Description of the Venezuelan Building from the Book of the Fair Guidebook:
For Venezuela’s mansion was erected a one-story building of marble in three divisions, with Graeco-Roman facades and domical roofs, those above the wings being surmounted with statues of Columbus and Simon Bolivar. Within is sufficient evidence that the latter is held in esteem, not only in his native country but in Peru and elsewhere, as the hero of South American independence. A sword with 1,400 brilliants, a belt with three-score precious stones, a saddle cloth weighty with golden braid, and "El Sol de Peru," ablaze with diamonds, are all presents from the Peruvians, whose liberty he won in the campaign which ended at Pichincha in 1822. There are also the swords that he used in action and on one of the walls is the banner which Pizarro carried to conquest, presented nearly three centuries later to the national congress, by congress to the marischal de Ayacucho, and by the marischal to Bolivar. Finally there is a medallion portrait of Washington, a present from his family and handed to the deliverer of five republic by Lafayette, thus linking together the three central figures in the achievement of New World liberty.
The material riches of Venezuela are freely displayed in her classic pavilion, tastefully decorated in yellow, blue, and red, colors symbolic of the state. First among the raw products is coffee, of which 1,500,000 bags a year are exported or consumed. There are also silk, wool, cotton, and other fibres; native woods, including dye-woods; tonka beans and tobacco; oils, gums, and nuts. Of minerals there are asphaltum, petroleum, and cooper ore, the last from a mine which is said to be the second largest in the world. Of manufactures there are chocolates, starches, soaps, hammocks, basket-work, and leather in several forms, with saddles mounted in silver and embroidered in silk. But the art collection is the feature in Venezuela’s pavilion; this, as I have said, being excluded from the general display, through tardy application for space, though belonging to the department of Fine Arts, and as such examined by the international board of judges. There are but twenty-five works in all, and with only six artists represented; their paintings grouped in the main hall around a central dais. First among them may be mentioned Cristobal Rojas’ "Purgatory," a vigorous but grewsome composition, showing the souls of men and women writhing amid the flames, an angel hovering above with messages of peace which fall on ears that cannot hear. This work as is related cost the artist his life; for in order to give realism to his conception he studied daily for several hours the effect of the flames in Parisian smelting works, inhaling the poisonous atmosphere and thus inviting the attack of consumption which ended his career. In all his works is a certain sadness of tone; for the genius of sadness possessed him, even at the time when he was sent as a student to Paris to complete his training at the expense of the Venezuelan government. Arturo Michelina, who now stands at the head of the Venezuelan school, has several canvases showing his range and grasp of art. His portrait of Bolivar is the only one exhibited in the art chamber; but there are others elsewhere in the pavilion. In "Charlotte Corday Going to the Scaffold," the central figure is passing through the door of her cell, the eyes of a young artist following her with fixed and sorrowful gaze, while the jailer is carelessly lighting his pipe; for to him such scenes are of daily occurrence. "Penthesilea" is one of Michelina’s strongest works, and here the Amazon queen is represented not as Virgil describes her; Penthesilea furens, lunatis agmina peltis, Ducit Amazonidum. She is wounded and some of her followers are bearing her from the field, while all around her the battle rages, and men and women lie prostrate dabbled in their blood. "Charity" is a most powerful study, and by many considered the best of Michelina’s canvases. A woman is lying on her death-bed, with a child at her side, and except for the pallet on which she rests, there is no article of furniture and not a morsel of food in this home of poverty and woe. A lady and a little girl are entering the room with relief that comes too late, and the look in the eyes of the dying woman is one that they will never forget.