Alma mater

'He who runs may read', said Edwin Blashfield referring to his murals which are in distinguished public (state houses, libraries and such) around the country, famous in the early twentieth, but somewhat embarrassing in the twenty-first. The works of this handle-bar mustachioed painter come to mind because I saw again last night the series he made for MIT's Walker Memorial Hall.

He was right. One morning I detoured from the path next to the river and ducked into to read the explanatory plaque and quickly glance at the pictures, three on the north wall, the Alma Mater triptych, painted in 1923, and two on the south, of 1930: Humanity Led by Knowledge and Invention and a Fateful Choice. Nothing need be puzzled over; even the symbols were straightforward.

Still, hokey as it all is, I like it. The alma mater harks back to the time when the challenge was to get lots of distinct people into a painting, and these murals are crowded. The little girls dancing through the forest in the side panels are delightfully insouciant. The spirit of Learning through Experiment to the left of Miss MIT is an old woman (I've always thought) but perhaps not, perhaps an old man,according to some of the students with me. The whole huge three part symmetrical painting was completed by the muralist who was near 80 in only three weeks: such energy and obvious enthusiasm, not just in the images and the subtle colors but in the huge scale.

The north wall picture of the scientist is a strange memento for the wall of a public reception area in a school that has been well-supported by the Pentagon: a scientist asking the soldiers and diplomats of the world in conference, 'Which of these two jars of gas do you want me to produce: the Poison or the Positive?

Your figures, Mr Blashfield, are the old fashioned in their smooth, slick-haired Flapper-era athleticism. Your ethnic sensibilities wee exemplified in the South Dakota state house mural so demeaning native Americans that it had to be blocked off with a false wall. But your question you posed in  your north wall picture of the scientist remains valid for its institution and all such: 'What would you have me do with what I know?'

That's the way, old fella. Look us straight in the eye and put the question, 'Now that you have become like gods knowing good and evil, what do you propose.' We can run, but we can't hide.