International studio (56.1915)

Edward Berge, Sctilptor

THE SPIRIT OF LIFE BY DANIEL CHESTER FRENCH


first commissioner of the reservation, but like-
wise an acknowledgement of the beneficent work
accomplished by the State in the six years since
Governor Charles Evans Hughes appointed the
commissioners to carryout the will of the legislature.
In a letter regretting his inability to attend
the ceremony, Ambassador van Dyke writes of
the memorial: “It is a message in bronze, saying
silently to the children of men, that life is not a
care and a burden, but a blessing and a joy to all
who live in purity and love. If I could be at
Saratoga I should want to shake hands in con-
gratulation with the members of the commission
who have carried the work splendidly thus far
—Messrs. Peabody, Tracy, and Godfrey. And
then I should want to shake hands in hope and
confidence with the new members, Messrs. Cam-
eron and Van Tuyl, who are going on with
Senator Godfrey to make Saratoga more and
more of a vital asset to the people of the State
of New York. I write from the shores where
organized Death and Destruction are stalking

through fair lands. The duty which the Presi-
dent committed to my hands holds me here
while the Dark Age lasts. But with my
whole heart, oppressed but not discouraged,
weary but still believing, I send my loyal greet-
ing to The Spirit of Life in America.”

Edward berge, sculptor
BY WARREN WILMER BROWN
In the hubbub of modernism,with its

wild extremes, its endless unrest, its
futile experimentation, it is indeed refreshing to
turn to the artists who keep their heads.
Judging from what is to be seen in contem-
poraneous exhibitions, one is almost justified in
the conclusion that neither painters nor sculptors
are by any means sure of their bearings. The
impulse, still generally speaking, seems to be
either to plunge recklessly ahead of the time, or
else to swing back across the centuries and, by
adopting the naive methods of the primitives,
make a fad of the archaic.

The tendency toward identification with all
sorts of new “isms”—not to mention such old
standbys as realism, sentimentalism, chauvinism,
in a word, and other things which, as Joseph Con-
rad says of the poor,“are exceedingly difficult to
get rid of”—is very marked. So marked, indeed,
as to argue against any great degree of positive
conviction, notably on the part of the younger
men, as to the scope and purpose, or even the
nature of art.

Such a statement, of course, must be qualified.
For it were an easy task to name a gratifyingly
long list of men and women who are producing
work, which, combining as it does originality
and lofty aspiration with brilliant technical finish,
puts American art, as a whole, in a commanding
position before the world. Needless to say, these
artists have the strength of their own convictions,
not the convictions of somebody else.
Mr. Berge was born in Baltimore, where he
now lives and has his studio. As a boy he studied
at the Maryland Institute and after he had com-
pleted the course in the Rinehart school of sculp-
ture there under Ephraim Keyser and Charles
Pike, he decided to go to Paris.
His work as a student in Baltimore had dis-
played opulent promise and his friends experi-
enced no surprise when they learned the rapidity
of his progress in Europe. He speaks with par-

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