Studio: international art (80.1920)

ATHLETIC SCULPTURE

GEORGE WHITEFIELD MEMORIAL
STATUE, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYL-
VANIA. BY R. TAIT MACKENZIE

sculptor would undertake the task, with
characteristic energy he set to work to
model such a figure himself, and after
many attempts he produced his Sprinter.

A very mechanical way it seems of
producing a statue. Yes : but after all it
was thus that the Greek sculptor con-
sciously or unconsciously worked. Cer-
tainly there is nothing mechanical about
the Sprinter. Crouching with his hands on
the ground in readiness for the start, he is
the embodiment of alertness and activity.
As the Greek epigrammatist wrote of
Myron's Ladas " Surely the bronze will
leap towards the crown." The next year he
produced the College Athlete, another study
in proportion, based on the average
measurements of 400 picked athletes. In
an exhibition of sports and pastimes at the
Whitechapel Art Gallery I showed a
photograph of this statue side by side with
one of the Doryphoros of Polykleitos, the

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so-called " Canon," in which the Greek
artist embodied his ideal of physical pro-
portion. The Greek figure is somewhat
shorter, thicker and more heavily built,
for such was the type of athlete that
prevailed at Argos. But in spite of
differences due to nationality there are
striking resemblances between the two
figures. Both are realistic in that they are
the result of conscious study. But the
realism' is informed by idealism, and it is
this that makes Tait McKenzie's work so
near akin to that of the Greeks, a a
His appointment to the Professorship of

ATQVE VALE

THE BAYNE MEMORIAL PLAQUE
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
BY R. TAIT MACKENZIE