Adams, Adeline: The spirit of American sculpture (New York: Nat. Sculpture Soc., 1923)

AMERICAN SCULPTURE

generally prefers bronze to marble;
and just as the dead whiteness of
marble may be relieved by color, so
the severe darkness of bronze in statue
or bust may be altered by the use of
a harmonious patina. Many of our
sculptors have given long and patient
study to this subject of “patine” ;
others again trust all to the bronze
founder. But sculpture still has much
to learn from chemistry; and there are
still a few artists who keep enough of
the weaker side of craftsmanship to
believe in the advisability of secret
processes. Is is not true that art is the
last field where such secrecies should
exist? Do we not look upon art as
the liberator of great things, not as the
locker-up of little things like crafts-
men’s receipts ? For receipts that are
not exposed to the air get mouldy with
hugger-mugger and abracadabra; this
is as true today as in good Cennino
Cennini’s time of “mordant with gar-

THE IDEAL FIGURE

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