International studio (35.1908)

National Sculpture Society

for the rotunda of the Capitol, was consigned to an
inappropriate outdoor site, that it might be worth
$30,000 by and by to be able to point to it and say,
“There stands the first struggle of an infant art.”
But alas for the vanity of the consolation 1 Suc-
ceeding generations forgot that art had to be reborn
in a new land and got their money’s worth in ridi-
cule. We cannot build upon the charity of pos-
terity, and if no kindly destroyer removes the blun-
ders of our youth the best we can hope is, as Mr.
Mabie has said, that those who follow us may real-
ize that our meretricious monuments were erected
in ignorance and not through malice.
Returning to the exhibition, Mr. Shrady’s Wash-
ington was found to be an exceptionally dignified
and impressive work; Mr. Borglum’s Gordon and
Mr. Bitter’s Siegel good but not great. We have
been accused of exhibiting a predilection for
“ clothespin men on wooden horses,” but it must be
admitted that a certain gravity and repose are
essential to monumental expression. The Wash-
ington at Valley Forge fulfilled these requirements,
and was at the same time vital and convincing.
The subject may have exalted the sculptor, but cer-
tainly the result was inspiring.
The fourth of the full-size equestrian statues was
not a portrait but an allegory. The Appeal to the
Great Spirit, by Cyrus E. Dallin, represented a
typical Indian mounted upon a horse, with arms
outstretched and face upturned in earnest supplica-
tion. It is the last of a series in which the sculptor
has aimed to depict the redman in his contact with
the great white force that has swept him almost out
of existence. The first was the Signal oj Peace, ex-
hibited at the Columbian Exposition in 1893, and
now in Lincoln Park, Chicago, the allegory of
which is the first contact—the desire for peace; the
second was the Medicine Man, in Fairmount Park,
who by his missions and dreams saw the ultimate
end, and strove to warn his people; the third, The
Protest, exhibited at St. Louis in 1904, represented
the Indian chief hurling defiance at the invaders;
and now the last sets forth the final appeal to the
Higher Court. The sadness which attends the
sweeping away of these proud people found expres-
sion in this statue, which while genuinely sculptur-
esque was intensely dramatic and moving. In this
instance at least horse and rider were one, the In-
dian real, not fictitious, the impulse adequately in-
terpreted.
Half-size equestrian statues of St. Louis, the
Crusader and General U. S. Grant, by Charles
Henry Niehaus, were shown and commended them-
selves through an evident sense of restrained mo-

tion and sculptural beauty; but chief attention was
called, by conspicuous placing, to a portrait-statue
of McKinley, the national memorial erected in Can-
ton, which was the work of the same sculptor.
In a measure this suggested Saint-Gaudens’s stand-
ing statue of Lincoln, though it was not compar-
able to it, and while it was admirably modeled it
failed to make vital appeal. And yet it was good—
very good of its kind. Much the same can be said
of Mr. Daniel C. French’s portrait statue of the
late Hon. George F. Hoar, which was masterly in
its way and yet comparatively uninteresting. Beau-
tiful modeling and insistent personality go far
toward atoning for the unalterable ugliness of
masculine attire, but there are few portrait-
statues which would stand the “headless test”—
few which if decapitated would be worthy of pres-
ervation. The fault is, of course, partly with the
sculptors, but it is also largely with the public,
which insists upon memorializing a man’s face and
figure rather than his attainments or his life’s work.
If Mr. French’s statue of Senator Hoar did not
elicit unbounded admiration, much commendation
can be given to his groups Commerce and Juris-
prudence, modeled for the Federal Building, Cleve-
land, Ohio, both of cvhich were charming in com-
position, graceful in line and strong in mass—
ivorks of great beauty and real significance. It
has.been said that the majority of architectural
figures are dead figures, but w hile these possess
statuesque dignity they have much life.
It was Mr. French, also, who was indirectly ac-
countable for the statue of Greek Science, executed
for the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences by
Mr. Kenyon Cox, a half-size model of which was
included in this exhibition; for it was he who gave
the commission and induced the painter to turn
sculptor. While manifesting some immaturity in
handling, this statue proved conclusively that the
mastery of one medium to a large extent embraced
the mastery of all. Mr. Cox’s paintings have
always had sculpturesque quality, so that in all
probability plastic expression came naturally to
him as a vehicle of speech. There wras formal
strength in this figure, and though a certain awk-
wardness of pose, a cold, impressive beauty in the
lines of the flowing drapery.
Mr. Lorado Taft reminded us in his delightfully
readable foreword to the catalogue of this exhibi-
tion that the architects, realizing the value of good
sculpture upon their buildings, have greatly aided
the progress of the art in the United States, citing
the-Library of Congress at Washington, the Appel-
late Court, the Custom House, and St. Barthol-

IV