International studio (50.1913)

Robert I. Aitken


BRET HARTE

BY ROBERT I. AITKEN, A.N.A.

vered by every man who sat under his teachings.
Again it is a speaking likeness, a dignified present-
ment of the fine head, the rugged intellectuality,
the alert mind and the kindly humanity of that
splendid personage. And as it was made after the
death of the man, the difficulties of the sculptor
were thereby increased. Two important mau-
soleum doors were to be executed, one for the
Greenhut family, a second for the family of the
late John W. Gates and the motive for each was
a standing female figure, original in conception,
of rare and compelling sympathy and great
beauty. That of the Gates memorial saw the
woman leaning against a portal in an attitude of
grief, the classic head bowed against the fret-work,
while graceful draperies hung from outstretched
arms and clung about the half-nude body. Cast
in bronze, both these efforts stamp the man as a
draftsman of unusual sincerity and resource.

he became interested by his enormous facility,
when he took him seriously and gave him sittings
worthy the dignity of the bust. The result was a
speaking likeness which was satisfactory all
around and was first seen publicly at the winter
exhibition of the National Academy of Design, in
New York, in 1910, going subsequently to the
International Exhibition at Rome, in 1911.
Meanwhile, in 1908 Mr. Aitken received the dis-
tinction of being awarded the first of the Helen
Foster Barnett prizes, for the best piece of sculp-
ture in the winter exhibition of the National
Academy of Design, and impressing his fellows
with this, the following year he was elected to
associate membership in the Academy. The prize-
winning group he called The, Flame. It was a
composition of two figures, a young man and
woman in passionate embrace, almost elemental
in their abandon, their virility and the inten-
sity of their mutual love.
There was another work
called A Creature of God
Till Now Unknown, which
Mr. Aitken had carved
directly from the marble,
without models or sketches;
he is of the opinion that
thus the artist gets a cer¬
tain personality not other¬
wise possible, and he has
done much of his work
thus. There are disclosed
in this sculpture certain
untouched portions of the
stone which make it most
effective and rugged, his
woman seeming in short a
creature just revealed, a
youthful female form of
rare beauty, mingled with
a tender pathos. Most re-
cent of his productions is a
portrait of the distinguish¬
ed scientist whose name is
endeared to legions of Har¬
vard graduates, Nathaniel
Southgate Shaler, in his
day dean of Lawrence Sci¬
entific School, and for long
professor of geology at Har¬
vard University, a man be¬
loved of all the faculty of
that institution of learn¬
ing, whose memory is re-

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