1.Animal Force and Machine Force

Ray Boynton | fresco | 10 feet by 36 feet This strategically placed fresco serves several important functions at Coit Tower. First, it is the visitor's introduction to the artwork. Second, it contains a balance of the two major themes, the rural and industrial/urban scenes of California, 1934.

The left-hand portion of Boynton's fresco (shown at top) portrays animal power in agriculture, with fields, a dairy barn, and a horse against which a farmhand, a portrait of fellow artist Gordon Langdon (15), fondly leans. Symbolizing machine force, water flows toward a hydroelectric plant, and a large pulley runs out of the picture at the bottom. Boynton ignores the "architectural accident" of an art-deco lighting fixture in the middle of the fresco.