DOI chapter:
Capter II Our blithe Beginning Days
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.65493#0065
AMERICAN SCULPTURE
35
those bitter acuities of space at right
and left, those angles which to mod-
ern discrimination often seem so gross-
ly overstuffed when filled, so tragically
vacant when left “to let.” He had
never heard of the “orchestration of
shadows,” or of “musical repetitions,”
or of “blonde modeling,” or of “keep-
ing the masses white,” or of “the cre-
ative spiral,” or of “mastery through
the golden diagonal.” He had never
been adjured, like the young student
Saint-Gaudens, to “beware the boule
de suif”; on the other hand, he had
never been advised, with students com-
ing after Saint-Gaudens, to seek rich-
ness of modeling by means of “fatty
ends.” Sculptural color he would
probably have regarded as having
something to do with paint. He of
course had his own patter, blown
abroad by the writers of a too prosaic
poetry and a too poetic prose. The
real writers, too, used to lend a hand in
BEGINNING DAYS
35
those bitter acuities of space at right
and left, those angles which to mod-
ern discrimination often seem so gross-
ly overstuffed when filled, so tragically
vacant when left “to let.” He had
never heard of the “orchestration of
shadows,” or of “musical repetitions,”
or of “blonde modeling,” or of “keep-
ing the masses white,” or of “the cre-
ative spiral,” or of “mastery through
the golden diagonal.” He had never
been adjured, like the young student
Saint-Gaudens, to “beware the boule
de suif”; on the other hand, he had
never been advised, with students com-
ing after Saint-Gaudens, to seek rich-
ness of modeling by means of “fatty
ends.” Sculptural color he would
probably have regarded as having
something to do with paint. He of
course had his own patter, blown
abroad by the writers of a too prosaic
poetry and a too poetic prose. The
real writers, too, used to lend a hand in
BEGINNING DAYS