strasse itself the designs of all private buildings were subject' to the strictest' scrutiny, so that harmony and beauty would be secured throughout its splendid length. It was a. wonderful example to Europe what unity of purpose and collective action could do in a , community. From the wooded height of the Kahlenberg, high above the capital, the city is spread out in the dusk like a white mosaic glittering with jewels. Beyond it the historic Danube flows in silver reaches to dim foreign lands and distant seas. It is —A Magnificent Panorama—

of a thoroughly modern city evolved from medieval chaos *to grandeur and beauty. Great arterial thoroughfares radiate out from the dominant centre to garden suburbs, parks, and beautiful palaces. On the fringe of the suburbs is another wide belt, enriched with gardens and trees, encircling practically the whole city. This outer circle is the logical complement of the Ring Strassc. A wide space on either side is preserved to ensure a pure supply of air to the capital held within its farreaching sweep. The virtues of this particular cult of beauty, which has seized so strongly upon European imagination in recent years, may not be regarded as of much importance in young countries where natural splendor abounds. Unfortunately neither the influence of NWture nor art can be said to have had recognition in our colonial cities and towns in the face of what one finds on the .Continent. The modern conception does not. exist under the Southern Cross, except in the case of isolated parks and gardens, a stray thoroughfare, or a few public buildings plac-ed without much regard to surrounding. Sooner or later it must be identified with our public and municipal life as the influence of environment or national character and temperament becomes possible of practical recognition. [Finis.]