Chapter I: Preface

Any survey of the Spirit of American Sculpture must naturally take into account the Body of American Sculptors. On the other hand, the outline here offered does not attempt the preposterous task of putting everyone in his place, and thereby producing an unmannerly and unreliable Who’s Who in Sculpture. Many sculptors whose work is dear to me are scarcely named in the following pages. Why? Because, very frequently, the individual achievement has been too fine to be slurred over and shunted off with the faint praise of mere listing, while at the same time it cannot well be appreciated at deserved length, given the limitations laid upon the present writer,--limitations temporal, spatial, personal. Again, it often happens in art, as in nature and in politics, that certain forces for good are better left unmentioned; headlines would disturb their harmonious functioning.

The brief annals of our sculpture may be divided either according to our wars, or according to our times of peace. The critic who chooses the former way will point out that our Revolution called into being a national consciousness which was strengthened by the War of 1812, and which immediately thereafter sought expression in Federal or State buildings, and in their adornment by the arts. Side by side with national yearnings for art sprang up half-thwarted individual longings either to produce art, or to enjoy art, or to possess art. Not until the close of the Civil War, with its legacy of greater national unity and advancing prosperity, did we find out that our education in art was too meagre to let us express in any fitting way the emotions aroused by that conflict and its costly sacrifices. In the marketplace, we were naïve and unformed enough to accept with more or less satisfaction and in infinite repetition the stone soldier of commercial origin. In the home, we thoroughly enjoyed the anecdotes, patriotic or parochial, told by our Rogers groups. But before the Spanish War was over, our enlightenment as to the artistic value of these productions was rather general. With respect to the Rogers groups, we passed to the other extreme; in our headlong attempt to register culture, we forgot that these works had performed a genuine service. Later, the wave of romantic rococo noted in the “red-blooded” literature of the day had its parallel in some of our noisier war monuments, creatures surging from a limbo that was neither art nor commerce. Since the World War, and even before the World War, there has been, through our museums and other sources, an honest effort toward coöperation between art and manufacture. An up-hill task but a necessary one, in any sound national development! The day of the stone soldier is over, but whether we are laying up for ourselves a store of future regret in other forms of memorial sculpture remains to be seen.

Thus to mark off by our wars the various chapters of our sculptural history and to develop each chapter in sequence would be in the grand style; perhaps in a grander style than is suited to the dimensions of this sketch. It has therefore seemed better to indicate certain natural divisions of the subject by means of those enterprises of peace, our expositions. The Centennial of 1876, by its cruel comparisons, stirred our sculpture from the lethargy supposed to have overtaken it in the studios of American expatriates in Rome and in Florence. Until 1876, we had been dreaming, stumbling, aspiring; making false moves in plastic art. A few early triumphs shine forth from the prevailing mediocrity; but it must be owned that Cooper, Hawthorne, and Emerson, in the world of letters, have no vigorous contemporaries in the world of sculpture. During the ’eighties, however, a group of really strong and characteristic pieces of American sculpture emerges by slow degrees. Ward had already produced his noble equestrian statue of Thomas. He now placed his bronze Washington in front of the Sub-Treasury in New York, and his Pilgrim in Central Park. In 1881, Saint-Gaudens put out his incomparable Farragut; his Puritan appeared two years after Ward’s Pilgrim. Daniel Chester French, with notable work behind him, came into his own with the exquisite group of Gallaudet and the little deaf-mute; in the early ’nineties he showed his Milmore Memorial, (the Angel of Death and the Sculptor) a work of extraordinary appeal to both artists and laymen.

While these men were creating sculpture to be proud of, younger men were conning with all their might the vigorous lessons proffered in the French schools, or on French soil, by Falguière, Mercié, Dubois, Chapu, Saint-Marceaux, Rodin,--a mighty host. At the Columbian Exposition, our country had abundant good work to show in sculpture from the hands of returning youth. Between 1876 and 1893 were packed most of the essential lessons our sculpture has learned, either at home or abroad. No subsequent exposition has disclosed so great an advance as that noted in 1893. There has indeed been a further development of basic principles, as well as a recent genial stylistic efflorescence in manner, favored by many of our younger sculptors under the influence of sincere post-graduate study of archaic models. And there have naturally been occasional obscure ultra-modernistic experiments not without service in the zigzag of progress; such works are neither to be despised nor unduly exalted because they proclaim themselves revolutionary. An advance as rapid as that made in sculpture during the seventeen years between the Centennial and the Columbian is not to be expected in the near future. Such an advance could occur only as a strong reaction from a feebleness not now evident, or from a retrogression not now casting its shadow. Many thoughtful painters have pointed out that sculpture by its very essence is far less subject than painting to the more unfortunate inroads of ultra-modernism.

We sometimes worry ourselves unnecessarily because our arts and letters are not what is called “distinctively American.” But being distinctively American is not in itself a merit. The distinctively American voice, for example, has not yet been hailed as the international model. Give our sculpture time for still further expression, and it will become as distinctively American as need be. A just and happy exchange of culture between peoples should not be stigmatized as mere imitation. Oddly enough, the first timid flowering of our American painting and sculpture took place among the Quaker Philadelphians and even among the Puritan Bostonians. It did not follow the footsteps of the earlier settlers of French or Spanish blood. Culture has its curves and curious weavings forward and back. Already in our ideals of art education a change has been noted. Many who have studied this subject for a lifetime now believe, as they could not with wisdom have believed a generation ago, that it is better for the student to get his technical training in the schools of his own country, and to learn the beauty of foreign art and the value of foreign culture through eager vacation study abroad, rather than through prolonged residence abroad. The vacation schools of music and painting at Fontainebleau are watched with deep interest. Thus far, their results speak well for this new point of view in art study.

The occasion for which this modest book was made is the opening of the National Sculpture Society’s exhibition in the year 1923, under the auspices and in the neighborhood of a distinguished group of learned societies. Such an occasion invites rejoicing, rather than lamentation. Hence in these loosely gathered chapters little is said of commercialism, of mechanistic tendencies, of unhappy professional rivalries, of mistaken ultra-modernism, or of other burdens or bugaboos that hamper the spirit of American sculpture. I have tried to bear in mind a saying of Kenyon Cox, an accomplished critic, yet honest at all times beyond conventional expectation. Mr. Cox was asked whether in his opinion as a critic, a certain article on a well-known painter, a younger contemporary, was not too favorable in its judgments. Taking time to consider, Mr. Cox answered, “No, to my mind, that critique is not too favorable! It brings forward much of the best that is to be found in one of our best painters, and it doesn’t harp on his defects. As I take it, the thing was written for intelligent readers. They are able to read between the lines. From what is said of the qualities, they will know the defects.”

NOTE

In the preparation of the present work, the author has found herself, through the natural insistence of her own and her husband’s feelings, placed in a somewhat delicate position. It remains, therefore, for those editing the volume to preface it with some expression of admiration, however inadequate.

To sculptors, it is needless to point out the importance of the work of Herbert Adams. It is therefore to the lay reader that some word must be said of the man who hesitates to have recorded the admirable production of a fruitful and influential career. The wisdom, restraint, and true sense of the just and fitting, which for years have rendered all relation with his calm and balanced intellect the delight of friends and the aid of fellow workers, are mirrored in an art which so easily reflects these qualities. To those connected with the preparation of this exhibition it is a great pleasure to render serious tribute to the man who among sculptors has brought such faithful homage to the Art of Sculpture, and whose influence must be cherished as one of the permanent forces for Truth in the Art of our land.

THE COMMITTEE.

CONTENTS

PAGE
PREFACE v

NOTE xv

CHAPTER
I MRS. PATIENCE WRIGHT SPEAKS THE PROLOGUE 3

II OUR BLITHE BEGINNING DAYS 29

III OF THREE LEADERS, AND OF MORAL EARNESTNESS IN ART 47

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS WARD 57

AUGUSTUS SAINT-GAUDENS 67

DANIEL CHESTER FRENCH 76

IV OF EXPOSITIONS AND COLLABORATIONS 87

V THE STATUE AND THE BUST AND THE IDEAL FIGURE 101

VI OUR EQUESTRIAN STATUES 125

VII THE ART OF RELIEF, HIGH AND LOW 145

VIII OF GARDEN SCULPTURE AND ORNAMENT 159

IX OF SMALL BRONZES AND GREAT CRAFTS 177

X THE NATIONAL SCULPTURE SOCIETY 191

XI INFLUENCES, GOING AND COMING 213

ILLUSTRATIONS

FACING
STUDY FOR HEAD OF NIKE-EIRENE _Title_
By Augustus Saint-Gaudens
PAGE
STATUE OF WASHINGTON 8
By Jean Antoine Houdon

BUST OF WASHINGTON AT MOUNT VERNON 26
By Jean Antoine Houdon

CLYTIE 42
By William H. Rinehart

WHITE CAPTIVE 44
By Erastus D. Palmer

STATUE OF WASHINGTON 62
By John Quincy Adams Ward

STATUE OF ADMIRAL FARRAGUT 68
By Augustus Saint-Gaudens

MEMORY 78
By Daniel Chester French

STATUE OF MAJ.-GEN. MACOMB 108
By Adolph A. Weinman

PORTRAIT BUST OF J. Q. A. WARD 118
By Charles H. Niehaus

MARBLE PORTRAIT OF BABY 120
By Paul Manship

THE GOLDEN HOUR 122
By Rudolph Evans

HORSE TAMERS 136
By F. W. MacMonnies

EQUESTRIAN STATUE OF GENERAL SHERMAN 142
By Augustus Saint-Gaudens

WELCH MONUMENT 148
By Herbert Adams

VICTORY 152
By James Earl Fraser

PLAQUETTE 156
By Augustus Saint-Gaudens

BACCHANTE 162
By F. W. MacMonnies

FOUNTAIN FIGURE 164
By Janet Scudder

CENTAUR AND DRYAD 180
By Paul Manship

VICTORY 234
By Augustus Saint-Gaudens

THE SPIRIT OF
AMERICAN
SCULPTURE