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

154
THE SPIRIT OF
the earlier French master-medalists of
the nineteenth century, David d’An-
gers, Oudine, and Ponscarme, were
paving the difficult way for a later and
more sympathetic flowering of the
medallic art in the hands of Roty,
Chaplain, and Charpentier. But the
delightful quality of the Renaissance
medal was never more deeply appreci-
ated in France than at the time when
a goodly number of our American
sculptors were studying there, and
shared in that appreciation; and now
that the modern reducing-machine al-
lows the artist fully to develop his de-
sign for a medal in a fairly large size
before bringing it within the final small
circumference, it is certainly well for
him to bear in mind the admirable re-
sults obtained by the less sophisticated
quattrocento methods. Never before
has the medalist had at hand as many
excellent mechanical aids as at present.
Never before has he faced a greater
VII
THE ART OF RELIEF