DOI issue:
Nr. 233 (July, 1916)
DOI article:Brinton, Selwyn John Curwen: The recent sculpture of Daniel Chester French
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.43462#0134
The Sculpture of Daniel Chester French
KINSLEY MEMORIAL, WOODLAND CEMETERY, NEW YORK
but she is a remarkable woman, and it was she
who suggested that I should make a statue repre-
senting The Spirit oj Life. As she said, I had
already made The Angel of Death, and why not
the reverse, which was what her husband had stood
for? Water flows from the bowl which the figure
holds in her hand, and gushes from the rock
beneath her feet. It is rare that a fountain has
any water, but in this case there is an unlimited
supply, and perfectly clear sparkling water at that.”
The Angel of Death—to which Mr. French
alludes here—is of course his famous shadowy
form arresting the sculptor’s hand in the Milmore
Memorial at Boston ; and the reader will find The
Spirit of Life as well as its architectural and land-
scape setting at Saratoga Springs here illustrated.
Personally I consider this figure of Life as one of
the most beautiful imagined in the sculpture of
our time. She is buoyant, she almost floats, and
radiates vitality; and the setting compels the
highest praise to Mr. Bacon and Mr. Leavitt.
This is an appreciation, not a catalogue, and
D. C. FRENCH, SCULPTOR ; HENRY BACON, ARCHITECT
there are many works of interest which I have to
pass by or merely indicate : the lovely adolescent
girl guided by her “ Alma Mater ” in the group of
Wellesley College, the Longfellow Memorial (Cam-
bridge, Mass. 1914) with in relief behind it the
line of figures from the poet’s imaginings—Miles
Standish, Sandalphon, Evangeline, Hiawatha—
the Genius of Creation, brooding with outspread
wings, while beneath are emergent the naked forms
of youth and maid (Panama-Pacific Exposition,
1915), the noble seated figure of Sculpture of the
same year for the St. Louis Art Museum.
In these last he has treated the human form with
the same breadth and dignity as we have found in
the Nubian Sleeper or the Victory of the Melvin
Memorial. Life and Death—great ideas, great
characters who stand in history for ideas—the
splendid sense of beneficent life, or the sorrow for
heroic death, these and such as these form the
under-current of his inspiration : such an inspira-
tion as could do justice (if any could) to the issues
and silent wounds of this fateful war.
24
KINSLEY MEMORIAL, WOODLAND CEMETERY, NEW YORK
but she is a remarkable woman, and it was she
who suggested that I should make a statue repre-
senting The Spirit oj Life. As she said, I had
already made The Angel of Death, and why not
the reverse, which was what her husband had stood
for? Water flows from the bowl which the figure
holds in her hand, and gushes from the rock
beneath her feet. It is rare that a fountain has
any water, but in this case there is an unlimited
supply, and perfectly clear sparkling water at that.”
The Angel of Death—to which Mr. French
alludes here—is of course his famous shadowy
form arresting the sculptor’s hand in the Milmore
Memorial at Boston ; and the reader will find The
Spirit of Life as well as its architectural and land-
scape setting at Saratoga Springs here illustrated.
Personally I consider this figure of Life as one of
the most beautiful imagined in the sculpture of
our time. She is buoyant, she almost floats, and
radiates vitality; and the setting compels the
highest praise to Mr. Bacon and Mr. Leavitt.
This is an appreciation, not a catalogue, and
D. C. FRENCH, SCULPTOR ; HENRY BACON, ARCHITECT
there are many works of interest which I have to
pass by or merely indicate : the lovely adolescent
girl guided by her “ Alma Mater ” in the group of
Wellesley College, the Longfellow Memorial (Cam-
bridge, Mass. 1914) with in relief behind it the
line of figures from the poet’s imaginings—Miles
Standish, Sandalphon, Evangeline, Hiawatha—
the Genius of Creation, brooding with outspread
wings, while beneath are emergent the naked forms
of youth and maid (Panama-Pacific Exposition,
1915), the noble seated figure of Sculpture of the
same year for the St. Louis Art Museum.
In these last he has treated the human form with
the same breadth and dignity as we have found in
the Nubian Sleeper or the Victory of the Melvin
Memorial. Life and Death—great ideas, great
characters who stand in history for ideas—the
splendid sense of beneficent life, or the sorrow for
heroic death, these and such as these form the
under-current of his inspiration : such an inspira-
tion as could do justice (if any could) to the issues
and silent wounds of this fateful war.
24