M. Emmanuel Frémiet occupies a place by himself. There have been but two
modern sculptors who have shown an equally pronounced genius for
representing animals--namely, Barye, of course, and Barye's clever but
not great pupil, Cain. The tigress in the Central Park, perhaps the best
bronze there (the competition is not exacting), and the best also of the
several variations of the theme of which, at one time, the sculptor
apparently could not tire, familiarizes Americans with the talent of
Cain. In this association Rouillard, whose horse in the Trocadéro
Gardens is an animated and elegant work, ought to be mentioned, but it
is hardly as good as the neighboring elephant of Frémiet as mere animal
representation (the _genre_ exists and has excellences and defects of
its own), while in more purely artistic worth it is quite eclipsed by
its rival. Still if _fauna_ is interesting in and of itself, which no
one who knows Barye's work would controvert, it is still more
interesting when, to put it brutally, something is done with it. In his
ambitious and colossal work at the Trocadéro, M. Frémiet does in fact
use his _fauna_ freely as artistic material, though at first sight it is
its zoölogical interest that appears paramount. The same is true of the
elephant near by, in which it seems as if he had designedly attacked the
difficult problem of rendering embodied awkwardness decorative. Still
more conspicuous, of course, is the artistic interest, the fancy, the
humor, the sportive grace of his Luxembourg group of a young satyr
feeding honey to a brace of bear's cubs, because he here concerns
himself more directly with his idea and gives his genius freer play. And
everyone will remember the sensation caused by his impressively
repulsive "Gorilla Carrying off a Woman." But it is when he leaves this
kind of thing entirely, and, wholly forgetful of his studies at the
Jardin des Plantes, devotes himself to purely monumental work, that he
is at his best. And in saying this I do not at all mean to insist on the
superiority of monumental sculpture to the sculpture of _fauna_; it is
superior, and Barye himself cannot make one content with the exclusive
consecration of admirable talent to picturesque anatomy illustrating
distinctly unintellectual passions. M. Frémiet, in ecstasy over his
picturesque anatomy at the Jardin des Plantes, would scout this; but it
is nevertheless true that in such works as the "Âge de la pierre,"
which, if it may be called a monumental clock-top, is nevertheless
certainly monumental; his "Louis d'Orléans," in the quadrangle of the
restored Château de Pierrefonds; his "Jeanne d'Arc" (the later statue is
not, I think, essentially different from the earlier one); and his
"Torch-bearer" of the Middle Ages, in the new Hôtel de Ville of Paris,
not only is his subject a subject of loftier and more enduring interest
than his elephants and deer and bears, but his own genius finds a more
congenial medium of expression. In other words, any one who has seen his
"Torch-bearer" or his "Louis d'Orléans" must conclude that M. Frémiet is
losing his time at the Jardin des Plantes. In monumental works of the
sort he displays a commanding dignity that borders closely upon the
grand style itself. The "Jeanne d'Arc" is indeed criticised for lack of
style. The horse is fine, as always with M. Frémiet; the action of both
horse and rider is noble, and the homogeneity of the two, so to speak,
is admirably achieved. But the character of the Maid is not perfectly
satisfactory to _à priori_ critics, to critics who have more or less
hard and fast notions about the immiscibility of the heroic and the
familiar. The "Jeanne d'Arc" is of course a heroic statue, illustrating
one of the most puissant of profane legends; and it is unquestionably
familiar and, if one chooses, defiantly unpretentious. Perhaps the Maid
as M. Frémiet represents her could never have accomplished
legend-producing deeds. Certainly she is the Maid neither of Chapu, nor
of Bastien-Lepage, nor of the current convention. She is, rather,
pretty, sympathetically childlike, _mignonne_; but M. Frémiet's
conception is an original and a gracious one, and even the critic
addicted to formulæ has only to forget its title to become thoroughly in
love with it; beside this merit _à priori_ shortcomings count very
little. But the other two works just mentioned are open to no objection
of this kind or of any other, and in the category to which they belong
they are splendid works. Since Donatello and Verrocchio nothing of the
kind has been done which surpasses them; and it is only M. Frémiet's
penchant for animal sculpture, and his fondness for exercising his
lighter fancy in comparatively trivial _objets de vertu_, that obscure
in any degree his fine talent for illustrating the grand style with
natural ease and large simplicity.