International studio (56.1915)

Edward Berge, Sculptor

that Mr. Berge’s Pieta is needlessly austere. It
is the sort of work whose soul is not revealed at
a flash. Study of it however, discloses the lofti-
ness of the conception, for the message of the
group is deeply religious and the very fact that
it is presented in such an unadorned, chaste
fashion, makes its solemn portent all the more con-
vincing; makes the note of sorrow, half-human,
half-divine, all the more insistent. The Pieta
stands in St. Patrick’s Catholic Church, Wash-
ington. It is in cement, tinted to harmonize with
a lovely decoration by Gabrielle de V. Clements.
Mr. Berge has no sympathy with the morbidity

COL. GEORGE ARMISTEAD BY EDWARD BERGE



A SUNDIAL IN BRONZE

BY EDWARD BERGE

and obscure symbolism that one meets so fre-
quently in the arts now-a-days. The subjects he
prefers are the men and women who have enough
normal cares of their own to make them interest-
ing, without drawing upon the decadents.
A man held in the grip of a salacious, destruc-
tive philosophy could not produce anything as
fresh, as wholesome and as charming, for instance,
as his small bronzes. It is in these that he strikes
his most intimate and personal note, that he gives
his fancy fullest flight. Sometimes they are pas-
toral in subject, sometimes they seem imbued
with the soul of a classic sonnet. Again it is a sad
minor chord that calls, or a flash of humour.
His presentations of children are notably happy,
for he has the rare faculty of insight into the
elusive, elfin soul of childhood and of interpreting
it in a surprisingly sensitive way. Perhaps the
fact that he is the father of a handsome pair of
boys—twins, now in their eighth year—has some-
thing to do with this. At any rate, Henry and
Stephens frequently pose for him, and intelligent,
indefatigable little models they are too, he tells me.
Among the best of the childhood series is the
Sundial, Wildflower, Undine and Will-o^the-Wisp.

LXI