Studio: international art (6.1896)

An American Sculptor

describe them one by one, I would call the leading some work in the painting classes. He walked to
American sculptors of to-day a band of Neo- Paris when the epidemic had subsided, crossing
Renaissance temperaments strengthened through the Alps by way of Innsbruck, and catching
appreciation of modern French craftsmanship. glimpses of Venice, Verona, Padua and other
Possibly the title is a trifle cumbrous. To under- North Italian towns. After a brief stay in the
stand the school by refer- French capital he returned

ence to a type, turn to Mr. to New York and studied

MacMonnies. He is a for a year with St. Gaudens

young man, he was born in JBMl^^I again, but he went back to

Brooklyn only thirty two iff^Ljh. ■ Paris and entered Falguiere's

years ago, and his present % J atelier in the Ecole des

position is a matter of MF* gflrB Beaux-Arts. By acelama-

recent achievement. But PP fl ™ tion he was given the

lie concentrates in himself WkIBf' ^ Premier Prix tV Atelier in

qualities which seem to me * j 88 7, and again in 1888, an

to be some of the most ex- |k honour just below the Prix

cellent in American art. V* .^ de Rome. Private study

There is much that is repre- ft I M with Falguiere followed, and

sentative in his work, much % ^J0$m* A for the Salon of 1S89 a nude

that qualifies him to stand MB Jm study, Diana, was completed

for American sculpture here ■ ^^^i^'r*00r^B and brought him an honour-

as he stands to-day in the H iESItt-^''""m» able mention. This year

museum of the Luxem- ^F'm ' ^-^^L^^^m m brought Mr. MacMonnies

bourg. W Mm^m^' \ v m ^»JB also his first commission,

Mr. MacMonnies was ap- fi^N^f . v m^^S some bronze angels for an

prenticed to Augustus St. W mm ml ±m American church, and

Gaudens in his seventeenth W'rmm I BLw 1 almost immediately after he
year. That means that he ■Mfl flMftfl was set to work on his

imbibed his first instruction Nathan Hale, a monument

from a man of vigorous per- Jt ■ now erected in the City Hall

sonality, yet subtle, delicate, H&^HEbflL '^mv ■ Park of New York. The

imaginative. St. Gaudens mmHl'' Lm^mmm latter work, with a statue of

is insufficiently known to BT ■ Mr. Stranahan for Brook-

English amateurs. Those lyn, was shown at the Salon

who know Dubois in his k ■ of 1891, and the sculptor

most Italian moments and Hf m was given a gold medal of

at the height of his power ■ the second class. Since

in the figures of the tomb M then many other works have

for General Lamorciere have 3w ■ been produced, and with

a slight, very slight, idea of B^J^ additional commissions have

what St. Gaudens is like at ^mmmr m* -* ™'m^mmm come other honours, but,

both extremes of his genius, V except to note that in

though, of course, the indi- W%c. ■ 1892-93 Mr. MacMonnies

vidualities of the two men ' was engaged upon that huge

are wholly unlike. He seems .. nathan hale " fountain for the Fair at

to have trained MacMonnies by Frederick macmonnies Chicago which obtained him

above all things in elegance a wide celebrity, I will bring

of workmanship, not a finical elegance, but that to a close at this point the bald enumeration of the
suave style which you find in Mino, in Donatello, various material episodes in his career. They have
accompanied by a more virile strain, in Verocchio. been such as belong to all artists who have made a
Four years after his apprenticeship was begun Mr. name. If I have alluded to them at all it has been
MacMonnies went to Paris, but he left soon after, simply to indicate the official entourage of the man,
upon an outbreak of cholera, and went to Munich, so to speak, a phase of our examination upon which
where he modelled under Herr Widmann, and did it is not essential to dwell.
18