International studio (51.1913/1914)

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INTERNATIONAL
• STUDIO
VOL. LI. No. 203 Copyright, 1914, by John Lane Company JANUARY, 1914

CONSTANTIN MEUNIER’S MES¬
SAGE TO AMERICA
BY CHRISTIAN BRINTON
In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.
It is the consensus of discriminating opinion
that the honours of contemporary sculpture are
divided between Auguste Rodin and Constantin
Meunier. In the realm of passionate physical
and psychic unrest Rodin reigns supreme. In his
chosen province of labour and his interpretation of
the noble dignity of toil, Meunier stands unrivalled.
While we have for a generation been familiar with
the art of Rodin, the work of Meunier has
remained virtually unknown. His simple, heroic
life story had in a measure preceded him, yet it
was not until the present season that the American
public found itself face to face with the resolute
and rugged production of the great Belgian.
Although there had been certain sporadic attempts
to bring this work to these shores, nothing specific
was accomplished until the inspirational and ener-
getic Miss Sage, of the Albright Gallery, Buffalo,
took the matter in hand. A flying visit to the

Brussels studio of the departed sculptor, where
everything remains just as it was during his life-
time, proved sufficient to convince her that his
art could not fail to enlist our responsive sym-
pathies, and arrangements were forthwith con-
cluded for the current exhibition. Its reception
in Buffalo, and at the Carnegie Institute, Pitts-
burgh, has been most significant, and there is
every indication that it may be continued in kind
when, within a few brief weeks, the display opens
at the new Avery Library, Columbia University.
There are two cardinal reasons why the work of
Constantin Meunier should possess an uncom-
monly potent attraction for our public, both gen-
eral and critical, and these reasons lie deep at the
very roots of the national consciousness. If there
is anything the American prides himself upon it is
his primacy in the field of latter-day industrial
production, and the art of Meunier is, before all
else, the epic of modern industrialism. The age of
stone was succeeded by the age of bronze, and the
age of bronze in turn gave way to the age of steel.
It was in factory and forge, in plate mill and
before blast furnace, in coalpit and quarry, that
Meunier found his types, and courageously cast

THE MINE, TRIPTYCH BY CONSTANTIN MEUNIER


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