International studio (36.1908/1909(1909))

SECTION OF BRONZE STAIR RAIL
RESIDENCE OE CAFTAIN LARZ ANDERSON, WASHINGTON, D. C.

LITTLE AND BROWNE
ARCHITECTS

AINT-GAUDENS MEMORIAL EXHI-
L BITION AT THE CORCORAN
R ^ A MEMORIAL exhibition of the works of
Augustus Sa.int-Gaudens was put on view
in the atrium of the Corcoran Gallery, Washington,
on December ig. This exhibition was undertaken
by the American Institute of Architects and ar-
ranged with excellent taste and success by Mr.
Glenn Brown, assisted by Mrs. Saint-Gaudens.
Short addresses were made at the opening by the
Secretary of State and the ambassadors of Itaiy,
France, Brazil, Great Britain and Japan.
The following tribute by Mr. Glenn Brown ap-
pears in the catalogue prepared for the exhibition,
which also contains a short biographical memoir:
A TRIBUTE TO AUGUSTUS SAINT-GAUDENS
BY GLENN BROWN
Augustus Saint-Gaudens, the great artist of the
age, was a charming companion, a true friend and a
citizen leading to ideal life. His affable manner,
quiet humor, quick appreciation, broad culture and
perfect taste made his companionship sought and
enjoyed. A sympathetic, candid nature and high
aspirations made his friendship earnestly desired.
His unselhsh assistance to committees, institutions
and the government has been a guiding factor
toward purity of taste and nobility of life.
His thorough equipment, sincerity of purpose,
grasp of composition, knowledge of detail, under-
standing of mass, natural genius, brilliant imagina-
tion and poetic nature, combined with inhnite pa-
tience, untiring energy and effacement of self, have
produced the greatest sculpture of the age.
His artistic light shines in rehned low relief and
bold, monumental composition. The relief por-
traits of Robert Louis Stevenson and Justice Gray
are exquisitely delicate, harmonious, restful, digni-
6ed and beautiful. Portrait busts have attained a
new dignity in his hands. The busts of John Hay

and David J. Hill, while full of repose and individ-
ual expression, possess high sculptural value.
He has made single figures impressive, something
rarely accomplished. TAe -PMritaw, a work of art
in line and pose, vividly typifies the honest, untiring,
unbending energy of the Reformation. Farragut
stands alert, prepared for any emergency, serious—
as the destiny of the Reet depends upon his action—
commanding, endowed with life and art. Lincoln,
a hopeless model in the hands of other scuiptors, is
a great work of art as depicted by the mind and
wrought by the hand of Saint-Gaudens. Lincoln's
kindly nature, brotherly love, honesty of purpose,
clear and far-seeing vision, grave with the destiny of
the nation, hrm in the saivation of the Union, are
shown in this wonderful piece of portrait sculpture.
Our admiration of Saint-Gaudens's genius reaches
the highest point when we study his great composi-
tions with their wonderful restrained movement,
full of life, yet dignihed and statuesque—natural,
but glowing with imagination, poetry and inspira-
tion. The Shaw memorial is a great composition
in relief, ideal in its sense of movement, natural in
its depiction of types and imaginative in its expres-
sion of sentiment. A spiritual hgure which inspires
the group to deeds of bravery and self-renunciation
makes this memorial a brilliant and satisfactory
combination of the ideal and real. The Sherman
statue, guided by the spirit of victory and peace,
vividly portrays the sense of motion—positive, re-
sistless, forward motion. This is one of the great
compositions of the world, full of realism, imagina-
tion and poetry—graceful in aM its lines, dignified
and imposing, restrained and beautiful.
It is htting that Saint-Gaudens, one of the im-
mortals, should have conceived the poetic, mysteri-
ous and elevating hgure of immortality which rests
calmly forevermore in Rock Creek Cemetery, an
expression of his genius, imagination, poetry and
eternal fame.

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