DOI chapter:
Chapter VI Our Equestrian Statues
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.65493#0192
142
THE SPIRIT OF
A genius for animals is found rather
often among us, as befits a people
whose fathers so lately subdued the
forest-born; it is a gift as richly special
and as deeply innate as the gift, let us
say, for religious sculpture, or for any
other lofty form. Through this gift,
Miss Flyatt and Miss Gardin, Mr.
Harvey, Mr. Roth, Mr. Potter, Mr.
Laessle, Mr. Sanford, Mr. Rumsey
and many others have shown us beauti-
ful or terrible or humorous things.
The presence of the horse, the cheval,
easily gives the authentic accent of
chivalry to the equestrian portrait
statue, as contrasted with its pedestrian
relative; while in a work imagined in
the manner of the Saint-Gaudens
Sherman, the beast, the man, and the
embodied spirit unite in an epical en-
semble that appeals to the thoughtful
mind. One thinks of that similar
trinity of Earth, Man, and Heaven,
said to animate in humbler guise every
VI
OUR EQUESTRIAN
THE SPIRIT OF
A genius for animals is found rather
often among us, as befits a people
whose fathers so lately subdued the
forest-born; it is a gift as richly special
and as deeply innate as the gift, let us
say, for religious sculpture, or for any
other lofty form. Through this gift,
Miss Flyatt and Miss Gardin, Mr.
Harvey, Mr. Roth, Mr. Potter, Mr.
Laessle, Mr. Sanford, Mr. Rumsey
and many others have shown us beauti-
ful or terrible or humorous things.
The presence of the horse, the cheval,
easily gives the authentic accent of
chivalry to the equestrian portrait
statue, as contrasted with its pedestrian
relative; while in a work imagined in
the manner of the Saint-Gaudens
Sherman, the beast, the man, and the
embodied spirit unite in an epical en-
semble that appeals to the thoughtful
mind. One thinks of that similar
trinity of Earth, Man, and Heaven,
said to animate in humbler guise every
VI
OUR EQUESTRIAN