Part 9 (1/2)
It was so in this case Mr Longworth wrote to Brattleboro,some inquiries as to the essential truth of the story, and having satisfied hiet an artistic education The offer was accepted, and young Meade was placed in Brown's studio, going afterwards to Italy While there, he heard of the assassination of President Lincoln, and prepared an elaborate design in plaster for a national monument to the martyred President's memory As soon as this was co at precisely the rightup and down the land Councils, legislatures, all sorts of public and private bodies, wereappropriations to commemorate some particular hero of the Civil War, which was just ended; Meade's design appealed to the popular iination, and the commission arded him
The monument, which was destined to cost a quarter of a million dollars, was by far the most important that had ever been erected in this country, and the inexperienced young sculptor sailed back to Italy to begin work Not until 1874 was it sufficiently coroup of statuary was not put in place until ten years later All this time, the sculptor had spent quietly in his studio at Florence, quite apart fro before his as finished, public taste had outgrown it and found it uninspired and commonplace
Much more important to American art is the work of Olin Levi Warner, the son of an itinerant Methodist preacher, whose wanderings prevented the boy getting any regular schooling During his childhood, he had shown considerable talent for carving statuettes in chalk, and he finally decided to i a portrait bust of him For a stone, he ”set” a barrel of plaster in one solidaway at it with such poor ih endless task, but ”it's dogged that does it,” and the boy worked doggedly away until the bust was co Warner, convinced of his vocation, set to work to earn enough rapher, and it was not until 1869, when he enty-five years old, that he had saved the money needed
Three years later he returned to New York, and opened a studio, but met with a reception so dismal and indifferent that, after a four years'
desperate struggle, he was forced to abandon the fight and return to his father's farm Anxious for any employment, he applied to Henry Plant, President of the Southern Express Company, for work Mr Plant was interested, and instead of offering hiave him a co point in Warner's career, for the busts he produced were of a craftsmanshi+p so delicate and beautiful that they at once established his position ah years elapsed before he received any wide public recognition The truth is that he was too great and sincere an artist to cater to a public taste which he had hirown; so that, until quite recently, he has remained a sculptor's sculptor His unti in Central Park, brought forth a notable tribute from his fellow-craftsnize in him one of the most delicate and truly inspired artists in our history
But the most powerful influence in the recent developustus Saint Gaudens Born in 1848, at Dublin, Ireland, of a French father and an Irish ht to this country while still an infant Perhaps this ree Saint Gaudens's peculiar genius At the age of thirteen, he was apprenticed to a cameo-cutter in New York City, and worked for six years at this employment, which demands the utmost keenness of vision, delicacy of touch, and refine, first at Cooper Union and then, outgrowing that, at the National Acadee of twenty, whentheir special studies, Saint Gaudens was thoroughly grounded in drawing and an expert in low relief
Another thing he had learned; and let us pause here to lay stress upon it, for it is the thing which reat life-work can be done He had learned the value of syste in so many hours every day at faithful work The weak artist, whether in stone or paint or ink, always contends that heperiods of unproductive idleness, during which he groeaker and weaker for lack of exercise The great artist co gri that the ”inspiration,” so-called, will co clearly, and the one way to see it clearly is to keep the eyes and e of twenty, then, Saint Gaudens was not only a trained artist, but an industrious one Three years in the inspiring atmosphere of Paris, and three years in Italy, followed; and finally, in 1874, he landed again at New York with such an equipment as few sculptors ever had And seven years later he proved his ut was unveiled in Union Square, New York That superb work of art ure, and Saint Gaudens took definitely that place at the head of American sculpture which was his until his death
Six years later Saint Gaudens's ”Lincoln” was unveiled in Lincoln Park, Chicago, and was at once recognized as the greatest portrait statue in the United States It has renified execution Other statues followed, each memorable in its way; but Saint Gaudens proved hireatest but the most versatile of our sculptors by his work in other fields--by portraits in high and low relief, by ideal figures, and notably by the memorial to Robert Gould Shaork distinctively American and without a counterpart in the annals of art It is the spiritual quality of Saint Gaudens's hich sets it apart upon a lofty pinnacle--the largeness of the man behind it, the artist mind and the poet heart
Saint Gaudens's death in 1907 deprived Aures, but there are other American sculptors alive to-day whose work is noteworthy in a high degree One of these is Daniel Chester French Born of a substantial New England fa no especial artistic talent in youth, one day, in his nineteenth year, he surprised his fa in clothes which he had carved fro tools were secured for hi which prepared hihtest He studied for a month with J
Q A Ward, and for the rest, worked out his own salvation as best he could
His first ie of twenty-three--the figure of the ”Minute Man” for the battle monument at Concord, Massachusetts It was unveiled on April 19, 1875, and attracted wide attention For here was a work of strength and originality produced by a youngor experience--produced, too, without a e cast of the ”Apollo Belvidere,” which was the only model the sculptor had But there was no hint of that faure under the clothes of the ”Minute Man” It had been entirely concealed by the personality and vigor he had impressed upon his work
After that Mr French spent a year in Florence, but he returned to Arown steadily in power and certainty of touch, rising perhaps to his greatest height in his fa Sculptor,” intended as athe universal heart by its deep appeal, conveyed with a sure and adreat distinction is to have created good sculpture which has touched the public heart, and to have done this with no concession to public taste
Another sculptor who has gained a wide appreciation is Frederick MacMonnies, who for sheer audacity and dexterity of manipulation is almost without a rival He was born in Brooklyn in 1863, his father a Scotchhteen, and his mother a niece of Benjamin West The boy's talent revealed itself early, and was developed in the face of ed to leave school while still a child and to earn his living as a clerk in a jewelry store, he still found tiood fortune to attract the attention of Saint Gaudens, who received him as an apprentice in his studio
No better fate could have befallen the lad, and the five years spent with Saint Gaudens gave hi in the fundamentals of his art Some years in Paris follohere he replenished his slender purse with such work as he could find to do, until, in 1889, his ”Diana” eed from his studio, radiant and superb A year later came his statue of ”Nathan Hale,” and there was never any lack of commissions after that ”Nathan Hale” stands in City Hall Park, New York City, the very e patriot The artist has shown hi the scaffold, he uttered the memorable words which still thrill the American heart, and expression and sentiment were never h note with his fao Exposition, where hundreds of thousands of people suddenly discovered in this young man a national possession to be proud of
A year later his naain in every mouth, when the Boston Public Library refused a place to perhaps his greatest work, the dancing ”Bacchante,” which has since found refuge in the Metropolitan Museu that it astonishes while it delights
Like MacMonnies, George Gray Barnard began life as a jeweller's apprentice, becaed by a ceaseless longing, deserted that lucrative profession for the extremely uncertain one of sculpture A year and a half of study in Chicago brought hiirl, and with the 350 he received for this, he set off for Paris That re sum supported him for three years and a half--hat privation and self-denial ined; but he never co hiht to walk the streets of Paris, lost in dreams of ambition That from this period of ordeal came some of the deep emotion which marks his work cannot be doubted
This quality, which sets Barnard apart, is well illustrated in his faested by a line of Victor Hugo, ”I feel two natures struggling within ures are shown, heroic in size and powerfullyover a prostrate foe
Besides these iants of the American sculptors of to-day, there are, especially in New York, raceful and distinctive Paul Wayland Bartlett, Herbert Adams, Charles Niehaus, John J Boyle, Frank Elwell, Frederick Ruckstuhl, to inality and pohose work is a pleasure and an inspiration, and to whose hands the future of American sculpture may safely be confided
SUMMARY
GREENOUGH, HORATIO Born at Boston, Septeraduated at Harvard, 1825; went to Italy, 1825, and made his home there, with the exception of short visits to America and France; died at Somerville, Massachusetts, December 18, 1852
POWERS, HIRAM Born at Woodstock, Verures at Cincinnati, Ohio, for seven years; went to Washi+ngton, 1835, and to Florence, 1837; died there, June 27, 1873
CRAWFORD, THOMAS Born at New York City, March 22, 1814; went to Italy, 1834, and took up residence at Rome for the remainder of his life; afflicted with sudden blindness in 1856, and died at London, October 16, 1857