The ten centuries following the second have no sculptural remains of
value. The dark ages threw their shadow over art, as over literature and
society. No doubt the feeling prevalent in the early Church that the
“graven image” might become an idol, hindered the progress of the plastic
art quite as much as the general decay that pervaded every form of human
undertaking.
In the first half of the thirteenth century lived Nicola Pisano, the
founder, one might say, of modern sculpture. Nicola is supposed to have
been influenced by his study of the remains of Greek sculpture to be
seen at Pisa, his home. Applying the principles of the Greek work to
the modern subjects, his sculpture inaugurated the Italian renaissance.
Church decoration was the field of labor to which all artists of
those centuries betook themselves, and Pisano executed his best work,
bas-reliefs, on the façades and pulpits of the churches of Pisa, Siena,
and other Italian cities. A marble urn of St. Dominic, now at Bologna, is
among his celebrated works. Pisano had many followers, among whom were
his son (more famous, however, as an architect), and Andrea Orcagna. The
latter belonged to Florence, to whose churches he devoted his genius.
His masterpiece in sculpture is the tabernacle of the Virgin in the
church of San Michele, at Florence. It is a pyramid-shaped altar in white
marble; the profusion of reliefs which cover it represent the life of
the Virgin. A little before the time of Orcagna lived Giotto, at one
time a leader of artistic activity in Florence. He is known well by his
beautiful campanile, or bell-tower, and the bas-reliefs with which it is
decorated are his best-known sculptures. The basement story is decorated,
and, says a writer, speaking of these ornamentations, “This rich cycle
of works represents with perfect clearness, and in simple and truly
artistic treatment, the whole progress, from the creation of the first
man, through the successful conflict with the forces of nature, up to the
climax of a life illumined by learning and art, and secured under the
maternal shelter of the Church.”
It was in the fifteenth century that sculpture attained its highest
standpoint. Foremost among the artists of this “golden age,” as it has
been called, is Lorenzo Ghiberti, the Florentine. The latter was first
brought into prominence in 1401, when leading men of Florence offered
a prize for the best design for a bronze folding door to be used in
the baptistery of San Giovanni. Each artist was allowed a year to
complete the test panel, the subject of the design of which was to be
the “Sacrifice of Isaac,” and the work was to be a bas-relief. Ghiberti
was declared the victor, even by his most famous rivals, Donatello
and Brunelleschi. For twenty-one years he labored at his doors, and at
the end of that time was entrusted with another. The latter occupied
him nearly as long as the first, and was even superior, Michael Angelo
declaring it worthy to be the gate of paradise. While busy at the gate
of the baptistery, Ghiberti executed three bronze statues of St. John
the Baptist, St. Matthew, and St. Stephen, and a bronze sarcophagus of
St. Zenobius. Donatello has been mentioned as a rival of Ghiberti in the
contest for the door: he deserves mention as one of the most faithful
followers of nature during this period. He even carried his naturalism to
excess, copying the deformed, the horrible, and the grotesque. There are,
however, several fine statues by him in San Michele. Among these are the
statues of St. Peter and St. Mark, in niches on the outside, and a fine
statue of St. George. The first equestrian statue of modern art was by
Donatello, and is at Padua.
Lucca del Robbia lived at the same time, and his name is associated with
the beautiful terra-cottas found in such quantities in the churches of
Florence. These works are in white, on a pale-blue ground, and were
glazed by a process now unknown. The subjects used on them were almost
invariably the Madonna and Child. But Robbia did much in marble and
bronze. In the Uffizi is to be seen a frieze for the front of an organ,
by him. “It represents boys and girls of different ages, dancing,
singing, and playing on various musical instruments, and is full of
charming simplicity and childlike grace, and rich and varied in action.
Some of the figures are almost wholly detached from the background,
particularly in the representation of the dance.” There are many more
names which might be added to this Tuscan or Florentine school of
sculpture. Andrea Verocchio is the only one we will mention, and his
strongest influence was exerted as the teacher of that master-artist of
the sixteenth century, Leonardo da Vinci.
The works of the fifteenth century are very numerous; they crowd the
churches of Rome, Florence, and the neighboring cities. Not only in
Tuscany, but in Upper and Lower Italy these artists were employed, and
many native artists, imitators of the school, have left sculptures on
the tombs and in the churches of Venice, Naples, and Como. The subjects
of artistic effort, it will be noticed, are nearly always religious.
Lübke says of this period: “It was chiefly devoted to the ornamentation
of tomb-monuments and altars, which, with few exceptions, were built up
against the wall in the shape of a triumphal arch, and required much
plastic decoration in the way of reliefs and detached figures. Pulpits,
founts, holy-water basins, singing-galleries, and choir-screens were also
adorned with rich carvings. This abundant supply of work necessarily
called forth a corresponding amount of skill, and the nature of the
subject helped the artistic and realistic taste of the time to express
itself. There was a decided effort to attain a correct likeness in
portrait-statues of the dead, and in the numerous reliefs there was a
tendency to portray the varied scenes of life.”
But a new form of plastic art was to appear in the coming century. To
quote from the same author: “Italian plastic art had during the fifteenth
century gained a new form from the study of the antique, and had made
considerable advances in the unceasing effort after truth and life.… But
hitherto, the expression of an often severe and tasteless realism was
predominant, and now, under the influence of a profound and repeated
study of the antique, an inspiration toward the ideal, the beautiful,
and the sublime, was to assert itself; and this gave rise to a higher
and freer style.… Plastic art gained a freer and nobler comprehension, a
broad, bold treatment of forms, and a style simplified so as to bring out
what was fundamental and essential, which might, for a moment, compete
with the antique.” Leonardo da Vinci was one of the first in the list
of masters of the fifteenth century, but, unfortunately, we have lost
his best work. Andrea Contucci, better known as Sansovino, executed many
sculptures which are unparalleled in beauty of treatment and form. In
the baptistery at Florence is one of the noblest of these—the baptism
of Christ. The figures of John the Baptist and Christ are life-like,
free, and perfectly developed. There is nothing more interesting among
what Sansovino has left than the decorations of the Holy House of Loreto.
“Taken as a whole, this work is probably the most important collective
creation in the sculpture of this golden age.” There are a great number
of reliefs employed in the ornamentation, and the niches are filled by
single statues; of the former the Annunciation and the Nativity are the
most important.
But by far the ablest of the sculptors was Michael Angelo Buonarroti, of
Florence. It was as a sculptor that he chose to regard himself, although,
as in the case of so many of the Italian artists, he was both a painter
and architect beside. Numerous works attributed to him are in existence.
Mythological subjects, as well as religious, are to be seen among them.
Thus there are bas-reliefs at Florence representing Hercules in his
contest with the centaurs, and a statue of Bacchus in the Uffizi. The
colossal marble statue of David in the academy at Florence, is said to
have been carved out of a rejected block. The most ambitious undertaking
of Michael Angelo was the mausoleum of Pope Julius II. The designs were
drawn on a grand scale, and the master had gone to Carrara to get out
the marble, when a misunderstanding between him and the Pope stopped
the work. It was afterward re-attempted, but never finished. Some of
the detached figures intended for the tomb are still seen. Among them
the famous Moses, in the church of San Pietro, at Vincolo. Two groups
at Florence were executed for the sarcophagi of Giuliano and Lorenzo de
Medici. The statues of the princes are seated in niches in the wall: at
their feet, on the lids of the coffins, are the groups: on that of the
former the design is Day and Night; on the latter Dawn and Evening. We
can mention no more of his designs, but will add the fine criticism of a
German critic: “If we compare Michael Angelo with those who went before,
we see at once that art reached one of those turning-points at which it
enters on a new period with an undreamed-of future opening before. His
deeply emotional soul was content neither with the contemplative realism
of the fifteenth century, which was based on its truth to nature, nor
with the quiet, harmonious beauty of contemporaneous masters. Each of
his works exists for its own sake only, and here we see a kinship with
the antique. But again: each of them is also the product of the stormy
inward struggles of a man who is ever aiming at the highest ideal, and
untiringly striving after a new expression of his thoughts—a man to whom
achievement gave but little satisfaction, so that often he left his works
unfinished. Here we see the strongest contrast to antique art. Nearly all
his sculptured works are in one sense or another incomplete, and many he
had to drop, because under the mighty stress of his ideas, and in his
eagerness to liberate from the marble the slumbering soul within, he had
made a false stroke and spoiled the block.”
The influence of Michael Angelo was predominant. The productions of
almost every sculptor of the times were marked by both his strong and
weak points. The Michelangelesque manner, as it has been called, was
evident in the sculptures of the following century.
Outside of this Tuscan school there were during the sixteenth century
several prominent artists; at Modena, Antonio Begarelli, who worked
mainly in terra-cotta, and who left many works in the churches of his
native city.
At Padua lived Riccio, who executed a bronze candelabrum which has become
famous for both its size and its excessive ornamentation. It was eleven
feet in height and laden with innumerable fantastic reliefs and figures
mostly taken from mythology. A pupil of Sansovino, Jacopo Tatti, was the
leader in Upper Italy. He worked mainly at Venice. The bronze of the
sacristy of St. Mark in that city, the choir-screen in the same church,
and several figures of evangelists in bronze are among his religious
works. In the Doge’s palace are two large statues of Mars and Neptune
which are particularly fine. He also did portrait-sculptures of much
merit. But during this century art was by no means confined to Italy,
though Italy then, as always, took the lead. In the North there was a
steady work in the plastic art. The influence of the antique was wanting,
and the materials in which the works were executed were different. Wood
carving was very popular; invariably much gilding and brilliant coloring
was used. The work was mainly on the altars of the churches, on shrines,
figures for niches in the church walls and choir stalls. Michael Pacher,
of Austria, was eminent in this art; Veit Stoss, of Cracow, and Jörg
Syrlin, of Ulm. In nearly all of the old churches of Germany are these
highly colored carvings in wood.
But stone was used as extensively, and in a somewhat wider variety of
works. Many monuments, the buttresses of churches, lecterns, doors, and
choir-piers, were made in stone and decorated in the usual manner by
reliefs and figures. Nearly all the German cities boast more or less of
stone work in their churches.
The leading artist of the time was Adam Krafft, who worked mainly in
Nuremberg. A very fine and powerful work by him is the Seven Stations, as
it is called. It represents the repeated fainting of Christ beneath the
burden of the cross. The work is done in relief. The face and expression
of the Savior is noble and expressive in every case. This work was
followed by Christ on the Cross. In 1492 he executed the history of the
Passion for a monument on the exterior of St. Sebald’s church.
The monuments of the time are mainly very superior. Among them may be
mentioned that of Emperor Henry II. and his consort by Riemenschneider,
the marble monument of Bishop Rudolph von Schrenburg in the Würtzburg
cathedral, and the marble memorial to the Emperor Frederic III. in
Vienna. The celebrated school of metal works of Nuremberg flourished
during this period. The best known representatives belonged to the
family of Vischer, and in Peter Vischer the most complete artistic
development was reached. The earliest work, by Hermann Vischer in 1457,
was the bronze baptismal font in Wittenberg. Peter, his son, began his
work on the tomb of Archbishop Ernst in Magdeburg cathedral, but his
_chef d’œuvre_ was the tomb of St. Sebald in the church of that saint
at Nuremberg. Vischer and his five sons were engaged on this for eleven
years. The sarcophagus rests on a base elaborately wrought in relief, and
the whole is enclosed; the cover is composed of three arched canopies
supported on eight slender columns. The base, pillars and canopies are
wrought exquisitely; although the ornaments are profuse, yet a perfect
simplicity and purity of style is preserved. There are very many other
productions attributed to Vischer—a fine relief in the cathedral at
Regensborg, several tombs, and, as examples of his treatment of antique
designs, an Apollo at Nuremberg, and a relievo of Orpheus and Eurydice in
the Berlin Museum.
One of the most magnificent tombs of this period was that of the Emperor
Maximilian at Innsbrück; several of its figures were from Peter Vischer’s
hands. Twenty-eight colossal bronze statues of the ancestors of the
imperial house and of heroes surrounded the monument. Besides these there
were a large number of gracefully poised female figures, and twenty-three
figures of the patron saint of the House of Austria. The whole was
surmounted by a marble cenotaph on which a figure of the Emperor knelt.
Several artists were engaged on this monument. The sculptures of this
period in other countries are not very prominent. In France there was
considerable attention given to plastic art. Many fine choir-screens have
been preserved, and some exceedingly rich tombs. Among the latter are
the monuments of Louis XII. and his wife (1530), of Francis I. (1552),
and of Henry II. (1583), all in the church of St. Denis in Paris. A
set of artists who were engaged on the decorations of the palace of
Fontainebleau was known as “the Fontainebleau school.” The leader of this
group was Jean Goujon. The sculpture of Spain during this period followed
largely the Italian schools. The most lavish treatment is visible in the
decorations of the churches, particularly in the altars. The high altar
of the cathedral at Toledo is one of the most costly and ornate of its
time (about 1500).
“The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were marked by a decadence of
sculpture. Plastic art sought to become striking, rejected everything
that could limit her art and gave herself up freely to her longing
after what was striking. Henceforth it was decreed that every plastic
work must be spirited. The most striking effects must be aimed at in
the expression of inward emotion through mien, attitude and position.…
Besides the drapery must be arranged in all sorts of ways conducive to
effect.… Thus all dignity, simplicity and distinctness in sculpture, all
plastic style was lost, and was succeeded by a senseless striving after
outward effect and mere decoration.” The best Italian artists of these
years were Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680), who showed well the perversion
of the principles of art, and Alessandro Algardi. The French claimed as
their most celebrated masters in the seventeenth century, Pierre Puget,
who worked chiefly at Genoa, and François Girardon, both of whom are
noted for their exaggerations; in the eighteenth century were Houdon and
Pigalle.
Franz Duquesnoy, the Fleming, worked at Rome in the seventeenth century
and gained a fine reputation by his life-like figures of children. In
Berlin, Andrew Schlüter executed superior works. Among these are the
masks of dying warriors carved above the windows of the court of the
Arsenal. An equestrian statue of the Great Elector is his best work.
In the latter half of the eighteenth century a revival of sculpture took
place; this has been attributed to the efforts of Popes Clement XIV.
and Pius VI., to the publications of Winckelmann, and to the unearthing
of the treasures of Pompeii and Herculaneum. The first sculptor to
initiate works of purer taste was Canova (1757-1822); he came of a race
of stone cutters, and while at work at his trade executed the figures
which attracted the attention of a Venetian, who educated him for an
artist. Canova’s early works were mythological in subject. He had
studied sculptures unearthed at Pompeii and Herculaneum, and under their
influence executed his “Apollo crowning himself with laurel” and “Theseus
vanquishing the Minotaur.” In 1802 Canova was invited by Napoleon to
Paris where he executed a colossal statue of the emperor. His figures of
women were his most pleasing works. Of the many monuments he executed,
the best is that of Christina in the church of the Augustines at Vienna.
But few artists escaped the influence of Canova. Among his best known
followers were Dannecker, of Stuttgart; Chaudet, a French artist, and
Flaxman, an English sculptor.
For a brief outline of the sculptor of the nineteenth century we can do
nothing better than quote from Lübke:
The Danish artist, Bertel Thorwaldsen (1770-1844), penetrated farther
than all these masters into the spirit and the beauty of classical art;
and created, with inexhaustible fertility of imagination, and with the
noblest feeling for form, an array of works which are conceived with
a pure, chaste, and noble appreciation of the Greek spirit. In his
celebrated frieze of the triumph of Alexander in the Villa Carlotta, on
the lake of Como, the genuine Grecian relief style is revived in all
its perfect purity and severity. He also treats with the versatility of
genius and with charming simplicity the subjects of ancient mythology, in
numerous statues, groups, and smaller reliefs; and even introduces into
the domain of Christian representation a novel, beautiful, and dignified
treatment, in the sculptures executed by him for the Church of Our Lady
in Copenhagen. Among his monumental works we may mention the statues of
Gutenberg at Mayence, and of Schiller at Stuttgart, the Dying Lion at
Lucerne, the equestrian statue of the Elector Maximilian at Munich, and
the tombs of the Duke of Leuchtenberg in St. Michael’s Church at Munich,
and of Pope Pius VII. in St. Peter’s Church at Rome.
While the wide domain of idealistic sculpture was thus again cultivated
with such versatility of inspiration, the Berlin artist, Johann Gottfried
Schadow (1764-1850), adopted a more realistic style, especially directed
toward lifelike composition and distinct characterization of individual
peculiarities. His monument of the Count von der Mark in the Church of
Ste. Dorothy in Berlin, the statue of Frederic the Great at Stettin, and,
in a less degree, the Blücher monument at Rostock, and that of Luther at
Wittenberg, as well as many others, are vigorous protests against the
mannerism of the hitherto prevailing tendency, and re-open to sculpture a
field which had now been almost lost to her for two hundred years.
Thus a new path was opened to modern sculpture, in pursuing which it
has of late years accomplished great results, and which assures to it
still greater beauty, and diversity of attainment, if only it hold fast
to the principles already secured, and go on with true dignity toward
its goal. Even if the world of ideal forms should never again acquire
that importance for us which it possessed for the Greeks, nevertheless
the daily life of humanity still contains a wealth of exquisite motives,
full of beauty and _naïveté_, which give to the sculptor’s fancy ample
incitement to ideal creations. There is, moreover, in the chaste grace
and pure dignity of the antique conceptions, an imperishable charm,
which appeals to every human sentiment, and secures for all productions
conceived in a similar spirit the warm interest of those who delight to
refresh themselves with the simple beauty that belongs to every true
manifestation of nature. Hence the idealistic style of this art of
Greece, as it has been recognized by the present and endowed with new
activity, becomes forever the most priceless and precious possession of
modern sculpture.
The new-born historic feeling of the several nations demands to-day that
their heroes, the defenders of their liberties, the representatives of
their intellect, their warriors in the battles both of the sword and of
thought, shall be preserved to fame in the true likeness of their actual
forms. As a consequence, sculpture is compelled to probe the depths of
the individual consciousness; to investigate the characteristics of each
individual intellect as expressed in the figure, the physiognomy, and
even in the externals of attitude and garb; and even to give utterance
to the mysterious life of the soul, as far as it lies within her power.
Without losing sight of the great importance which the study of the
sculptures of the fifteenth century has upon this tendency, the influence
of the antique should not be undervalued; since, without the sense of
beauty so secured, a realistic degeneracy and exaggeration would be very
sure to follow.
Among the German schools of sculpture of to-day, that of Berlin takes
the lead. Frederick Tieck of this school adopted the antique style in
a series of admirable productions, and especially in the decorative
sculpture designed by him for the theater; while the path which Schadow
had taken was followed up nobly and rationally during the long and
influential labors of Christian Rauch (1777-1857). This artist’s
important position is due less to his wealth of creative ideas than to
his delicate feeling for nature, his fine appreciation of the genuine
plastic style, and his incomparable care in execution. His importance,
however, does not consist merely in his numerous works, but also in
the influence he exercised on his large circle of talented scholars.
While he shows a true classical beauty in his ideal works, like his
victories and his many admirable reliefs, his statues of Prince Blücher,
of Generals Bülow and Scharnhorst, his colossal equestrian statue of
Frederic the Great at Berlin, his superb statues of Queen Louise, and
of Frederic William III. in the mausoleum at Charlottenburg, his bronze
statues of Dürer at Nuremberg, of Kant at Königsberg, of King Max I.
at Munich, and many others, prove him a sculptor of the first rank for
delicate characterization, and life-like suggestiveness of composition.
Many excellent scholars have gone from his studio into careers of
independent importance and masterly ability; and these form, with their
vigorous activity, which is never at a loss for employment in important
undertakings, the nucleus of the present school of Berlin.
Among the most conspicuous of the Berlin artists should be reckoned
Friedrich Drake, whose reliefs on the statue of Frederic William III.
in the Thiergarten at Berlin are full of simple grace. Another of this
school is Schievelbein (died in 1867), who showed a great deal of
imagination, especially in the composition of reliefs; as in the great
frieze representing the destruction of Pompeii, in the new museum, and
also in the relief on the bridge at Dirschau.
Ernst Rietschel (1804-61) claims indisputably one of the first places
among the sculptors of his century, as regards versatility of endowment,
delicate feeling for form, and depth of sentiment. He derived from
Rauch his faithful and characteristic representation of life, and his
painstaking execution. His double monument of Schiller and Goethe at
Weimar, his monument of Lessing in Brunswick (in a still purer and
happier style), and the statue of Luther executed for a monument at
Worms, are good examples of these traits. In the group of the Virgin
with the body of Christ, which he executed for the Friedenskirche
near Potsdam, he produced a work full of striking expression, and of
the deepest religious feeling; while the subjects of his numerous
representations in relief for the pediment of the opera house at Berlin,
and the theater and museum at Dresden, represent him with equal dignity
and merit in the department of the ideal antique subjects. Ernst Hähnel
is a Dresden artist, whose powerful compositions for the Dresden theater
and museum are antique in treatment, but who also produced monumental
statues, works of the most delicate characterization, such as the
Beethoven at Bonn, the Emperor Charles IV. at Prague, and the statues
designed for the Dresden Museum, especially the noble Raphael. Recently,
also, Schilling has distinguished himself by his ideal groups of the
divisions of the day,—Morning, Noon, Evening, Night,—designed for the
Brühl Terrace.
In Munich, the talented Ludwig Schwanthaler (1802-48) was the chief
representative of a more romantic style, which opened a new field of
fresh ideas to modern sculpture. This master, who was endowed with an
almost inexhaustible imagination, carried out a great number of extensive
works during his short life, in supplying the plastic decorations
for most of the buildings erected by King Louis. While these are
distinguished by fertility of invention, and an excellent decorative
taste, the artist, spurred on to ceaseless labor, and hindered by bodily
infirmities, did not succeed in giving his monumental creations that
thorough development of form which is an essential of sculpture. It can
not be denied, however, that a grand monumental conception is visible
in these productions, as is especially proved in the colossal statue of
Bavaria in Munich. A numerous school had its origin in this artist’s
studio.
In France, sculpture early endeavored to free herself from the rigid rule
of the antique, and carried the prevailing effort after dramatic effect,
expression and passion, even to an extreme point of realism. Individual
artists have kept to a noble and more moderate style; as Bosio, and
the admirable sculptors Rude and Duret; but, on the other hand, P. J.
David d’Angers (1793-1856) devoted himself, in utter violation of all
the severer laws of sculpture, to a violent realism, which, although it
is sustained by great talent and a charming facility in composition,
deteriorates into a lawless exaggeration in his monumental works. His
numerous portrait-busts, on the other hand, are extremely lifelike, and
full of genius. The Genoese artist, James Pradier, takes the first rank
among those sculptors who especially delight in the representation of
sensuous beauty (1792-1852). The talented artist, Barye, who died in
1875, is chief among the sculptors of animals. The sculpture of Belgium
follows the same general direction as the French.
Rome forms an important central point in the production of modern
sculpture, with her numerous studios, her skill in marble-cutting,—an
art handed down to her from ancient times,—and her vast collection of
antique works. Here Canova and Thorwaldsen had their studios, which were
for many decades the most famous nurseries of modern sculpture. That
the antique conception and the idealistic style should acquire especial
prominence here lay in the nature of things. Only where the modern social
and political life exercises its full powers does sculpture find tasks
that call upon her for the characteristic representation of important
personages, and the lifelike delineation of historical events.
The English artist, John Gibson, is conspicuous among the sculptors of
different nationalities who have made Rome their headquarters, as the
representative of a noble classic style. The tendency of the numerous
sculptors whom England has recently produced is toward the genre-style,
and toward graceful forms in the manner of Canova. Macdonell, an artist
of much taste, and Sir Richard Westmacott, also well known by his public
works, deserve mention here, as well as R. J. Wyatt, by whom we have some
charming representations of subjects chosen from the ancient myths. The
United States of America should also be included in this enumeration:
for they possess sculptors of decided talent in Randolph Rogers (who
designed the bronze gates of the Washington Capitol), Miss Hosmer, and E.
D. Palmer, who, though a gifted artist, inclines to an exaggeration of
the picturesque. Among the German sculptors in Rome, Martin Wagner, who
died in 1860, is worthy of note for his energy of style; and, among those
still living, Carl Steinhäuser, now in Carlsruhe, is remarkable for an
elevated feeling for form, and depth of sentiment; while J. Kopf shows
much delicate grace; and the more recent artist, Ad. Hildebrand, has a
rare feeling for nature. Finally, Holland has an excellent sculptor of
the idealistic school in Matthias Kessels (1784-1830), who studied under
Thorwaldsen.