International studio (59.1916)

The Sculpture of Daniel Chester French


the Historical Society Building at Concord, which
was designed by Mr. Guy Lowell of Boston : this
group by Mr. French represents on either side the
Genius of Ancient and of Modern History, with
between them the Seal of the Historical Society,
watched over by Minerva’s owl. This is reserved,
simple, absolutely decora¬
tive; while, among the
thirty statues which adorn
the exterior of the attic
story of Brooklyn Institute,
the Greek Religion and
Ly>ric Poetry by our scu 1 ptor
are draped female figures
treated independently, and
of great beauty of type,
and the Epic Poetry
appears as a grand
bearded figure of Homer.
When I was in Mr.
French’s studio at Glen¬
dale in 1906 he was
actually working on the
great groups of the New
York Customs, which are
now of course in place :
the composition is in every
case more or less pyra¬
midal and the difficult
problems involved have
been boldly met and
solved. Europe, a queenly
figure of noble type,
with the shrouded form of
History as her comrade;
America, alert and ardent,
the Redskin of her past
behind her ; Asia, seated
in hieratic pose, the
Buddha on her lap, the
effulgent Cross behind
her, with her feet upon
human skulls, are com¬
positions nobly c o n-
ceived, the detail sub¬
ordinate to the central
thought, the technical
handling that of an accom¬
plished master of his art.
To me personally Asia
though I know others do not share that verdict;
on the other hand Africa, a sleeping woman of
Nubian type, the upper part of her form entirely
nude, resting her sinewy right arm on the Sphinx

— satisfies me entirely in design and in the central
figure. In the slumberous abandon of this grand
torso, Michelangelesque in its splendid forms,
and recalling the Night of the Laurentian Chapel,
Mr. French shows that when he selects the nude
he can invest it with the same dignity and har-
monious beauty as his
draped figures: indeed
among the great services
which he has rendered
to American sculpture not
the least has been the
fact that from first to last
his aim has been lofty,
his sentiment pure and
unsoiled.
The nude lies behind
all sculpture — behind
every one of the noble
draped figures of this
American master, who
has told me how much in
his youth he owed to
Dr. Rimmer’s masterly
analysis of human
anatomy. Yet one feels
that it would have been—
and has been—so easy for
the young sculptor, fresh
from the ateliers of Paris,
to exhibit his technical
dexterity before the
American public in those
figures “ des femmes, des
jeunes et jolies femmes,”
which were wont to
people the central hall of
the Paris Salon. Daniel
Chester French has in-
breathed his art with some-
thing of a more solemn
music, of a severer, a more
austere message. Like
the distinguished Italian
Leonardo Bistolfi he has
been, pre-eminently in his
monuments, the sculptor
of Death : this very phrase
recalls his wonderful
Cemetery, nor has any
monument to dead heroes excelled the lovely
figure of Mourning Victory.
If in referring to the beginnings of modern
American sculpture I have spoken of Puritanism as

STATUE OF
D. c.
is the least pleasing.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN AT LINCOLN,
NEBRASKA
FRENCH, SCULPTOR

group at Forest Hill

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