International studio (58.1916)

Garden Sculpture

tions, bird baths—that surest way to. lure the
birds to your garden, and have them stay and
stay—vases and decorative pieces for the garden
wall.
Filled with the spirit of out-doors was the exhi-
bition; not only in Pietro’s vigorous figure of the
Out-of-doors Man, not only in hedge and vines
and flower borders forming the backgrounds, but

which is pictured here. It is an illustration of the
fact that American sculptors are all feeling for
colour in their work. Mr. Purdy believes that
the time has been approaching, and is now here,
when the public will afford our sculptors oppor-
tunities to express themselves in colour in this
way; and this particular piece will lead in this
direction. For it violates no academic creed, and

much of the sculpture
had the feel of air
and space, of flowing
water and growing
things. Happy and
joyous were the chil-
dren, playing with tur-
tle and butterfly, with
bird and fish, with
spouting water. And
very decorative were
many of the designs.
The most imagina-
tive piece of work in
the exhibition was the
crouching marble fig-
ure, The Waters, by
Solon Borglum, the
first piece of its sculp-
tural importance that
he has ever shown.
It is marked in the
catalgoue “unfinished”
and one cannot sup-
press the wish that it
might remain so. It
has, combined with
the intense virility of
modelling, a veiled
charm that pleases
the spectator beyond
words. Absolutely
sound in conception
and construction, it is

youth by JANET SCUDDER


is at the same time
wholly free in concep-
tion and execution.
Modelled in low re-
lief, combining blue,
green and lavender
with tan and brown,
it suggests reproduc-
tion in tile. Further-
more its roughened
surfaces and slowly
graduated depths in-
dicate a very clear
knowledge of the hab-
its and the preferences
of the birds whom it
was especially design-
ed to lure and make
happy. For both art-
ist and layman, the
study of bird-life, with
a view to creating
things to bring them
more closely into our
lives, is one of the
most beautiful that
can be indulged in;
and here again, this
piece of sculpture
points the way.
The most interest-
ing of the sundials is
Morning, Noon and
Night, the work of

evidently a marble untouched by the hand of
any but its creator. And it shows in its present
state the profound philosophy which must have
attended long days of patient and joyous devel-

Harriett W. Frishmuth, who has named it the
Purdy sundial. An, attractive solution of the
problem of combining circle and triangle is shown
in the three girlish figures supporting the dial.

opment of an ideal. Artist, philosopher, poet,
Borglum has given here an expression of his own
feeling in sculpture.
One of the best recent examples of sound con-
ventionalization for pure decoration is the wall
fountain and bird bath by Eugenie F. Shonmard,

Of the fountain figures, one of the most at-
tractive is the girl drinking from a shell, by
Edward McCartan. Its charm would seem to
depend largely on the inspiration of a pleasing
youthful model, the figure having evidently been
modelled very close to nature; and thus it has

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