International studio (33.1907/1908(1908))

Augustus Sciint-Gaudens

THE PILGRIM
CITY HALL SQUARE, PHILADELPHIA
tion. If it was his only published nude figure, it
leaves without serious regret the absence of others.
The Adams monument in Rock Creek Cemetery
in Washington shows instead all that mastering

genius could do
with an overmas-
tering theme. Leg-
end has already
entwined this
tragic figure, born
of remediless grief
and a hopeless sor-
row. The brood-
ing years are hers.
If elsewhere in
Saint-Gaudens’s
work challenge
rises, none can be
heard here. The
verdict of the
future is little
doubtful. No work
of modern art car-
ries the winged but
hid message of this
shrouded figure of
inscrutable face.
It has been called
Buddhist and Ori-
ental, but it has
no touch of either.
Instead, there is
here the pitiless
probl e m with
which human
knowledge has
wrestled all the
night long of
human ignorance,
seen no sunrise
with healing in its
wings and gone
haltingall its days,
the sinews of its
strength shortened
that they cannot
save. Detail here
has been wholly
mastered. The
drapery is simple
to severity and of
the beauty that
belongs to cloud
and peak and all
things that inner forces and the outer storm
fashion and shape. The face type, not individ-
ual, is without the close modeling elsewhere given
even his ideal figures. Were this alone to sur-


BY SAINT-GAUDENS

CXXXII