Part 7 (2/2)

VEDDER, ELIHU Born at New York City, February 26, 1836; in Paris and Italy, 1856-61; and, after a year or two in America, returned to Italy, where he has since resided; National Academician, 1865

LA FARGE, JOHN Born at New York City, March 31, 1835; studied under Couture and Hunt; National Academician, 1869; president Society of American Artists and Society of Mural Painters

HUNT, WILLIAM MORRIS Born at Brattleboro, Vermont, March 31, 1824; studied under Couture and Millet, 1846-55; opened Boston studio, 1856; died at Appledore, Isles of Shoals, New Hampshi+re, September 8, 1879

WHISTLER, JAMES ABBOTT MCNEILL Born at Lowell, Massachusetts, 1834; entered West Point Academy, 1851, but soon left; settled in Paris, 1856, and studied art two years, and then settled in London, where the remainder of his life was passed; died there, July 17, 1903

HOMER, WINSLOW Born at Boston, February 24, 1836; accons, 1861-62; National Academician, 1865

TRYON, DWIGHT WILLIAM Born at Hartford, Connecticut, August 13, 1849; National Academician, 1891

MILLET, FRANCIS DAVIS Born at Mattapoisett, Massachusetts, Noveraduated at Harvard, 1869; studied at Antwerp, 1871-72; correspondent Russo-Turkish war, 1877-78; director of decorations World's Columbian Exposition, 1892-93

ABBEY, EDWIN AUSTIN Born at Philadelphia, April 1, 1852; educated at Philadelphia Acadeland, 1878, and has since made that his home

SARGENT, JOHN SINGER Born at Florence, Italy, 1856; studied under Carolus Duran; has land his home; Royal Academician, 1891; National Acaderound and tradition are needed for painting, how much more are they needed for sculpture! America was settled by a people entirely without sculptural tradition, for, in the early seventeenth century, British sculpture did not exist More than that, to most of the settlers, art, in whatever fored So it is not surprising that two centuries elapsed before the first American statuethe achievements of American sculpture, we must remember that it is still an infant That it is a lusty infant none will deny, though sorace and charm which come only with maturity

The first h deliberately to choose sculpture as a profession was Horatio Greenough, born in 1805, of well-to-do parents, and carefully educated It is difficult to say just what it was that turned the boy to this difficult and exacting art--an unknown art, too, so far as A at an early age, and to have progressed from that to chalk and on to plaster of Paris The A was perhaps responsible for the development of more than one sculptor

At any rate, by the tih had produced so tried unsuccessfully to learn clay- from directions in an old encyclopedia, took some lessons from an artist who chanced to be in Boston, and froht into themarble

These lessons, elementary as they must have been, were very valuable to the boy, and his work showed such pro this strange profession, insisting only that he first graduate froe education would be of value, whatever his vocation So he entered college at the age of sixteen, devoting all his spare ti, and the study of anatoood fortune to ton Allston, who advised hiraduation, he sailed for Italy, which was, sadly enough, to be the Mecca of American sculptors for many years to come

For Italian sculpture was bound hand and foot by the traditions of classicish was no exception, and some years of study in the Italian studios rivetted the chains

His first coroup called the ”Chanting Cherubs,” and when it was sent honitude Puritan ideas were outraged at sight of the little naked bodies, the group was declared indecent, and the bitter controversy was not stilled until it ithdrawn froh wrote of Cooper, ”he saved me from despair; he employed me as I wished to be employed; and has, up to this ularly interesting addition to the portrait of the great novelist, famous for his enedy of Greenough's life was the fate of his great statue of Washi+ngton, of which we have already spoken He conceived the work on a high plane, ”as a ure, enthroned beneath the doilded by the filtered rays of the far-falling sunlight” Perhaps it was too high, but on its execution Greenough labored faithfully for eight years ”It is the birth of ht,” he wrote ”I have sacrificed to it the flower of th; its every lineament has been moistened by the sweat of my toil and the tears of my exile I would not barter away its association with my name for the proudest fortune that avarice ever dreah's epistolary style was florid and grandiose in the extreme, but no doubt there was a foundation of sincerity beneath it A bitter disappointton safely in 1843, and was conveyed to the Capitol, where, beneath the rotunda, its predestined pedestal awaited it But the statue was found too large to pass the door, and when the door idened and the great stone rolled inside, the floor settled so ominously that it was hastily withdrawn

It does not seeht be braced; instead, the pedestal was set up outside, facing the building, and the statue hoisted into place It speedily became the butt of public ridicule Once the fashi+on started, no one looked at it without a sh was in despair ”Had I been ordered to make a statue for any square or similar situation at the metropolis,” he wrote, still in his inflated style, ”I should have represented Washi+ngton on horseback and in his actual dress I would have made my subject purely a historical one I have treatedit placed in direct flagrant contrast with every-day life”

But that is exactly hoas placed, and it is the incongruity of this contrast which strikes the beholder and blinds hih has represented Washi+ngton seated in a s and right shoulder, one hand pointing dra a reversed sword It shows sincerity and faithful work, and had it been placed within the rotunda, would no doubt have been impressive and majestic Where it stands, it is a hopeless anachronism

This was the first colossalit on one of the buttresses of the h It is a group called ”The Rescue,” and shows a pioneer saving his wife and child fro watches the struggle with a strange apathy--almost with a smile Like ; but let us reh was the pathfinder, the trail-blazer, and as such to be honored and adh's fame, such as it as soon to be eclipsed by that of a man born in the same year, but later in development because he had a harder road to travel Hirae and poverty-stricken family While he was still a boy, his father removed from the sterile hills of Vermont to the almost frontier town of Cincinnati, Ohio He see, but was put to work as soon as he was old enough to contribute so toward the family exchequer He did all sorts of odd jobs, and soon developed an unusual talent, that offaces

Those were the halcyon days of the dime museum, and there was one at Cincinnati Its proprietor chanced to hear of the boy's gift for ures Of course Powers accepted, for this ork after his own heart, and he succeeded not only in producing sos, but ”breathed the breath of life into them” by means of clock-work devices, which enabled them to move their heads and arms in a manner sufficiently jerky, but at the sa to the simple people who visited the museum to behold its wonders

Eenius produced an ”Inferno,” or ”Chamber of Horrors,” which, when completed, was an immense success--too immense, indeed, for it had to be closed because of the fearful impression it made upon the ladies, who fainted in their escorts' arazed upon its terrors One is inclined to suspect that the ladies ht, but for a desire to prove their extrehty years ago than it is to-day