portrait to the dignity of the type, it was no less capable of endowing
the imagined type with all the individuality of the portrait. In the
"Deacon Chapin" (Pl. 29), of Springfield, we have a purely ideal
production, the finest embodiment of New England Puritanism in our art,
for no portrait of the real Chapin existed. This swift-striding,
stern-looking old man, who clasps his Bible as Moses clasped the tables
of the law and grips his peaceful walking-stick as though it were a
sword, is a Puritan of the Puritans; but he is an individual also--a
rough-hewn piece of humanity with plenty of the old Adam about him--an
individual so clearly seen and so vigorously characterized that one can
hardly believe the statue an invention or realize that no such old
Puritan deacon ever existed in the flesh. Something of this imaginative
quality there is in almost everything Saint-Gaudens touched, even in
his purely decorative figures. His angels and caryatides are not
classical goddesses but modern women, lovely, but with a personal and
particular loveliness, not insisted upon but delicately suggested. And
it is not the personality of the model who chanced to pose for them but
an invented personality, the expression of the nobility, the sweetness,
and the pure-mindedness of their creator. And in such a figure as that
of the "Adams Memorial" (Pl. 30), in Rock Creek Cemetery in Washington,
his imaginative power reaches to a degree of impressiveness almost
unequalled in modern art. One knows of nothing since the tombs of the
Medici that fills one with the same hushed awe as this shrouded, hooded,
deeply brooding figure, rigid with contemplation, still with an eternal
stillness, her soul rapt from her body on some distant quest. Is she
Nirvana? Is she The Peace of God? She has been given many names--her
maker would give her none. Her meaning is mystery; she is the
everlasting enigma.
[Illustration: Copyright, De W.C. Ward.
Plate 28.--Saint-Gaudens. "Lincoln."]
Not the greatest artist could twice sound so deep a note as this. The
figure remains unique in the work of the sculptor as it is unique in the
art of the century. Yet, perhaps, Saint-Gaudens's greatest works are two
in which all the varied elements of his genius find simultaneous
expression; into which his mastery of composition, his breadth and
solidity of structure, his technical skill, his insight into character,
and his power of imagination enter in nearly equal measure: the "Shaw
Memorial" and the great equestrian group of the "Sherman Monument."
The "Shaw Memorial" (Pl. 31) is a relief, but a relief of many planes.
The marching troops are in three files, one behind the other, the
varying distances from the spectator marked by differences of the degree
of projection. Nearer than all of them is the equestrian figure of Shaw
himself, the horse and rider modelled nearly but not quite in the round.
The whole scale of relief was altered in the course of the work, after
it had once been nearly completed, and the mastery of the infinitely
complicated problem of relief in many degrees is supreme. But all the
more because the scheme was so full and so varied, the artist has
carefully avoided the pictorial in his treatment. There is no
perspective, the figures being all on the same scale, and there is no
background, no setting of houses or landscape. Everywhere, between and
above the figures, is the flat surface which is the immemorial tradition
of sculpture in relief; and the fact that it _is_ a surface,
representing nothing, is made more clear by the inscription written upon
it--an inscription placed there, consciously or unconsciously, that it
might have that very effect. The composition is magnificent, whether for
its intrinsic beauty of arrangement--its balancing of lines and
spaces--or for its perfect expressiveness. The rhythmic step of marching
men is perfectly rendered, and the guns fill the middle of the panel in
an admirable pattern, without confusion or monotony. The heads are
superb in characterization, strikingly varied and individual, yet each a
strongly marked racial type, unmistakably African in all its forms.
[Illustration: Plate 29.--Saint-Gaudens. "Deacon Chapin."]
These are merits, and merits of a very high order, enough of themselves
to place the work in the front rank of modern sculpture, but they are,
after all, its minor merits. What makes it the great thing it is is the
imaginative power displayed in it--the depth of emotion expressed, and
expressed with perfect simplicity and directness and an entire
absence of parade. The negro troops are marching steadily, soberly,
with high seriousness of purpose, and their white leader rides beside
them, drawn sword in hand, but with no military swagger, courageous, yet
with a hint of melancholy, ready not only to lay down his life but to
face, if need be, an ignominious death for the cause he believes to be
just. And above them, laden with poppy and with laurels, floats the
Death Angel pointing out the way.
[Illustration: Copyright, Curtis & Cameron.
Plate 30.--Saint-Gaudens. "Adams Memorial."]
It is a work which artists may study again and again with growing
admiration and increasing profit, yet it is one that has found its way
straight to the popular heart. It is not always--it is not often--that
the artists and the public are thus at one. When they are it is safe to
assume that the work they equally admire is truly great--that it belongs
to the highest order of noble works of art.
The Sherman group (Pl. 32), though it has been more criticised than the
"Shaw Memorial," seems to me, if possible, an even finer work. The main
objection to it has been that it is not sufficiently "monumental," and,
indeed, it has not the massiveness nor the repose of such a work as
Donatello's "Gattamelata," the greatest of all equestrian statues. It
could not well have these qualities in the same degree, its motive being
what it is, but they are, perhaps, not ill exchanged for the character
and the nationalism so marked in horse and rider and for the
irresistible onward rush of movement never more adequately expressed. In
all other respects the group seems to me almost beyond criticism. The
composition--composition, now, in the round and to be considered from
many points of view--builds up superbly; the flow of line in wing and
limb and drapery is perfect; the purely sculptural problems of
anatomical rendering, equine and human, are thoroughly resolved; the
modelling, as such, is almost as fine as the design.
[Illustration: Copyright, De. W.C. Ward.
Plate 31.--Saint-Gaudens. "Shaw Memorial."]
To the boyish Saint-Gaudens Sherman had seemed the typical American
hero. To the matured artist he had sat for an admirable bust. The
sculptor had thus an unusual knowledge of his subject, a perfect
sympathy with his theme; and he has produced a work of epic sweep and
significance. Tall and erect, the general sits his horse, his military
cloak bellying out behind him, his trousers strapped down over his
shoes, his hat in his right hand, dropping at arm's length behind his
knee, his bare head like that of an old eagle, looking straight forward.
The horse is as long and thin as his rider, with a tremendous stride;
and his big head, closely reined in, twitches viciously at the bridle.
Before the horse and rider, upon the ground, yet as if new-lighted there
from an aerial existence, half walks, half flies, a splendid winged
figure, one arm outstretched, the other brandishing the palm--Victory
leading them on. She has a certain fierce wildness of aspect, but her
rapt gaze and half-open mouth indicate the seer of visions--peace is
ahead, and an end of war. On the bosom of her gown is broidered the
eagle of the United States, for she is an American Victory, as this is
an American man on an American horse; and the broken pine bough beneath
the horse's feet localizes the victorious march--it is the march through
Georgia to the sea.
Long ago I expressed my conviction that the "Sherman Monument" is third
in rank of the great equestrian statues of the world. To-day I am not
sure that that conviction remains unaltered. Donatello's "Gattamelata"
is unapproached and unapproachable in its quiet dignity; Verrocchio's
"Colleone" is unsurpassed in picturesque attractiveness. Both are
consecrated by the admiration of centuries. To-day I am not sure that
this work of an American sculptor is not, in its own way, equal to
either of them.
There are those who are troubled by the introduction of the symbolical
figures in such works as the "Shaw Memorial" and the Sherman statue;
and, indeed, it was a bold enterprise to place them where they are,
mingling thus in the same work the real and the ideal, the actual and
the allegorical. But the boldness seems to me abundantly justified by
success. In either case the entire work is pitched to the key of these
figures; the treatment of the whole is so elevated by style and so
infused with imagination that there is no shock of unlikeness or
difficulty of transition. And these figures are not merely necessary to
the composition, an essential part of its beauty--they are even more
essential to the expression of the artist's thought. Without that
hovering Angel of Death, the negro troops upon the "Shaw Memorial" might
be going anywhere, to battle or to review. We should have a passing
regiment, nothing more. Without the striding Victory before him, the
impetuous movement of Sherman's horse would have no especial
significance. And these figures are no mere conventional allegories;
they are true creations. To their creator the unseen was as real as the
seen--nay, it was more so. That Shaw was riding to his death at the
command of duty was, the only thing that made Shaw memorable. That
Sherman was marching to a victory the fruits of which should be peace
was the essential thing about Sherman. Death and Duty--Victory and
Peace--in each case the compound ideal found its expression in a figure
entirely original and astonishingly living: a _person_ as truly as Shaw
or Sherman themselves. He could not have left them out. It were
better to give up the work entirely than to do it otherwise than as he
saw it.
[Illustration: Copyright, De W.C. Ward.
Plate 32.--Saint-Gaudens. "Sherman."]
I have described and discussed but a few of the many works of this great
artist, choosing those which seem to me the most significant and the
most important, and in doing so I have keenly felt the inadequacy of
words to express the qualities of an art which exists by forms.
Fortunately, the works themselves are, for the most part, readily
accessible. In the originals, in casts, or in photographs, they may be
studied by every one. Nothing is more difficult than to estimate justly
the greatness of an object that is too near to us--it is only as it
recedes into the distance that the mountain visibly overtops its
neighboring hills. It is difficult to understand that this man so lately
familiar to us, moving among us as one of ourselves, is of the company
of the immortals. Yet I believe, as we make this study of his works, as
we yield ourselves to the graciousness of his charm or are exalted by
the sweep of his imagination, we shall come to feel an assured
conviction that Augustus Saint-Gaudens was not merely the most
accomplished artist of America, not merely one of the foremost sculptors
of his time--we shall feel that he is one of those great, creative
minds, transcending time and place, not of America or of to-day, but of
the world and forever.
Where, among such minds, he will take his rank we need not ask. It is
enough that he is among them. Such an artist is assuredly a benefactor
of his country, and it is eminently fitting that his gift to us should
be acknowledged by such tribute as we can pay him. By his works in other
lands and by his world-wide fame he sheds a glory upon the name of
America, helping to convince the world that here also are those who
occupy themselves with the things of the spirit, that here also are
other capabilities than those of industrial energy and material success.
In his many minor works he has endowed us with an inexhaustible heritage
of beauty--beauty which is "about the best thing God invents." He is the
educator of our taste and of more than our taste--of our sentiment and
our emotions. In his great monuments he has not only given us fitting
presentments of our national heroes; he has expressed, and in expressing
elevated, our loftiest ideals; he has expressed, and in expressing
deepened, our profoundest feelings. He has become the voice of all that
is best in the American people, and his works are incentives to
patriotism and lessons in devotion to duty.
But the great and true artist is more than a benefactor of his country,
he is a benefactor of the human race. The body of Saint-Gaudens is
ashes, but his mind, his spirit, his character have taken on enduring
forms and are become a part of the inheritance of mankind. And if, in
the lapse of ages, his very name should be forgotten--as are the names
of many great artists who have gone before him--yet his work will
remain; and while any fragment of it is decipherable the world will be
the richer in that he lived.
[Transcriber's Note: In the Table of Illustrations and in the caption for
plate 17, Bolensa was corrected to Bolsena.]