Word: rubenstein
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This year the Museum has been humming with activity. Up to a couple of months ago you could watch red-headed Lewis Rubenstein, '30, painting on the damp, freshly plastered walls of the entrance hall scenes from the "Neibelungenlied" and the old "Icelandic Edda". And stirring scenes they are. "Wars are waged, blood is shed, and evil grows greater . . . The giants have gathered to attack Asgard." Frey, the traitorous Loki, and Thor, with his mighty workman's hammer, battle on the bridge Bilfrost, which "is built of air and water, and is protected by red fire flaming on its edge...
...Rubenstein has departed with his slaked lime, but others have come to take his place to divert the Vagabond. A great pipe organ rises in the loft of the main hall. Wires, pipes, bellows and queerly shaped pieces of wood are strewn about in ordered confusion. It seems fitting that there should be an organ here to express in music the Wagnerian scenes of Lewis Rubenstein's murals, but I fear for the effects of its vibrations upon the fragile plaster casts of mediaeval saints...
Finally nearing completion, the murals in the entrance hall of the Germanic Museum will be put on public view on Monday, December 21. The paintings were done by Lewis W. Rubenstein '30. In conjunction with the opening of the murals there will be an exhibition of the preliminary sketches and drawings for the work...
...Rubenstein employed the "true fresco" technique for the murals, a method used by the great Italian masters of the Renaissance. In this style the painting is done directly on the damp, freshly plastered wall. Since the plaster remains damp only for about fourteen hours, the artist must work quickly and must plan his work carefully day by day. He must plaster only as large an area as he can complete in a single day's work. The pigment employed in the "true fresco" technique is mixed with slaked lime and water, while the retouching of the various seams made...
...Rubenstein had a definite message to convey when he undertook the two murals which have aroused such discussion. Both walls show the constructive and destructive forces of society opposed to one another, and may be classed as art in the highest sense, certainly detached from any suspicion of political significance...