International studio (59.1916)

T/ie Sculpture of Daniel Chester French

The recent sculpture of
DANIEL CHESTER FRENCH.
BY SELWYN RRINTON, M.A.

When I was in the United States in 1906 two
masters of their art stood in almost unquestioned
supremacy at the head of modern American sculp-
ture. Augustus Saint Gaudens—the creator of the
Abraham Lincoln of Chicago Park, of that tragic
figure of the Rock Creek Cemetery at Washington,
of the Boston monument to Gould Shaw, with the
il fateful forward march” and sloped bayonets of
his advancing soldiers, of the General Sherman of
Central Park (N.Y.)—is, unhappily, with
us no more : but in these ten years which
have elapsed since 1906 Daniel Chester
French has gone forward, adding to the
breadth and dignity of his art, to his
already fine achievement in monumental
sculpture.
Sculpture in America may be called a
new art, even more exactly and directly
than America a new country. Born, a
timid growth, in the sterile soil of a
Puritan tradition, under influences which
were hostile even to its existence, much
more its free and rich development, it
has gone on from one triumph to another
—it has developed into something which
even America may be proud of, and which
in Europe as yet is very inadequately
recognised. Had I sufficient space here,
I would willingly dilate upon the work
which has been done for America by a
few men of energy organised together in
awakening public attention to the claims of
sculpture. I would even suggest whether
we might not ourselves borrow a useful
lesson in the development of a plastic art
within our Empire which has everything
in its favour—except adequate public
recognition and private interest. But
I have a theme here in the recent sculp-
tures of Mr. Daniel Chester French, which
claims my whole attention, as well as that
of my reader.
Mr. French—whether he is in his New
York studio in West Eleventh Street or
his country home in Massachusetts, where
he has built himself a large studio for
his monumental work—is a steady and
systematic worker; and any complete
record, even of his more recent creations,
will call for all my available space.

To judge his recent work we must briefly
traverse the past, and shall then form a conception
of the whole of the man’s art, of its technical
achievement and its underlying purpose.
As a matter of fact the young sculptor’s first com-
mission was The Minute Man—one of those hardy
New England farmers who successfully resisted
King George III. and his soldiers—which was
modelled when the artist was twenty-three years of
age, and unveiled in 1875. A visit to Florence—
where he worked in the studio of Mr. Thomas Ball,
whom I remember myself as a young student in
Arno’s city—developed his taste ; and there followed

“MOURNING VICTORY” (MELVIN MEMORIAL)
DANIEL C. FRENCH, SCULPTOR

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