Art in America Part 6

[Ill.u.s.tration: "EVE BEFORE THE FALL."--[HIRAM POWERS.]]

Some of our most successful sculptors have never been abroad, or at least have not systematically placed themselves under the tuition of a foreign master; while a number of them have indicated in their tendencies a natural sympathy with the later movement of modern sculpture, which is rather in the direction of allegory, portraiture, and _genre_ suggested by domestic life. When the ancients represented Venus or Jove in marble, they sculptured a being in whose actual existence they believed, and thus a profound reverence inspired the work of the master. When the sculptor of the Middle Ages carved the deeds of the Saviour, or the saints, or represented the Last Judgment, he was moved by deep love or reverential awe, and an unquestioning belief in the events he was commemorating. But when the sculptor of this century undertakes to revive cla.s.sical subjects and modes of thought, he encounters an insurmountable obstacle at the outset, which checks all progress, and relegates his art to a secondary rank, without even the benefit of a doubt in his favor. The laws and limitations of mind make it impossible for an art to be of the first order which depends upon the imitation of other art. It is only by copying nature directly, under the inspirations of its own age and country, that a school of art has the slightest chance of immortality. Thorwaldsen, the greatest sculptor since Michael Angelo, exemplified this truth to a remarkable degree.

Moved by a realization of cla.s.sic art which no other modern sculptor except Flaxman has approached, we yet find his cla.s.sical subjects inferior to those allegorical subjects in which he gave expression to the impulses of his own times. A slowly dawning consciousness that art cannot by any force of will or free agency escape from these limitations of growth is becoming at last evident in recent sculpture, especially in the emotional and sometimes sensational sculpture of France. Lacking repose, it is yet fresh and original, and is destined by continued self-a.s.sertion to reach a high rank.

It is in imitations of the antique or in allegory, and portraiture, that our sculpture has exerted its best efforts, until within a few years.

General Washington has also proved a sort of Jupiter Tonans to our sculptors. Elevated to a semi-apotheosis by the people, he has. .h.i.therto been the most prominent subject of the plastic art of the West, and has thus afforded a fair standard of comparison between the merits of different artists, since very few of them but have tried their hand with the national hero. As regards popular appreciation or pecuniary reward, it must be admitted that our sculptors have relatively little cause for complaint.

The art of sculpture was by no means unknown here when the white man first stepped foot on our sh.o.r.es. The pipe-stone quarries of the West are an evidence of what had already been attempted by the aboriginal savages. Tobacco, so much maligned by certain zealous philanthropists, was at least an innocent cause of some of the earliest attempts at sculpture made on this continent. The writer has in his possession an Indian pipe carved out of flint, which represents a man sitting with hands clasped across his knees. Simple as it is, it indicates good skill in stone-carving, and considerable observation of race characteristics and anatomy. Evidences of great technical skill in the plastic arts, but with an unformed perception of beauty, are being constantly discovered among the relics of the extinct Mound-builders of the West and South.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "ORPHEUS."--[THOMAS CRAWFORD.]]

Before the Revolution, however, excepting in the carving of figure-heads, plastic art, unlike painting, seems to have been hardly known in the United States. And so little sign was there of its dawn that John Trumbull declared to Frazee, as late as 1816, that sculpture "would not be wanted here for a century." But even then the careful observer might have noticed indications that a genius for glyptic art was awakening in the new republic. In the early part of the last century Deacon Drowne made a vane for Faneuil Hall, and one for the Province House, in Boston, which appear to have gained him great repute in his day in New England. The latter work, although turning with the wind on an iron spindle, was a life-size statue of an Indian sachem holding a bow and arrow in the act of aiming. It was hollow, and of copper, and would seem, from the impression it made, to have been a work of some merit. Somewhat later, Patience Wright, of Bordentown, New Jersey, displayed considerable cleverness in modelling miniature wax heads in relief, and by this process succeeded in making likenesses of Washington and Franklin, among the celebrities of her time. William Rush, who was born some twenty years before the Revolution, had also shown already that even in ship-carving the sculptor may find scope for fancy and skill, as Matthew Pratt, in the previous generation, had proved that even in the painting of signs genius can find vent for its inspirations.

Rush was undoubtedly a man of genius; for, although all the art education he ever had was confined to an apprenticeship with a ship-carver, his figure-heads of Indians or naval heroes added a singular merit to the beauty of the merchant marine which first carried our flag to the farthest seas, and the men-of-war that wrested victory in so many a hard-fought battle. Hush worked only in wood or clay; but original strength and talent, which under better circ.u.mstances might have achieved greater results, are evident in some of his portrait busts, and in a statue of a nymph at Fairmount. A bust of himself, carved out of a block of pine, is remarkable for a realistic force and character that ent.i.tle it to a permanent place in the records of American sculpture.

Sculpture, however, was much more backward in gaining a foothold in the country than the sister arts; for it was not until 1824 that the first portrait in marble by a native was executed--that of John Wells, by John Frazee, a stone-cutter, whose sole art education was obtained during an apprenticeship in a yard where rude monumental work was turned out for the bleak cemeteries in use before such sumptuous retreats as Greenwood and Mount Auburn were planned. There was a feeling after the ideal in the nature of this una.s.sisted artist which enabled him to be potential in influencing younger artists; while his opportunities were unfavorable to the just development of his own abilities.

Rush began to model in clay in 1789, and at that time not one of the artists who have since given celebrity to our native sculpture had seen the light. Frazee was born in 1790; and Hezekiah Augur, of New Haven, in 1791. The latter was engaged in the grocery trade, and failing in that, took up modelling and wood-carving, without any guide except his natural instincts. Like many of our first sculptors, his efforts are interesting rather as evidences of what talent entirely uninstructed and untrained can accomplish, than for any intrinsic value in his work. Many of the artists who have succeeded him have also begun life in some trade or profession altogether at variance with the art to which they afterward consecrated their lives.

It was not till the year 1805, long after Copley, West, Malbone, Allston, and Stuart had demonstrated our capacity for pictorial art, that the genius of the country seemed inclined to allow us a plastic art of our own. In that year Hiram Powers was born, one of the best known sculptors of the century. The same year witnessed the birth of Horatio Greenough. In the remote wilds of Kentucky, still harried by the Indians, Hart was born in 1810; and Clevenger, Crawford, and Mills followed in 1812, 1813, and 1815--all artists of note, even if of unequal merits, and important as pioneers in the art rather than the creators of a great school of sculpture. Thus we see that without any apparent previous preparation a strong impulse toward glyptic art and the men to direct and give it strength simultaneously sprung up in the land. When one considers the disadvantages under which they labored, and that, so far as can be known, they were not even aided by any heredity of genius in this direction, criticism is tempered by surprise that they achieved the results they did, and that two of them at least--Powers and Crawford--succeeded in winning for themselves a European renown which made them almost the peers of some of the leading foreign sculptors of the age, who were born amidst the trophies of cla.s.sic and Renaissance art.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "COLUMBUS BEFORE THE COUNCIL."--[FROM THE BRONZE DOOR OF THE CAPITOL AT WASHINGTON.--RANDOLPH ROGERS.]]

Hiram Powers must always be a.s.signed a commanding position in our Western art, even by those who are not enthusiastic admirers of his works. A farmer's boy of the Green Mountains, he early exchanged Vermont for the bustling streets of Cincinnati, where an ampler scope was offered to the aspiring energies of the founder of American sculpture.

Like many of our sculptors, a turn for mechanics, characteristic of the inventive mind of the people, was combined in him with a capacity for art, and this, which at first found vent in a study of the inventions of the time, enabled him in maturer life to facilitate the means of art expression by valuable inventions. Palmer and several other American sculptors have also aided the art in a similar way. From modelling in wax, which aroused great local interest, young Powers proceeded to modelling in plaster, under the tuition of a German artist resident in Cincinnati, and, aided by the generous patronage of Mr. Longworth--to whose liberality toward our artists American art is greatly indebted--he soon received numerous commissions for portrait busts of some of our most notable public men, such as Webster, Jackson, Marshall, and Calhoun. Notwithstanding his lack of training and art a.s.sociations, Powers executed some of these portraits with a vigor worthy of the subjects, and scarcely equalled by any of his subsequent work.

In 1837 Powers decided to go to Italy, whither Greenough had already preceded him, led thither, like many since, by superior art advantages and economical reasons, which still sway our sculptors at a time when it would seem that it would be more profitable, so far as native art is concerned, for them to remain here. Several of our sculptors have acknowledged to the writer that the time has come for their art to grow up under the home influences which are to regulate the art of the future, but that the question of economy forces them to live in Florence and Rome.

Residing in Florence until his death, Powers devoted his long career to the creation of many works of high finish, and occasionally of a merit comparing well with the works of an age whose plastic arts were conventional. Who has not seen the famous "Greek Slave," inspired by the enthusiasm for the Greeks struggling with the Turk for existence? The "Penseroso," "Fisher Boy," and "Proserpine" are also among the most pleasing works of this artist. The "California," a nude, symbolical female figure, is less satisfactory in conception, and is also open to criticism as to its proportions. In these works we see expressed the thoughts of an artist skilled in the technical requirements of the art, and moved by a lofty ideal, but marked by tender sentiment rather than force, and suggesting sometimes a dryness of style and a coldness or reticence of emotion inherited from the undemonstrative people of New England, as if when the artist was executing them the stern genius of Puritanism, jealous of the voluptuous or the pa.s.sionate in art, had stood Mentor-like at his side and said, "There, that will do; beware lest your love of beauty lead you to forget that you are an American citizen, to whom duty, principle, example, are the watchwords of life."

But sometimes genius proved superior to tradition even with Powers, as when he composed the two great ideal statues of Eve before and after the fall. By these n.o.ble works, inspired by true, untrammelled artistic feeling--which we must consider his best ideal compositions--he earned a rank very near to that of Gibson and Canova, and rendered his art worthy of lasting remembrance.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE GHOST IN HAMLET."--[THOMAS R. GOULD.]]

The art of Powers was best exemplified in his portrait busts. His imagination was not prolific or active, as one may infer from the following expressions of his own: "I could never satisfy myself with an ideal in a hurry. The human form is infinite. It is the image of G.o.d. I have found that, do my best, there was always a _better_ in nature. Once knowing this, I have hesitated and sought to find it, and this is the way to fame. One may fail with all his care and labor, but it is the only way. Not they who have produced the most, but they who have done the best, stand foremost in the end. I never felt that I had the power to charge a hundred statues. I exhaust myself on a few. This accounts for the fact that I found it necessary to give nearly a year's time, in all, to the model of your statue of 'Paradise Lost.'"

The early educational advantages of Horatio Greenough were superior to those of Powers; and as one of the first in our country to a.s.sert himself in marble, he won a name which we are reluctantly obliged to consider in excess of his merits as an artist. He impresses one as a man of intellectual force and culture, but without any special calling to sculpture. The work by which he will be known the longest is the Bunker Hill Monument, whose stately proportions he designed. Greenough executed a number of vigorous and striking busts, like those of Lafayette and Fenimore Cooper, which deserve favorable mention. But in venturing after ideal expression he cannot be said to have accomplished satisfactory results. The elaborate group called "The Rescue," on the portico of the Capitol at Washington, is ambitious, but leaves one to regret that so prominent a position could not have been more appropriately decorated.

Few statues have ever given rise to more conflicting criticisms than Greenough's "Washington" in the grounds of the Capitol. Colossal in size and on a ma.s.sive throne, seated half nude and holding out a Roman sword in his left hand, some one has jocularly observed that the august hero of the republic seems to say, "Here is my sword; my clothes are in the Patent-office yonder." It certainly seems an absurdity in this age to represent so recent a character in a garb in which he was so rarely seen by the public, or so closely and incongruously to imitate the style of the antique. Benjamin West showed more originality and courage when, in the last century, and in defiance of the opinion of such men as Sir Joshua Reynolds, he dared to break loose from the conventional, and created a revolution in historical art by permitting General Wolfe to die in the clothes in which he went to battle. But in justice to Greenough, whose statue is in some respects meritorious and important, especially in the ba.s.s-reliefs on the elegant chair, it should be said that he never designed to have this statue placed in its present position, but under the dome of the Rotunda, where it would undoubtedly be far more impressive, and being sheltered from the winter snows, its nudity would be less incongruous.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GEORGE WASHINGTON.--[J. Q. A. WARD.]]

Last year a sculptor died at Florence who was born in Kentucky nearly seventy years ago. His education was confined to three months in a district school, and his first occupation was chimney-building. James Hart, although successful in portraiture, was also an idealist, who, after settling in Italy, produced numerous pleasing works, like his "Angelina" and "Woman Triumphant." There is a delicate, winning sense of beauty and a refined emotional tendency in his art, which pleases while it fails to master us, because it was a facile fancy rather than a lofty imagination that conceived his creations.

Shobal V. Clevenger, a stone-cutter of Ohio, presents another instance of the sudden yearning toward the plastic art which early in the century sought vent in various parts of the country. Like so many others, he turned his face to Italy to find the knowledge which it was impossible for his native land to give him at that time. The nation owes a debt of grat.i.tude to him, as to several of our early sculptors, for many truthfully realistic portraits of our leading statesmen and poets.

In point of date as well as in ability we find that Thomas Crawford, a native of New York State, was one of the first of our sculptors. If Powers was remarkable for the refinement of his work, in the sculpture of Crawford we find a certain grandiose style not too common in our art, and at the same time so harmoniously rendered as to avoid exaggeration.

Crawford occupies among our sculptors a position corresponding to that of Allston among our early painters. There is a cla.s.sic majesty about his works, a sustained grandeur that is warmed by a sympathetic nature, and brought within the range of the throes and aspirations of this tumultuous century. He had what most of our sculptors have lacked--genius. Were he alive to-day, when a new order of sculpture is bursting its bonds, he would have few peers. Among his most important works are the impressive equestrian statue of Washington at Richmond, and the colossal statue of Beethoven in the Music Hall at Boston. They were cast in the foundries of Muller at Munich, and were hailed by all, artists and sovereign alike, with a dramatic enthusiasm which speaks eloquently for the estimate placed upon them in one of the most notable art tribunals of Europe.

The bronze door of the Capitol at Washington, containing panel groups ill.u.s.trative of the American Revolution, has been considered by some to be a masterpiece of Crawford, and it certainly indicates imagination and technical skill unusual among us until recently; but the statue of Orpheus descending into Tartarus in search of his wife Eurydice seems, on the whole, to be the most symmetrical and just representative work of this great sculptor. His stately and graceful statue of "Liberty" on the dome of the Capitol is also ent.i.tled to high consideration, but one can hardly think of it without indignation, for certainly nothing was ever devised quite so absurd as to create a work of imagination like this, and then to perch it up in the air three hundred feet above the ground, where it is a mere shapeless spot against the sky, its beauty almost as completely s.n.a.t.c.hed away from human ken as if it were buried as far beneath the surface of the earth.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "MEDEA."--[WILLIAM WETMORE STORY.]]

The art of the Capitol at Washington presents, indeed, a most extraordinary farrago of excellence and eccentricity and ignorance. Some of the alto-relievos in the Rotunda are of such exceptional uncouthness that one is astounded to think that some of the men are still living who permitted them to be placed there. They might easily be pa.s.sed off for rude Aztec relics. The Sculpture Hall adjoining displays the same amazing incongruity. Its existence suggests a dim perception in the builders that at some future time we should need a national gallery of statuary; while the inequality in the merit of the sculptures already placed there would indicate that they had been chosen entirely by lot rather than by deliberate selection. Not until a permanent national art commission like that of France is appointed can we hope, in the present unaesthetic condition of Congress, to have such art collected at the national capital as will be entirely creditable to the country. Such a commission, owing to the frailty of human nature, might perhaps show partiality at times toward a favorite school; but what it did admit would at least be of a higher average merit, and mere tyros in art would have no chance to storm the public Treasury by the sheer force of lobbying.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE PROMISED LAND."--[FRANKLIN SIMMONS.]]

It is to the then absolute ignorance of art on the part of the people that we owe the equestrian statues of Clark Mills--a contemporary of Crawford--of which the most noted is probably the statue of General Jackson opposite the White House, and the one of George Washington, for which he received $50,000. The former is chiefly notable for the mechanical dexterity which so balanced the weights that the prancing steed is actually able to stand in that position without other support than its own ponderosity. That Mr. Mills has ability is unquestioned, for it is said that before ever he had seen a statue he was able to take a portrait bust of Calhoun which is p.r.o.nounced a striking likeness; but it is dexterity and talent rather than genius which he possesses. There is little evidence of art feeling in his works, and the prominence that has been given to them is a just cause of regret to the lover of art.

It is pleasant among so much poor art to find here and there works like those of Crawford, Ward, Brown, Randolph Rogers, and Ball, which indicate an earnest striving after a lofty art ideal. Henry K. Browne, one of our earliest sculptors, will probably be best known by his two equestrian statues--of General Washington, in Union Square, New York, and General Scott, at the capital. It is extremely difficult to tell what it is which makes such monuments so rarely satisfactory. If the horse is anatomically correct, it is, perhaps, ungraceful; or if pleasing in that respect, then the horse-fancier comes along, who tells you that it cannot be justly admired, for it is incorrect in the details. Between these two objections one is often at a loss to give an opinion; and in point of fact the famous statue of Colleoni by Verrochio, made in the Middle Ages, seems thus far to be almost the only wholly acceptable equestrian work since the cla.s.sic times, so thoroughly does it seem in its firm, ma.s.sive, yet energetic lines to embody the description of the war-horse given in the Book of Job, and so n.o.bly does his mailed rider bestride him. The cause of the difficulty appears to be the same as in marine painting. To paint a ship one should love it intensely, and if he does, he is likely to comprehend the action; to design a horse in motion one should love horses, and in such case the study of them begins instinctively in childhood. But most sculptors have no natural equine bias, and, after accepting a commission for an equestrian statue, they begin to study the horse for the purpose of information, rather than from sympathetic, enthusiastic feeling.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "LATONA AND HER INFANTS."--[W. H. RINEHART.]]

Mr. Browne has struggled with these difficulties with very creditable success. Neither of the statues mentioned above gives complete satisfaction, but they are doubtless among the best yet exhibited in our country. That of Scott represents the finest horse, and very graceful and interesting it is, although the proportions are rather those of an Arab steed than of an American war-horse; while that of Washington is the most spirited and attractive. It is heroic and impressive in its general effect. This artist, who still resides at Newburgh, enjoying a green old age after a successful career, has accomplished much ideal work, like the pleasing statue of "Ruth," and has shown a fine artistic feeling in his conceptions, although hardly ent.i.tled to a foremost rank in this branch of the art.

Thomas Ball, who was originally a portrait-painter, and who continues to adorn our public squares with meritorious sculptures, is another artist to whom we are indebted for one of the most spirited and correct equestrian statues in the country. We refer to his "Washington," in the Public Garden in Boston. Pleasing when regarded artistically, cavalrymen also like it for its truth to nature. The group called "Emanc.i.p.ation,"

in Lincoln Park, at Washington, is also by Mr. Ball.

An equestrian statue that is destined to occupy a high position in our native art is that of General Thomas, by J. Q. A. Ward. It is of colossal size, and has been cast in bronze at Philadelphia. There is a force in the action, an originality in the pose, a justness in the proportions of both horse and rider, that render it exceptionally excellent. In Mr. Ward we see one of the most vigorous and individual sculptors of the age. As an influence in our art his example is of great importance, because while placing at its true value the good that may be obtained by familiarity with the models of cla.s.sic art, whether by the study of casts at home or abroad, he recognizes the basal principle of all true art--that its originating force must proceed from within, and that culture can only supplement, but cannot supply the want of, genius in the artist or the people. And thus, while thoroughly conversant with foreign and antique art, Mr. Ward has worked at home, and drawn the sources of his inspiration from native influences. He has a mind overflowing with resources; his fancy is never still; he is ever delighting to sketch in clay, if the term may be so used. Many are familiar with the n.o.ble statue of Shakspeare and the "Indian Hunter" in the Central Park. The latter, although not in all respects anatomically correct, is in spirit and design one of the most notable works produced by American plastic art. But the bronze statue of Washington recently set up at Newburyport is, perhaps, the best existing specimen of Mr.

Ward's skill. The subject is not a new one; in fact, it has been treated so many hundred times in one form or another that especial originality was needed to render it again with any degree of freshness and interest.

But the effort has been crowned with success. There is in this statue, which is of colossal size, a sustained majesty, dignity, and repose, and a harmony of design rarely attained in modern sculpture.

Among the foremost of American sculptors in point of native ability we must accord a place to Benjamin Paul Akers, of Portland. He was indeed a man of genius, of a finely organized temperament; but he died before the maturity of his powers, ere he was able to achieve little more than a promise of immortality. His "Pearl Diver," which is indeed an exquisite creation, original, and tenderly beautiful, represents a youth whose corpse the tide has washed on the rocks, where it lies wrapped by the sea-weed, and tranquil in the repose of death. The anatomy and composition of this work are evidently the offspring of a finely-organized mind well grounded in the principles of his art, and inspired by tender sympathies and a strongly creative imagination; and his "St. Elizabeth" is also a lovely piece of sculpture. The n.o.ble ideal bust of Milton, and the "Pearl Diver," are grandly described by Hawthorne in the "Marble Faun." The admirable description of Kenyon, the young sculptor mentioned in that weird romance, is intended for a likeness of Akers.

Edward S. Bartholomew, of Connecticut, who died in his thirty-sixth year, was another of our most gifted sculptors. There was an affluence of fancy in his art, rare in our sculpture, which needed pruning rather than urging by foreign study. Naturally his works are unequal in merit; but the "Eve Repentant," "Ganymede," and "Hagar and Ishmael" will long perpetuate his fame. It is a noteworthy circ.u.mstance that Bartholomew was totally color-blind. This, in the opinion of many, is no disqualification in a sculptor; but some sculptors not only think otherwise, but are also conscious of a sense of color when creating a work.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "ZEn.o.bIA."--[HARRIET HOSMER.]]

[Ill.u.s.tration: "EVENING."--[E. D. PALMER.]]

Italy, which has been the home and second mother to most of the artists we have named, has long given a home to and inspired the art of a number of our most prominent sculptors, who are now permanently residing in Florence and Rome--Randolph Rogers, Story, Rinehart, Meade, Gould, Thompson, Miss Hosmer, and several others, all of whom merit more than a pa.s.sing notice. Rogers, who has executed many exquisite works indicating fine sentiment and fancy, is most favorably known for the bronze doors in the Rotunda of the Capitol at Washington. Eight panels, representing scenes in the history of Columbus, have afforded abundant scope for the exhibition of a genius which, while it borrowed the idea from Ghiberti, had yet ability sufficient to give us an original work.

The "Angel of the Resurrection," for the monument of Colonel Colt at Hartford, is also an important and beautiful creation by this artist.

Larkin J. Meade, of Vermont, has justly won a wide reputation for portrait and monumental works, like that to Abraham Lincoln at Springfield, Illinois. It is of colossal dimensions, costing nearly $300,000, and in size and importance ranks with the majestic monument at Plymouth designed by Hammatt Billings. One of the n.o.blest art opportunities of the century was offered when that monument was proposed. If Mr. Billings's original design had been fully carried out a work would have been erected of which the country might justly be proud.

Lack of funds and a pitiful lack of enthusiasm resulted in reducing the dimensions of the work by half. Martin Milmore has also executed some very important civic monuments, and has turned the late war to account by numerous military memorials erected to our dead heroes. The one recently finished at Boston is the most noteworthy. The art represented in these works is, however, not of a high order, perhaps because such subjects are so trite that even an artist of very unusual ability would be staggered in treating them. Franklin Simmons, whose abilities have been chiefly devoted to a similar cla.s.s of works with those of Meade and Milmore, often exhibits true art feeling, and a sense of the beautiful that makes his art exceptionally attractive. The monument to the Army and Navy, at Washington, which he has designed, is not wholly satisfactory, but it contains some effective points. One of his best works is the statue of Roger Williams. Another Americo-Florentine artist who has created some remarkable and beautiful ideal works is Thomas R.

Gould. Among these may be mentioned "The Ascending Spirit," at Mount Auburn, "The Ghost in _Hamlet_," and "The West Wind." The latter is fascinating rather for the delicate fancy it shows than for technic knowledge, for it is open to criticism in the details; the drapery, for example, is so full as to draw away the attention from the figure. This is a blemish quite too common even in our best sculpture. Mr. Gould has also been very successful in portraiture, and is now engaged on a full-sized statue of Kamehameha, late King of the Sandwich Islands. In the ideals of this artist we notice a powerful originality, and an attempt to render in marble effects usually left to the higher orders of pictorial art. Allegory he treats with marked power, and such ideal conceptions as the heads of Christ and of Satan suggest possibilities scarcely yet touched by sculpture.

Another of our sculptors, working near the quarries whence comes the marble into which he stamps immortality, was W. H. Rinehart, of Baltimore, one of the truest idealists whom this country has produced.

Criticism is almost disarmed as one gazes at his "Sleeping Babes," or the tender grace of "Latona and her Infants."

[Ill.u.s.tration: BUST OF WILLIAM PAGE.--[WILLIAM R. O'DONOVAN.]]

In all these artists we find more or less dexterity of execution and delicacy of sentiment, but are rarely impressed by a sense that any of them indicate great reserve force. In William W. Story this idea is more clearly conveyed. No American in the art world now occupies a more prominent position or shows greater versatility. Possessed of an ample fortune, and originally a lawyer, and preparing legal tomes, he then devoted himself to poetry, the drama, and general literature, and has succeeded as a sculptor to a degree which has caused a leading London journal to call him the first sculptor of the Anglo-Saxon race since the death of Gibson. He certainly occupies a commanding place, fairly won, among the prominent men of the age. But here our praise must be qualified; for it may be seriously questioned whether we are not dazzled by the sum of his abilities rather than by any exceptional originality and daring in anything Story has done. Of his sculpture it may be said that it indicates the work of a rich and highly cultivated mind; it is thoughtful, thoroughly finished, and cla.s.sically severe. But it commands our respect rather than our enthusiasm. There is in it nothing inspirational. It is talent, not genius, which wrought those carefully executed marbles--talent of a high order, it is true. "Jerusalem Lamenting," "The Sibyl," and "Cleopatra" and "Medea," are works so n.o.ble, especially the first, that one is impatient with himself because he can gaze upon them so unmoved. The "Salome" is, perhaps, the most perfect work of this sculptor, who might have done greater things if he had not depended so exclusively upon foreign inspiration.

Miss Hosmer, who has resided in Italy ever since she took up art, has achieved a fame scarcely less than that of Mr. Story. This has doubtless been owing in part to her s.e.x, for from the time of Sabina Von Steinbach until this century it has been exceedingly rare to see a woman modelling clay. But Miss Hosmer has a strong personality, and if her creations are not always thoroughly successful as works of art, they bear the vigorous impress of individual thought and imagination. She is best known in such versatile works as "Puck," "The Sleeping Sentinel," "The Sleeping Faun,"

and "Zen.o.bia," in whose majestic proportions the artist has sought to express her ideal of a woman and a queen. Miss Hosmer took her first lessons in sculpture with Peter Stephenson, an artist who died too early to achieve a national reputation, although not too soon to be esteemed by his fellow-artists for his abilities. He studied awhile at Rome, and left a number of portrait busts, and a group of "Una and the Lion,"

which indicate undoubted talent. Other ladies who have essayed sculpture with success are Miss Stebbins, the biographer of Charlotte Cushman, and Mrs. Freeman, of Philadelphia, who has executed some beautiful works.

Miss Whitney, who studied abroad for a time, but has wisely concluded to continue her work in this country, has shown a careful, thoughtful study of the figure, and is moved by a lofty idea of the position of sculpture among the arts. Among her more important works is an impressive statue of "Rome," in her decadence, mourning over her past glory; a statue of "Africa;" and one of Samuel Adams, in the Capitol at Washington.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ABRAHAM PIERSON.--[LAUNT THOMPSON.]]

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE CHARITY PATIENT."--[JOHN ROGERS.]]