carrying music, literature, and the drama before it, plastic art as
well as pictorial was caught up too, and whirled into a variety of
strange forms. Auguste Rodin led the new movement in sculpture, his
manner being copied with varying degrees of success by lesser lights,
and like all new movements run to foolish extremes by incompetent
followers. His heroic group, “The Bourgeois of Calais,” will indicate
his style. From extreme realism on one side, with portrait statues in
the last detail of modern costume, silk hats, kid gloves, and in one
case holding a cigar, to the vague suggestions of a shapeless mass
of marble, out of which protrude unfinished limbs and half-developed
heads, sculpture has been pushed from side to side, but is settling
into a vigorous, steady, onward movement, in which the best men of all
nations stride along together. In the limits of a short article it is
impossible to mention all deserving names, but a few will serve as
types, and the Americans are well worthy to head the list.
Daniel French’s grand majestic golden figure of Liberty, towering
above the Court of Honor, the imperial hostess of the World’s Fair at
Chicago, placed him at once on a pedestal of fame. From the prominence
of his beautiful Columbian Fountain opposite the golden Goddess,
Frederick MacMonnies became known the land over. His greatest late
work is the crowning of the soldiers’ and sailors’ memorial arch for
Prospect Park, Brooklyn, with a colossal quadriga of Triumph and groups
of the army and navy. Augustus St. Gaudens, though a cosmopolitan,
is truly an American sculptor of the first rank, whose statues of
Admiral Farragut in New York, Lincoln in Chicago, and the sturdy
Puritan, Chapin, in Springfield, Mass., are well known. Olin Warner is
another distinctively American product, although he had the advantage
of some training in Paris. His work is French in technique but not
French in spirit, having the native traits of freedom and originality,
as shown in his figure of William Lloyd Garrison, and later in his
relief portraits on the art building at the Columbian Fair. This
great occasion offered opportunities to American sculptors of which
they took full advantage, showing the high rank to which they were
entitled. It made an American of Carl Bitter, the talented Austrian,
whose decorations on the Pennsylvania Railroad Station, Philadelphia,
are well known. It added further lustre to the name of John J. Boyle,
whose heroic “Indian Mother” in Fairmount Park, and seated statue of
Benjamin Franklin, are matters of just pride to Philadelphians. It gave
prominence to such men as Lorado Taft, with his graceful work on the
Horticultural Building; Philip Martiny, on the Agricultural Building;
the great Columbus quadriga, by E. C. Potter and Daniel French, whose
beautiful relief of “Death Staying the Hand of the Sculptor” is a
masterpiece. All visitors to the White City will remember the vigorous
animal studies by Edward Kemys, and the Indian figures of A. C.
Proctor. The sculptural commissions of the Congressional Library in
Washington have produced a remarkable collection of works by talented
Americans, and every great exhibition brings interesting examples from
those already named, and such others as Herbert Adams, Edwin Elwell,
Bessie Potter, with her dainty little statuettes, portrait work by
Charles Grafly, Catherine Cohen, C. E. Dallin, strange visionary
suggestions, in the Rodin manner, by George Bonnard, and an array of
lesser names too numerous to mention.
[Illustration: THE WASHINGTON MONUMENT, FAIRMOUNT PARK.]
For this reason, but few of the notable names of modern foreigners
can be given. However, Hamo Thornycroft, of England, must not be
overlooked, whose famous “Mower” is much admired; nor Onslow Ford, more
youthful and romantic in style. John Henry Foley, of Dublin, has had
a pronounced effect on English sculpture, being a successful teacher,
including among his pupils several distinguished women, among them the
Princess Louise and the Earl of Elgin’s granddaughter, Miss Grant.
George Tinworth’s terra cotta reliefs must conclude the list of English
works. A few Russians have reached eminence, mainly by animal studies.
Antocolski, a Jew of Wilna, of poorest parentage, has done powerful
figure work of a serious, rather melancholy sort, the most important
being a “Christ Bound.” What is best in modern Italian and German work
is practically French, and of the French themselves the list is too
long to complete. A few must suffice, such as Jean Alexandre Falguière,
who aspires, like Carpeaux, to give vitality by means of vigorous
action to his figures. Emanuel Frémiet has worn with some distinction
the mantle descended from Barye’s shoulders. Vidal, another pupil of
Barye, was blind for twenty years, yet gained two medals for correct
anatomy in his modeling. Carrier Belleuse’s “Hebe Asleep” is an example
of the delicate style, and Alfred Boucher shows the other extreme in
his rendering of sturdy masculine figures, toiling or racing, striving
to present in sculpture the picture of human struggle for existence,
as did Millet in his paintings. These materialistic studies represent
the fight for the bread and breath of life, while the impressionist
contortions of the Rodin school try to suggest the conflict of
emotions, good and bad, and the battle of spiritual and physical
desires and development.
III. CERAMICS AND GLASS WORK.
From time immemorial to the present day men have been fashioning shapes
of clay, experimenting with different kinds, different degrees of heat,
and different chemical combinations to form glazes and colorings. The
fundamental processes of pottery making have changed but little since
prehistoric times, and wall pictures of the days of the Ptolemies show
the potter’s wheel whirling much as it does at present, although, of
course, many modern inventions have been made to facilitate different
forms of work. In the famous Sèvres factories in France, established
under royal patronage and still remaining government property, a modern
device has rendered possible the making of large vases of extremely
thin ware. To prevent the delicate paste of which these are made from
collapsing by its own weight before it can harden, the vase or jar is
moulded in an air-tight chamber, the mouth of the object sealed, and
the air exhausted from the chamber, leaving the object in a vacuum. The
air contained in itself is sufficient to hold up the sides until they
harden and danger of collapse is over, when it can be fired. Attempts
were made in vain to equal the delicacy of the Chinese egg-shell ware,
when, one day an educated Chinese visitor to the factories observed the
method employed, and exclaimed, “This is the way we make those cups,”
and, taking a mould, he dipped it into the liquid paste, rinsed it
around and emptied it at once. A thin film like a soap bubble remained
in the mould, which hardened enough to form the dainty ware the workers
had been trying without success to produce; so the Chinese method was
at once adopted. About the middle of the last century an impetus of
development in ceramic art appeared all over the continent of Europe
and in England. This was probably due to the discovery, in different
places, of kaolin or the fine clay of which porcelain is made, which
stimulated the pottery industry and caused the establishment of many
factories which are still working to-day. The Dresden works, founded
in 1700, were hidden in an old fortress, and their secrets jealously
guarded. After about a century they went into decay, but in 1863 were
revived and reëstablished in large new buildings of their own, where
dainty flowered ware is produced, which has again come into popular
favor. Italian ceramics are apt to be florid and overloaded with
decoration, that called “majolica” deriving its name from the island
of Majorca, where it was first made. “Fayence” comes from Faenza, and
the French form of the name, “faïence,” has been used to designate
porcelain in general. The town of Limoges, in France, has been a centre
of ceramic art since 1773, when a French firm established a factory for
the production of a peculiarly fine ware, made possible by the superior
quality of the kaolin found in the neighborhood. In 1839 a lady in
New York showed the Haviland firm a cup of delicate ware, asking them
to match it for her. It was so much finer than anything they had seen
that they desired to import some for their own business. With this end
in view, Mr. David Haviland took the cup and went to France trying to
find where it had been made. He was directed to Limoges and, in the
factories there, he tried to have English shapes and decorations copied
in the exquisite ware. The conservatism and slow methods of the place
were not equal to his demands, and he therefore established a factory
of his own, which, since the middle of the century, has been the most
important in the town.
In England, the most celebrated potteries are all over a century old,
and the ceramic art has been developed to the highest degree both in
technical and artistic directions. The works of the Doulton firm, who
own many potteries, are particularly rich in color, and decoration,
those from their factory at Lambeth being especially fine. So also
are the Coalport wares, celebrated for their rich blue color, the
Royal Worcester and the Crown Derby. In these English factories, and
also in those on the Continent, artists of great skill are employed
as decorators, and in the Wedgwood works the delicate cameo figures
in white relief on a tinted ground were originated by the famous
sculptor, John Flaxman. In America, the Trenton potteries turn out
a vast quantity of wares of varying degrees of artistic excellence,
and one factory has the secret of an old Irish ware, the Belleek, of
indescribable delicacy, like an iridescent sea shell, long thought
to be a lost art. The Rookwood pottery, of most artistic quality
in design and color, is made in Cincinnati, and was the invention
of a woman who has trained a school of girls as decorators; as has
also the Tiffany firm in New York for their marvelous glass work. An
adequate description of the work of this firm would fill a book, as
they have developed undreamed-of possibilities in the use of glass
for decorative purposes. They have revived forgotten arts of coloring
and invented new processes of treatment, that give results like
fairy work, no two pieces being alike. These and many other forms of
industrial art products are brought to a high plane of perfection
nowadays, although the word “art” is grievously abused, being applied
to everything salable, from writing paper to soap. The great schools
and institutions which teach the arts and industries combined are doing
vast good, however, in improving public taste and teaching the world
to discriminate between true art and false, and their influence can
already be felt in higher standards of decoration in articles of common
daily use.
IV. INDUSTRIAL ARTS.
Closely following painting comes black and white art in various
forms, either reproductive or original work, and it is difficult to
discriminate between fine art and handicraft in the many processes
employed. Engraving on metal has long been known, and steel was
considered an especially valuable method of reproducing paintings
until within a generation. Etching is another old form of black and
white work, and is still popular, though less so than formerly.
Wood engraving during this century has passed through many stages
of development, and in the illustrations of books and magazines has
been brought to a high standing as a fine art. It is still used in
many ways, but all those processes that require line work by hand are
being superseded by the photo-type processes, of which there are many
kinds. The making of plates or blocks for printing required skilled
hand work, and the engravers and wood-cutters were necessarily artists
themselves, so that while they were copying the work of others they
were also producing works of art themselves. The plates and prints
were, therefore, valuable and expensive, and, as modern haste grew more
and more to demand cheap quick work, the old careful style of working
gave way to mechanical methods of greater speed. With the development
of photography and its application to the engraver’s art, while a
certain individual artistic character in the work was lost, the actual
copying of painting in all the details of light, shade, and half tones
has been carried to a high degree of perfection. By what is known as
photogravure, every tiny brush mark and every different tint of color
is reproduced with scientific accuracy in black and white. This is
accomplished by having a photograph of the painting taken on a gelatine
film, which is suspended in a bath of acid in the line of an electric
current. This current, playing over a sheet of copper, sets free the
molecules of metal that are deposited upon the film, and filling all
the little inequalities of the surface, produce what is practically
a cast of the photograph in copper. The plate, thus secured, is gone
over by hand and finished here and there with engraver’s tools, and
from this prints may be duplicated to any extent. In engraved plates
the design is cut into the metal, incised lines being either drawn by
hand with a sharp point, called “dry point” work, or eaten in by acids,
the remaining surface of the plate being protected from the acid by
a greasy film. In wood-cutting, the blocks show a reverse process,
the design being left standing in fine lines, while the remaining
surface is cut away, so that a wood-cut is in reality a carving in low
relief. The modern electrotype processes produce a similar result on
a metal block by the action of acid, a method capable of most speedy
work and therefore in demand among the multitude of daily publications
illustrating current events. Of course these hasty results can scarcely
be called fine art, but they are developments of artistic industries,
calculated to meet certain needs of our busy civilization.
[Illustration: PHOTOGRAPHIC VIEW OF NEW YORK CITY AND HUDSON RIVER,
TAKEN FROM 26TH STORY OF PARK ROW BUILDING.]
For more artistic effects, various forms of lithography have given
beautiful results. This valuable process was accidentally discovered in
1796, by a young Bohemian, Aloys Senefelder, of Prague. Desiring to
write a list, and having no paper, he scrawled on a fine stone floor
tile a few words, and later on, coming to remove them, he bethought
him of an experiment with acid on the stone. This he tried, finding
the stone eaten away all around his writing, leaving that raised in
sufficient relief to print from, the lettering being done with a greasy
writing substance that repelled the acid. Later experiments proved
that the eating away of the stone was not necessary if the design were
made with an oily material and the rest of the surface kept moist with
a weak solution of acid. A greasy printing ink being applied would
stick only to the oily design and not to the acidulated surface, which
process made possible the printing from flat stones, which were not
so liable to wear out as the relief designs. Senefelder died in 1824,
living long enough to see his invention in use throughout the world,
although of course he could not know the improvements that photography
would bring. On the centennial anniversary of this great discovery
in 1896, exhibitions of lithographic works were held in London and
Paris, and the possibilities and developments shown. Mr. James McNeill
Whistler has made many very interesting experiments with it, as have
also Mr. Joseph Pennell and Mr. Hubert Herkomer. The latter has made
innumerable experiments and inventions in his busy artistic career,
and has just recently perfected an improvement on lithography which he
calls “plate printing,” and which has been dubbed by the irreverent
the “Herkotype” process. It is simply painting in a peculiar oily ink
on a metal plate, which, while the ink is moist, is dusted over with
a fine powder which adheres to every brush mark on the surface. One
ingredient of this powder is a metal that is electrically conductible,
and, after the excess of powder is brushed off, the plate, with what
remains sticking on the oily surface, is placed in an electrotype
bath. The copper deposited thereon by the electric current hardens
and forms a negative of the original painting, which can be stripped
from the plate and used in a printing-press, giving an absolutely
faithful reproduction of the artist’s handiwork. A similar process,
called “algraphy,” has been invented by Mr. Scholz, of Mayence, who
has developed the possibilities of aluminum for plate work, the
advantage of this material over stone or other metal being its extreme
lightness. These processes are especially valuable to artists who can
work in black and white, as their own original conception is perfectly
reproduced without the possibility of misconception by some copyist, as
exists where a painting is interpreted by an etcher or engraver.
Of the new processes or improvements on the old, that have arisen
because of the discovery of photography, it may be said their name is
legion. Photography itself is rapidly being developed into a fine art,
and has become one of the most important factors of modern existence.
It combines science, art, and industry, and is equally necessary to
all these occupations. While it is difficult to state what was the
first attempt that led to the suggestion of photography, it may be
supposed the experiments of the Swedish scientist Scheele were among
the first. He found that the action of the sun’s ray blackened silver
chloride, and others experimenting after him, at the beginning of
the century, had glimmering ideas of the possibility of a new art.
As has so often happened with the dawning of some great idea, some
new appreciation of a great natural law, the thought was working in
many minds, and the discovery seemed to be almost simultaneous in
several places. As early as 1802 Wedgwood published in the “Journal
of the Royal Institute” an “account of a method of copying paintings
on glass and of making profiles by the agency of light on nitrate of
silver, with some remarks by Sir Humphry Davy.” These gentlemen were,
however, unable to fix the impressions they procured, and a Frenchman,
De Niepce, seems to have been the first to succeed in this direction.
In 1826, learning that M. Louis Jacques Daguerre was experimenting on
the same lines, he conferred with him and they formed a partnership.
The latter seems to have been the more businesslike of the two, and
the process they evolved became known as the “Daguerreotype.” De
Niepce died in 1833, and Daguerre continued the partnership with his
son Isidore, making many improvements, and becoming really the pioneer
of modern photography. The extent of advance may be calculated from
Daguerre’s own remark, that “a landscape requires seven or eight hours
to be photographed, but a single statue or monument, if strongly
lighted, can be taken in about three hours.” Comparing this with the
instantaneous camera work of to-day, that gives us the lifelike moving
figures of the kinetoscope, will illustrate the change wrought in two
thirds of a century. The earliest portrait work was slow and tedious,
the first portrait in New York probably being produced by Dr. Draper,
the scientist, although the celebrated Professor Morse was vastly
interested in the new science or art, and advanced its cause in this
country.
From the beginning of photographic experiments, the greatest desire has
been felt to photograph in color, and numberless attempts with more or
less success have been made, but the processes are mainly slow and
very expensive. A new method of photo-printing in color, however, has
recently developed very artistic possibilities. This is accomplished
by means of three plates, one for each of the three primary colors;
the negative having been made and the plate prepared for printing in
each color, the inks of each color are applied separately. One printing
produces a red impression, directly on this comes a yellow impression,
and on top of that is put a blue; and as all gradations of color are
composed of various proportions of these three primary tints, the
“overlaying” of the three inks produces a picture containing all the
variety of the original subject. A still more recent discovery makes an
impression upon a glass plate that gives all three colors on the same
plate; but this process is a secret, and is too new to be classed among
the successes of industrial art as yet.
One of the later and more notable uses of photography is found in
its application to the purposes of astronomy, an evolution in modern
science, which, although still in its infancy, has already produced
wonderful results. About the middle of the century photographs of the
moon were secured by Warren De la Rue and other astronomers, which
greatly facilitated studies of the earth’s satellite, and these were
followed by photographs of the sun and the sun’s corona during eclipse.
It was not, however, until Professor Henry of the Smithsonian Institute
originated the idea of uniting the camera with the telescope that
the marvelous possibilities of stellar photography were discovered.
It is not too much to say that this discovery has revolutionized
the science of astronomy, extending the field of human observation
into the realm of the infinite. By the aid of clockwork attachments,
the telescope is made to follow the apparent motion of the star to
which it may be directed, throughout the night, if desired, and the
sensitive photographic plate is exposed to the action of light during a
corresponding period. “Each image, however faint, has a comparatively
long time on the sensitive surface, and therefore exerts a cumulative
action.” The result is that stars are pictured by the camera which no
human eye has ever seen. It is estimated that the camera has revealed
double the number of stars discovered by the most powerful telescopes.
In 1887, at a convention of astronomers held in Paris, it was resolved
to photograph the entire skies, with the purpose of making a new
stellar atlas to include the latest discoveries among the heavenly
hosts. With this object the firmament was charted in squares, and each
observatory of importance throughout the world was assigned certain
of these squares to work on. This monumental labor is still going on,
and it will necessarily be extended well into the first quarter of the
twentieth century.
The epoch-marking paper of Dr. Röntgen, in which he announced the
discovery of the X-ray, was made public in the latter part of 1895.
It immediately attracted the attention of the scientific world, and,
since that date, endless successions of experiments have been made with
the marvelous ray in all civilized countries. The X-ray produces no
noticeable effect on the retina of the eye, and we therefore acquire
knowledge of it through indirect agencies. One of these agencies is the
photographic plate, on which, under certain conditions, the ray acts
somewhat in the same manner as does a ray of light. It is not a ray of
light, in the ordinary sense, as it penetrates opaque bodies which
light cannot traverse. Just what it is scientists are not yet ready
to state, but its discoverer defines it as “a longitudinal vibration
of luminiferous ether.” This vibration will traverse many substances
opaque to light, as wood, paper, vegetable and animal tissues and
fabrics, as wool, cotton, silk, etc.; and, if then directed upon a
photographic plate, will produce an image there. The resulting picture
is not of the object traversed by the ray, but of any intervening
object which it does not pass through. As a consequence, the picture
is the image, so to speak, of a shadow, and, hence has been called a
“shadowgraph.” To illustrate, if the ray is directed through a human
body, it will give a “shadowgraph” of the bones, or of a bullet or
piece of metal, if such foreign substance be encountered on its way.
Again, the ray will traverse a diamond and cast no shadow, but it will
not pass through the finest imitation ever made, the “shadowgraph”
showing the manufactured article.
THE CENTURY’S ADVANCE IN SURGERY
BY J. MADISON TAYLOR, M.D., and J. H. GIBBON, M.D.,
_Surgeon in Pennsylvania and Children’s Hospitals_.