"Who will deliver us from the modern trouser?" once publicly asked a
Royal Academician. It has been a question repeatedly propounded since
the beginning of the last century, when this much-mooted garment came
into fashionable vogue.
Trousers have at length passed permanently into Art. They have been
depicted in glowing pigments and embodied in enduring bronze and marble.
They have become classical. They have exacted the patience of the
greatest painters and most talented sculptors for a full century in
portraying them, as well as taxed the ingenuity of the noblest tailors
in constructing them.
The time has arrived, we opine, for trousers to be considered as public
and not merely as private embellishments. We shall leave other hands to
write the history of the two long cylindrical bags which are at once the
pride of the swell mobsman and, as we shall show, the dire despair of
the sculptor, who can no longer emulate the example of Phidias, and
represent his patrons in the superlatively light clothing of the annexed
illustration--a corner in a well-known sculptor's studio.
Assuming that the modern trouser is a necessity--and we believe it is
regarded as such, at least primarily--the point arises, how is the
modern trouser to be made picturesque in Art?
The tailor's notion of the ideal in trousers and that entertained by the
sculptor are separated by a wide gulf, which very few of the latter
fraternity show any disposition to bridge.
It will never be known how many exponents of the sartorial art, who have
in their time fitted masterpieces to the limbs of Lord Derby, Lord
Palmerston, Lord Beaconsfield, Sir Robert Peel, and other statesmen,
have sighed to see their art transmitted at the sculptor's hands to
posterity mutilated by folds, deformed by creases, gifted with
impossible falls over the boot, and endowed with plies at the knee which
not ten years of incessant wear could be supposed to produce.
[Illustration: ANCIENT VERSUS MODERN. THE LATE GEORGE PALMER AND
PERSEUS.
_From a_]
[_Photo._
]
"Trousers," remarked Mr. Thomas Brock, R.A., "cannot be made
artistic--at any rate in statuary. The painter is better equipped to
grapple with the task than the sculptor. He has light, colour, and shade
at his command, and may so subordinate these elements as to render the
objectionable features of our modern costume less obtrusive. At no time
have we been so little attractive from a picturesque standpoint as
to-day. It is, therefore, eminently the desire of the sculptor to employ
modern street costume as little as possible. It was formerly the custom
in a full-length statue to drape the figure in a Roman toga or long
cloak, which lent an heroic effect to the most prosaic theme. Costume of
the last century was decidedly picturesque--as you may observe in this
model of the Robert Raikes statue erected on the Thames
Embankment--where knee-breeches, stockings, and shoe-buckles replace
trousers." An example of Mr. Brock's treatment of the modern trouser may
be seen in his Colin Campbell herewith reproduced.
[Illustration: SIR COLIN CAMPBELL, BY T. BROCK, R.A.
_From a Photo._]
To illustrate the attitude taken by the sculptor generally it may be
observed that as yet, notwithstanding the many recent additions of
full-length statues in the northern nave, only a single pair of
sculptured trousers have found their way into Westminster Abbey. But, as
will be seen from a perusal of the views held by Hamo Thornycroft, R.A.,
this condition of affairs will not be enduring.
"It is quite impossible," said Mr. Thornycroft, "to go back to the old
style, as did the sculptors of less than a century ago, and clothe our
heroes in antique draperies. One must follow the costume of the period.
I have a hope that what appears conventional now will possess an
interest and even a picturesqueness to our posterity. I have modelled
Lord Granville in evening dress, which displays the trousers
conspicuously, and my recent statue of Steurt Bayley is likewise
apparelled in modern costume. Nevertheless, I do not believe any
sculptor should slavishly adhere to the canons of form laid down by the
tailor. The tailor is, of course, merely carrying out the whims of his
fashionable patron, who is not always the most intellectual being
extant. Although I am told that some statesmen like Mr. Chamberlain are
scrupulous as to the perfect fit of their trousers, yet I should no more
dream, if called upon to-morrow to make a statue of one of these eminent
gentlemen, of modelling an upright pair of creaseless cylinders than I
should paint in the shade of the cloth. No, I could never bring myself
to model a pair of trousers such as are daily seen in Piccadilly. I have
an ideal and I propose to carry it out. The folds, the creases, and the
plies instil life into the work. An artist has a duty to perform in
ennobling his work--even though that duty be no more than constructing
trousers of marble. It does not lie in perpetuating the fleeting follies
of fashion."
[Illustration: JOHN BRIGHT, BY HAMO THORNYCROFT, R.A.
_From a Photo._]
Mr. Thornycroft has succeeded very well with the trousers of his John
Bright statue. As trousers, and as characteristic trousers, we defy the
most captious hypercritic to urge anything against them. They are
precisely the sort of leg-covering the late eminent statesman ought to
have worn, nor do we doubt that, had he been actuated by that due regard
for sartorial proprieties which the artist seeks at the hands, or rather
at the legs, of eminent persons, he would have worn them. But an
intimate friend of Mr. Bright's, who has, at our request, minutely
surveyed the bronze statue at Rochdale, readily pronounces his opinion
that the trousers are not by any means his fellow-townsman's. "The
material is too thin," he writes. "John Bright's trousers were of extra
heavy West of England cloth. They bagged a lot at the knees, but fitted
rather tightly at the calves. The boots are certainly not his," he adds;
and then, as if to justify this oracular style of speech, "I know
because there was no carpet on the floor of the room where Mr. Bright
and myself habitually met; so I studied his lower extremities while he
spoke to me instead."
[Illustration: THE GAMBETTA STATUE, PARIS.
_From a Photo._]
In the course of a conversation with the French sculptor, M. Jean
Carries, that artist once defined to the writer the whole position of
the French school of to-day.
"Its aim is life--animation--drama. To leave anything dormant is to
leave the stone as you found it, and to acknowledge the futility of your
genius. All the characteristics of life might be imparted to even a
modern street costume.
"Only a tailor or a person deficient in culture would criticise the
trousers of the Gambetta statue. Such a person would say, 'But I have
never seen them in the Boulevards or in the Palais Bourbon.' Of course
he has not; and what then? Did Raphael ever see an angel, or Michael
Angelo a faun? No. A pair of widely-cut trousers with a single crease or
fold might answer very well for a tailor's dummy; but it would not do at
all for a chiselled human figure, which must express potential life."
"Idealism? Sense of the picturesque? Fiddlesticks!" declared Mr. George
Wade, an exceptionally talented English sculptor, pausing in his work of
modelling a full-length statue of a recently-deceased statesman. "Unless
art in portraiture possess a rigid fidelity it is not, in my humble
judgment, worth the cost of the stone or bronze necessary to evolve it.
Idealism!--that is the cry of the sculptor who is deficient--who is
dependent rather upon the resources of a departed school than of
himself. Why should a sculptor seek to be otherwise than faithful, even
to the buttons on the waistcoat of his subject? To cite an instance,
some time ago Sir Charles Tupper, viewing my first model for the
MacDonald statue, observed: 'I see you have buttoned only a single
button of Sir John's coat. I never remember seeing my friend's coat not
entirely buttoned. It was one of his characteristics.' When my visitor
left I destroyed the old and commenced a new model.
[Illustration: SIR JOHN MACDONALD, BY G. E. WADE.
_From a Photo._]
"If it is characteristic of the subject in hand to wear disreputable
trousers--very good. I should so model them. If, on the contrary, they
were worn faultlessly smooth, it would contribute nothing to my
conception of the wearer's identity to invest them with bulges and
creases which, if not absolutely and physically impossible, would only
be so in Pongee silk and not in the heavy fabric usually employed in
trousering. I am not aware that public personages clothe their limbs in
Pongee silk. Were this the case it would be so much the better for us.
In practice I do not believe in that picturesque ruggedness about the
knees which seems so attractive to the average sculptor. I am told that
Sir Edward Burne-Jones spent many hours in the course of a single day in
the study and device of new complex folds and sinuosities in the most
delicate textile stuffs, and that it seems not altogether irrational to
believe is the employment of many English and French sculptors when they
set about making a pair of trousers.
[Illustration: A STABLEMAN, BY G. E. WADE.
_From a Photo._]
"If you cannot be original," comments Mr. Wade, "be bizarre. Palm off
meretricious effect for truth. Why not be content with the individuality
which reveals itself in the limb's attitude as well as in its drapery?
Mr. Smith did not stand as the Duke of Connaught does--Paderewski's
posture is not that of Lord Roberts. No; you cannot create character by
kneading your clay into all sorts of weird concavities and convexities.
It is not true to life."
[Illustration: THE HON. DAVID CARMICHAEL, BY J. ADAMS-ACTON.
_From a_]
[_Photo._
]
We do not deny character to perfect garments. They may each and all
breathe a distinct individuality, and so far the requirements of Art are
met. Compare those already mentioned with the rest--compare Colin
Campbell's or Mr. Clarkson's legs with Mr. Palmer's of biscuit fame--and
the contrast tells it's own tale. But to enforce our point, in spite even
of the eloquent utterances of Mr. Wade, we, who were privileged to have
seen Sir John MacDonald in the flesh, assert positively that we never
saw that flesh draped in such trousers. The fact is, certain men never
wore such trousers. With one or two exceptions the trousers presented in
the course of this article--examples collated with no little care--are
artistic trousers, trousers of Art, and never intended to be trousers of
Reality, because the trousers of Reality either express too much or too
little, or express something entirely in dissonance with the sculptor's
idea of the character he is modelling. Nature, it has been observed,
does not lend itself readily to the canons of Art. As it was long ago
settled that carved statesmen must wear breeches of ultra length, when
it appears that in life they are foolishly addicted to garments of
unseemly brevity, it is only proper that this sad circumstance should be
blotted out in the studio, and a veil, composed of a yard or two of
extra trousering, be drawn over this painful deficiency in their several
characters. Had they been stablemen they might have fared differently,
although we can have little to object to in the nether garments of Mr.
Adams-Acton's Hon. David Carmichael in the accompanying photograph.
[Illustration: LORD ROSEBERY'S TROUSERS, BY DAVID WEEKES.
_From a Photo._]
[Illustration: JOHN BURNS'S TROUSERS, BY DAVID WEEKES.
_From a Photo._]
On the other hand, there have been sculptors who strive hard for
sartorial realism. The trousers no more than the limbs of all our great
men are faultless. At a glance we may appreciate shades of difference in
the interesting studies by Mr. David Weekes of the trousers of Lord
Rosebery and of Mr. John Burns. The former are the garments to the life,
such as have long been familiar to the fortunate occupiers of the front
rows at Liberal political meetings--redolent of the lonely furrow and on
intimate terms with the historic spade--while as for the tumid and
strenuous breeches of the member for Battersea, corduroy or otherwise,
they are chiselled to the last crease of realism. But such is the
perversity of Art that such interesting studies would in the finished
statue be exchanged for far less convincing garments. The legs of the
Palmerston and Peel statues in Parliament Square are clothed in what we
might term a suave trouser--or, more properly speaking, pantaloons--of
incredible length and irreproachable girth; whereas those whose eyes
have rested upon these great statesmen's garments in the flesh will
recall something eminently different. For example, if we do not too
greatly err in our conception, Lord Palmerston, in his later years, was
somewhat addicted to a style of trouser not often seen in sculpture.
Happily, in the studio of Mr. Wade, we have been able to light upon an
example of just the sort of trouser we mean, and in order more to
accurately impress its proportions upon the reader we give an example of
it. It is not the trouser of a statesman, however, but of a stableman, a
personage in a lower station in life (page 77).
[Illustration: W. E. GLADSTONE, BY E. ONSLOW FORD, R.A.
_From a Photo._]
A reference might here be made to the trousers of Mr. Gladstone,
executed in bronze by the late Onslow Ford, R.A. The artist in this
piece displayed extraordinary qualities of merit, but as realists we
must take issue with him on the question of the length of Gladstone's
trousers. Albeit if Mr. Gladstone, in posing for this really admirable
work, undertook, with an eye to the effects the consequence would have
with posterity, to assume for the nonce an unusual and unprecedented
pair of trousers, then, of course, Mr. Ford merits a complete
exoneration. He, like posterity will be, was deceived. But we take it
upon ourselves, while admiring their aggressiveness and individuality,
to assert that such trousers would be much more befitting Mr. Balfour,
whose "tailor's length," we are given to understand, is thirty-six
inches, rather than the venerable Liberal statesman, whose nether
adornments never exceeded twenty-eight.
[Illustration: W. S. COOKSON, BY T. BROCK, R.A.
_From a Photo._]
Indeed, we shall not be at a loss if we seek for examples of the trouser
which is manufactured exclusively in the studio of the sculptor. Mr.
Brock is certainly a great sinner in this regard (we have only to turn
to his statues of the late Mr. Cookson and Collin Campbell), and Mr.
Adams-Acton has shown in his statue of the late Professor Powell that
he, too, does not always follow the fashion of the street. We think we
can safely lay down the proposition once for all that no trousers can
possess simultaneously both properties--length and bagginess. We have
every confidence in the tailor as well as the greatest admiration for
his art, and we do not wish to be considered as speaking lightly or at
random when we say that long deliberation and consultation with the
highest authorities have shown us that these two qualities are
irreconcilable. We must, therefore, in all fairness condemn several
pairs of chiselled trousers which seem to us to violate this law, as
even the elegant continuations with which, thanks to Mr. Simonds, the
late Hon. F. Tollemache stands for ever endowed, the inexpressibles of
the late Mr. Palmer, and even Mr. Pinker's genteel specimens upon the
legs of the late Professor Fawcett.
[Illustration: THE HON. FREDERICK TOLLEMACHE, BY GEORGE SIMONDS.
_From a_]
[_Photo._
]
[Illustration: JOHN POWELL, BY J. ADAMS-ACTON.
_From a Photo._]
After all we have said, it is to Nottingham that we must attribute the
unique distinction of possessing the worst pair of sculptured trousers
in the kingdom. They adorn the legs of the late local worthy, Sir Robert
Juckes-Clifton; and, as the reader will see from the accompanying
photograph, embody not inadequately the talented sculptor's dream. That
they embody anything but a dream it is out of our power to believe, as
we are reliably informed that it is not in the nature of our most
flexible English tweeds to assume such grotesque folds, unless there are
goods in the Midlands, for which the lamented Sir Robert Juckes-Clifton
expressed a weakness, which surpass ordinary material in this respect.
After all, they are not so bad as Gambetta's trousers in the statue
opposite the Louvre in Paris, already alluded to and reproduced on page
76. The sculptor's aim was apparently to breech his subject
æsthetically, and he has spared no pains to bring about this result. As
a matter of truth, M. Alphonse Daudet has borne printed witness to the
fact that Gambetta's trousers were invariably too short--not too
long--and revealed some inches of white sock. But could a sculptor be
expected to take cognizance of this?
[Illustration: SIR ROBERT JUCKES-CLIFTON--"THE WORST PAIR OF SCULPTURED
TROUSERS IN THE KINGDOM."
_From a_]
[_Photo._
]
All our readers probably are familiar with the magic name of
Poole--tailor by appointment to a score of Royalties. Poole is to men's
attire what Worth is to women's. It would be strange if the artists of
Savile Row did not have a good-natured grievance against their
fellow-artists of the adjacent Burlington House.
"I shouldn't be surprised," stated the head of the firm, not without
diffidence--for it is one of the traditional principles of Poole since
Beau Brummel's time to evince a becoming reticence toward the public
aspect of his craft, "if the uninitiated person who contemplates our
public statues is forced to conclude that to wear shocking bad trousers
is one of the first essentials to political distinction. Why, many of
the statues which I have seen in London and the provinces are a standing
reproach to us. I dare say, on the other hand, the sculptor who
reconstructs our creations is convinced that he is improving upon us,
but I think there can be but one mind between the sculptor and ourselves
as to how a pair of trousers should hang in real life. And if real life,
why not in sculpture?
"I may also observe that the classical fall of the sculptured trouser
over the boot is absolutely the contrivance of the artist, and is
impossible from the tailor's standpoint. Again, although many gentlemen
in real life follow the fashion so far as to wear trousers which just
touch the upper portion of the boot, the trouser of sculpture is always
of superlative length, in spite of the multifarious folds and creases
which one would think, according to common physical laws, would tend to
diminish that length."
"An artist," writes Mr. E. F. Benson, in one of his novels,
"Limitations," "must represent men and women as he sees them, and he
doesn't see them nowadays either in the Greek style or the Dresden
style.... To look at a well-made man going out shooting gives one a
sense of satisfaction. What I want to do is to make statues like them,
which will give you the same satisfaction.... I want to make trousers
beautiful, and women's evening dress beautiful, and shirt-sleeves
beautiful. I don't mean that I shall ever make them beautiful in the
same way as the robes of the goddesses in the Parthenon pediments are
beautiful, but I shall make them admirable somehow."
And that is the great problem for the sculptors of the twentieth
century.
The Coils of Fate.