SCULPTURE (Lat. sculptura, from sculpere, to carve, cognate with Gr. γλύφειν), a general term for the plastic art of carving, especially in stone and marble, but also in such materials as wood (see Wood-carving), ivory (see Ivory), metal (see Metal-work) and gems (see Gem).
The production of bronze statues by the cire perdue (anglice,“lost wax”) process is described in the article Metal-work;until (since its revival) recent times but little practisedin Europe outside of Paris, it has now invaded mostcountries where fine casting Technical methods
of the
sculptor.is appreciated, and where sculptor.naturalistic rendering is desired. There are signs,however, of its being ousted for a certain class of handling by the “galvanoplastic” method—a system of copper depositby an electrical process—whereby “going over” the workafter it has been reproduced in metal is avoided.
For the execution of a marble statue the sculptor first modelsa finished preliminary sketch on a small scale in clay or wax.He then in the case of a life-size or colossal statuehas a sort of iron skeleton set up, with stout bars forthe arms and legs, fixed Clay
model.in the pose of the future figure.This is called the “armature.” It is placed on a stand, calleda chassis, with a revolving top, so that the sculptor can easilyturn the whole model round and thus work with the light on anyside of it. Over this iron skeleton well-tempered modelling-clayis laid and is modelled into shape by the help of wood and bonetools; without the sustaining assistance of the ironwork a softclay figure, if more than a few inches high, would collapse withits own weight and squeeze the lower part out of shape. Whilethe modelling is in progress it is necessary to keep the clay moistand plastic by squirting water on to it with a sort of gardensyringe capped with a finely perforated rose. When the sculptoris not at work the whole figure is kept wrapped up in dampcloths. A modern improvement is to mix the modelling-clay,not with water, but with stearin and glycerin; this, whilekeeping the clay soft and plastic, has the great advantage ofnot being wet, and so the sculptor avoids the chill and consequentrisk of rheumatism which follow from a constant manipulationof wet clay. This method, however, has not been very extensivelyadopted. When the clay model is finished it is cast inplaster. A “piece-mould”[1] is formed by applying patchesof wet plaster of Paris all over the clay statue in such a waythat they can be removed piecemeal from the model, and thenbe fitted together again, forming a complete hollow mould.The inside is then rinsed out with plaster and water mixed tothe consistency of cream till a skin of plaster is formed all overthe inner surface of the mould, and thus a hollow cast is madeof the whole figure. The “piece-mould” is then taken to piecesand the casting set free. If skilfully done by a good formatoreor moulder the plaster cast is a perfect facsimile of the originalclay, very slightly disfigured by a series of lines showing thejoints in the piece-mould, the sections of which cannot be madeto fit together with absolute precision. Many sculptors havetheir clay model cast in plaster before the modelling is quite finished, as they prefer to put the finishing touches on theplaster cast—good plaster being a very easy and pleasantsubstance to work on.
The next stage is to copy the plaster model in marble. Themodel is set on a large block called a “scale stone,” while themarble for the future statue is set upon another similar block.The plaster model is then covered with a series of marks, placedon all the most salient parts of the body, and the frontof each “scale stone” is covered with another series of Pointing
the
marble.points, exactly the same on both stones. An ingeniousinstrument called a pointing machine, which hasarms ending in metal points or “needles” that move in ball-socketjoints, is placed between the model and the marble block. Twoof its arms are then applied to the model, one touching a pointon the scale stone while the other touches a mark on the figure.The arms are fixed by screws in this position, and the machineis then revolved to the marble block, and set with its lower needletouching the corresponding point on the scale stone. The upperneedle, which is arranged to slide back on its own axis, cannotreach the corresponding point on the statue because the marbleblock is in the way; a hole is then drilled into the block at theplace and in the direction indicated by the needle, till the lattercan slide forward so as to reach a point sunk in the marble blockexactly corresponding to the point it touched on the plastermould. This process is repeated both on the model and onthe marble block till the latter is drilled with a number of holes,the bottoms of which correspond in position to the number ofmarks made on the surface of the model. A comparativelyunskilled scarpellino or “chisel-man” then sets to work and cutsaway the marble till he has reached the bottoms of all the holes,beyond which he must not cut. The statue is thus roughlyblocked out, and a more skilled scarpellino beginsto work. Partly by eye and partly with the constant The scar-pellino.help of the pointing machine, which is used to giveany required measurements, the workman almost completesthe marble statue, leaving only the finishing touches to bedone by the sculptor. In the opinion of many artists the useof the mechanical pointing-machine is responsible in a greatmeasure for the loss of life and fire in much of modernsculpture.
Among the ancient Greeks and Romans and in the medievalperiod it was the custom to give the nude parts of a marble statuea considerable degree of polish, which really suggestsPolish on the somewhat glossy surface of the human skin verymuch better than the full loaf-sugar-like surface which Polish on marble.is left on the marble by most modern sculptors. This highpolish still remains in parts of the pedimental figures from theParthenon, where, at the back, they have been specially protectedfrom the weather. The Hermes of the Vatican Belvidere is aremarkable instance of the preservation of this polish. Michelangelocarried the practice further still, and gave certain partsof some of his statues, such as the Moses, the highest possiblepolish in order to produce high lights just where he wanted them;the artistic legitimacy of this may perhaps be doubted, and inweak hands it might degenerate into mere trickery. It is,however, much to be desired that modern sculptors shouldto some extent at least adopt the classical practice, and by aslight but uniform polish remove the disagreeable crystallinegrain from all the nude parts of the marble.
A rougher method of obtaining fixed points to measure fromwas occasionally employed by Michelangelo and earlier sculptors.They immersed the model in a tank of water, the water beinggradually allowed to run out, and thus by its sinking level itgave a series of contour lines on any required number of planes.In some cases Michelangelo appears to have cut his statue outof the marble without previously making a model—a marvellousfeat of skill.
In modelling bas-reliefs the modern sculptor usually appliesthe clay to a slab of slate on which the design is sketched; theslate forms the background of the figures, and thuskeeps the relief absolutely true to one plane. Thismethod is one of the causes of the dulness and want Relief sculpture.of spirit so conspicuous in most modern sculpturedreliefs. In the best Greek examples there is no absolutely fixedplane surface for the backgrounds. In one place, to gain aneffective shadow, the Greek sculptor would cut below the averagesurface; in another he would leave the ground at a higher plane, exactly as happened to suit each portion of his design. Otherdifferences from the modern mechanical rules can easily beseen by a careful examination of the Parthenon frieze and otherGreek reliefs. Though the word “bas-relief” is now oftenapplied to reliefs of all degrees of projection from the ground, itshould, of course, only be used for those in which the projectionis slight; “basso,” “mezzo” and “alto rilievo” express threedifferent degrees of salience. Very low relief is but little usedby modern sculptors, mainly because it is much easier to obtainstriking effects with the help of more projection. Donatelloand other 1 5th-century Italian artists showed the most wonderfulskill in their treatment of very low relief. One not altogetherlegitimate method of gaining effect was practised by somemedieval sculptors: the relief itself was kept very low, but was“stilted” or projected from the ground, and then undercutall round the outline. A 15th-century tabernacle for the hostin the Brera at Milan is a very beautiful example of this method,which as a rule is not pleasing in effect, since it looks ratheras if the figures were cut out in cardboard and then stuck on (seeRelief).
The practice of most modern sculptors is to do very little tothe marble with their own hands; some, in fact, have neverreally learnt how to carve, and thus the finishedstatue is often very dull and lifeless in comparisonwith the clay model. Most of the great sculptorsSculptor’s assistants.of the middle ages left little or nothing to be done byan assistant; Michelangelo especially did the whole of thecarving with his own hands, and when beginning on a block ofmarble attacked it with such vigorous strokes of the hammerthat large pieces of marble flew about in every direction. Butskill as a carver, though very desirable, is not absolutely necessaryfor a sculptor. If he casts in bronze by the cire perdue processhe may produce the most perfect plastic works without touchinganything harder than the modelling-wax. The sculptor inmarble, however, must be able to carve a hard substance if heis to be master of his art. Unhappily some modern sculptorsnot only leave all manipulation of the marble to their workmen,but they also employ men to do their modelling, colloquiallytermed “ghosts,” the supposed sculptor supplying little ornothing but his sketch and his name to the work. The practice,however, is less common nowadays than formerly, owing mainly toone or two exposures which brought the matter sharply before thepublic. In some cases sculptors of ability who suffer under anexcess of popularity are induced to employ aid of this kind onaccount of their undertaking more work than any one man couldpossibly accomplish—a state of things which is necessarilyvery hostile to the interests of true art. As a rule, however,the sculptor’s scarpellino, though he may and often does attainthe highest skill as a Carver and can copy almost anything withwonderful fidelity, seldom develops into an original artist. Thepopular admiration for pieces of clever trickery in sculpture,such as the carving of the open meshes of a, fisherman’s net,or a chain with each link free and movable, or a veil overand half revealing the features of the face, would perhaps bediminished if it were known that such work as this is invariablydone, not by the sculptor, but by the scarpellino. Unhappilyat the present day there is, especially in England, little, appreciationof what is valuable in plastic art; there is probably no othercivilized country where the State does so little to give practicalsupport to the advancement of monumental and decorativesculpture on a large scale—the most important branch ofthe art—which it is hardly in the power of private persons tofurther.
It may here be well to say a few words on the technical methodsemployed in the execution of medieval sculpture, which in themain were very similar in England, France and Germany.When bronze was used—in England as a rule only forthe effigies of royal persons or the richer nobles—the metalMedieval methods
and
materials.was cast by the delicate cire perdue process, and the wholesurface of the figure was then thickly gilded. At Limogesin France a large number of sepulchral effigies were produced, especiallybetween 1300 and 1400, and exported to distant places. Thesewere not cast, but were made of hammered (repoussé—q.v.) plates ofcopper, nailed on a wooden core and richly decorated with champlevéenamels in various bright colours. Westminster Abbey possesses afine example, executed about 1300, in the effigy of William of Valence(d. 1296).[2] The ground on which the figure lies, the shield, the borderof the tunic, the pillow, and other parts are decorated with theseenamels very minutely treated. The rest of the copper was ilt, andthe helmet was surrounded with a coronet set with jewels, winch arenow missing. One royal effigy of later date at Westminster, that ofHenry V. (d. 1422), was formed of beaten silver fixed to an oak core,with the exception of the head, which appears to have been cast.The whole of the silver disappeared in the time of Henry VIII., andnothing now remains but the rough wooden core; hence it isdoubtful whether the silver was decorated with enamel or not; itwas probably of English workmanship.
In most cases stone was used for all sorts of sculpture, beingdecorated in a very minute and elaborate way with gold, silver andcolours applied over the whole surface. In order to give additionalrichness to this colouring the surface of the stone, often even in thecase of external sculpture, was covered with a thin skin of gesso orfine plaster mixed with size; on this, while still soft, and over thedrapery and other accessories, very delicate and minute patternswere stamped with wooden dies, and upon this the gold and colourswere applied; thus the gaudiness and monotony of fiat smoothsurfaces covered with gilding or bright colours were avoided.[3] Inaddition to this the borders of drapery and other arts of stonestatues, were frequently ornamented with crystals and false jewels, or,in a more laborious way, with holes and sinkings filled with polishedmetallic foil, on which very minute patterns were painted in transparentvarnish colours; the whole was then protected from the air bysmall pieces of transparent glass, carefully shaped to the right sizeand fixed over the foil in the cavity cut in the stone. It is difficultnow to realize the extreme splendour of this gilt, painted and jewelledsculpture, as no perfect example exists, though in many cases tracesremain of all these processes, and show that they were once verywidely applied.[4] The architectural surroundings of the figures weretreated in the same elaborate way. In the 14th century in Englandalabaster came into frequent use for monumental sculpture; it toowas decorated with gold and colour, though in some cases the wholesurface does not appear to have been so treated. In his wide use ofcoloured decoration, as in other respects, the medieval sculptor camefar nearer to the ancient Greek than do any modern artists. Eventhe use of inlay of coloured glass was common at, Athens during the5th century B.C.—as, for example, in the plait-band of some of themarble bases of the Erechtheum—and five or six centuries earlierat Tiryns and Mycenae,
Another material much used by medieval sculptors was wood,though, from its perishable nature, comparatively few early examplessurvive;[5] the best specimen is the figure of George deCantelupe (d. 1273) in Abergavenny church. This was decoratedwith gesso reliefs, gilt and coloured in the same way as the stone.The tomb of Prince flohn of Eltham (d. 1334) at Westminster is avery fine example o the early use of alabaster, both for the recumbenteffigy and also for a number of small figures of mournersall round the arcading of the tomb. These little figures, well preservedon the side which is protected by the screen, are of very greatbeauty and are executed with the most delicate minuteness someof the heads are equal to the best contemporary work of the son andpupils of Niccola Pisano. The tomb once had a high stone canopy ofopen work—arches, canopies and pinnacles—a class of architecturalsculpture of which many extremely rich examples exist, as, forinstance, the tomb of Edward II. at Gloucester, the de Spencer tombat Tewkesbury, and, of rather later style, the tomb of Lady EleanorFitzalan de Percy at Beverley. This last is remarkable for the greatrichness and beauty of its sculptured foliage, which is of the finestDecorated period and stands unrivalled by any Continental example.The condition of this shrine (erected about 1335 to 1340) is almostperfect.
On technical methods, see (specially for the explanation of modelling,&c.) Edward Lantéri, Modelling (London, vol. 1, 1903, vol. 2,1904, vol. 3, 1910), and Albert Toft, Modelling and Sculpture(London, 1910). These volumes give in detail every process andmethod of the sculptor’s craft with a fulness to be found in no otherworks of their class in the English language.
History
The following general sketch of the history of sculpture isconfined mainly to that of the middle ages and modern times.The philosophy and aesthetics of the subject—the relation ofsculpture to the other arts and the nature of its appeal to theemotions—are treated in the article Fine Arts. What is knownas “classical” sculpture is dealt with under Greek Art andRoman Art; see also, for other allied aspects, China, Art;Japan, Art; Egypt, Art; Byzantine Art, and articles onMetal-work, Ivory, Wood-Carving, &c.; the article Architectureand allied articles (e.g. Capital); and the articleson the several individual artists.
In the 4th century A.D., under the rule of Constantine’ssuccessors, the plastic arts in the Roman world reached theBury lowest point of degradation to which they ever fell.Coarse in workmanship, intensely feeble in design,and utterly without expression or life, the paganEarly Christian.sculpture of that time is merely a dull and ignorantimitation of the work of previous centuries. The old faithwas dead, and the art which had sprung from it died with it.In the same century a large amount of sculpture was producedby Christian workmen, which, though it reached no very highstandard of merit, was at least far superior to the pagan work.Although it shows no increase of technical skill or knowledgeof the human form, yet the mere fact that it was inspired andits subjects supplied by a real living, faith was quite sufficientto give it a vigour and a dramatic force, which raise it aestheticallyfar above the expiring efforts of paganism. Apart fromivories (see Ivory), a number of large marble sarcophagi are thechief existing specimens of this early Christian sculpture. Ingeneral design they are close copies of pagan tombs, and arerichly decorated outside with reliefs. The subjects of theseare usually scenes from the Old and New Testaments. From theformer those subjects were selected which were supposed tohave some typical reference to the life of Christ: the Meetingof Abraham and Melchisedec, the Sacrifice of Isaac, Danielamong the Lions, Jonah and the Whale, are those which mostfrequently occur. Among the New Testament scenes no representationsoccur of Christ’s sufferings;[6] the subjects chosenillustrate his power and beneficence: the Sermon on the Mount,the Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem, and many of his miraclesare frequently repeated. The Vatican and Lateran museumsare rich in examples of this sort. One of the finest in the formercollection was taken from the crypt of the old basilica of StPeter; it contained the body of a certain Junius Bassus, anddates from the year 359.[7] Many other similar sarcophagi weremade in the provinces of Rome, especially Gaul; and finespecimens exist in the museums of Arles, Marseilles and Aix;those found in Britain are of very inferior workmanship.Sculpture in the round, with its suggestion of idol worshipwhich was offensive to the Christian spirit, was practicallynon-existent during this and the succeeding centuries, althoughthere are a few notable exceptions, like the large bronze statue ofSt Peter[8] in the nave of St Peter’s in Rome, which is probablyof 5th-century workmanship and has much of the repose, dignityand force of antique sculpture.
Italian plastic art in the 5th century continued to create inthe spirit of the 4th century, especially reliefs in ivory (to acertain extent imitations of the later consular diptychs), whichwere used to decorate episcopal thrones or the bindings of MSS.of the Gospels. The so-called chair of St Peter, still preserved(though hidden from sight) in his great basilica, is the finestexample of the former class; of less purely classical style, datingfrom about 550, is the ivory throne of Bishop Maximianus inRavenna cathedral. Another very remarkable work of the5th century is the series of small panel reliefs on the doors ofS. Sabina on the Aventine Hill at Rome. There are scenes fromBible history carved in wood, and in them much of the oldclassic style survives.[9]
In the 6th century, under the Byzantine influence of Justinian,a new class of decorative sculpture was produced, especiallyat Ravenna. Subject reliefs do not often occur, but large slabsof marble, forming screens, altars, pulpits and the like, wereornamented in a very skilful and original way with low reliefsof graceful vine-plants, with peaco*cks and other birds drinkingout of chalices, all treated in a very able and highly decorativemanner. Byzantium, however, in the main, became the birthplaceand seat of all the medieval arts soon after the transferencethither of the headquarters of the empire (see Byzantine Art).It was natural that love of splendour and sumptuousness in theEastern capital found expression in colour and richness ofmaterial rather than in monumental impressiveness. Theschool of sculpture which arose at Byzantium in the 5th or 6thcentury was therefore essentially decorative, and not monumental;and the skill of the sculptors was most successfullyapplied to work in metals and ivory, and the carving of foliageon capitals and bands of ornament, possessed of the very highestdecorative power and executed with unrivalled spirit andvigour. The early Byzantine treatment of the acanthus orthistle, as seen in the capitals of S. Sophia at Constantinople,the Golden Gate at Jerusalem, and many other buildings in theEast, has never since been surpassed in any purely decorativesculpture; and it is interesting to note how it grew out of thedull and lifeless ornamentation which covers the degradedCorinthian capital used so largely in Roman buildings of thetime of Constantine and his sons.
Till about the 12th century, and in some places much laterthe art of Byzantium dominated that of the whole Christianworld in a very remarkable way. The spread of thisart was to a great extent due to the iconoclast riotswhich not only led to the destruction of images andInfluence of Byzantine art.works of art, but threatened the very life of the artistsand craftsmen, who thereupon sought refuge in foreign countries,especially at the court of Charlemagne, and for several centuriesdetermined the course of European art. From Russia to Irelandand from Norway to Spain any given work of art in one of thecountries of Europe might almost equally well have been designedin any other. Few or no local characteristics or peculiaritiescan be detected, except of course in the methods of execution,and even these were wonderfully similar everywhere. Thedogmatic unity of the Catholic Church and its great monasticsystem, with constant interchange of monkish craftsmen betweenone country and another, were the chief causes of this widespreadmonotony of style. An additional reason was the unrivalledtechnical skill of the early Byzantines, which made their citywidely resorted to by the artist-craftsmen of all Europe—thegreat school for learning any branch of the arts.
The extensive use of the precious metals for the chief worksof plastic art in this early period is one of the reasons why sofew examples still remain—their great intrinsic value naturallycausing their destruction. One of the most important existingexamples, dating from the 8th century, is a series of colossalwall reliefs executed in hard stucco in the church of Cividale(Friuli) not far from Trieste. These represent rows of femalesaints bearing jewelled crosses, crowns and wreaths, and closelyresembling in costume, attitude and arrangement the gift-bearingmosaic figures of Theodora and her ladies in S. Vitale at Ravenna.It is a striking instance of the almost petrified state of Byzantineart that so close a similarity should be possible between worksexecuted at an interval of fully two hundred years. Somevery interesting small plaques of ivory in the library of St Gallshow a still later survival of early forms. The central reliefis a figure of Christ in Majesty, closely resembling those in thecolossal apse mosaic of S. Apollinare in Classe and other churches of Ravenna; while the figures below the Christ are survivalsof a still older time, dating back from the best eras of classic art.A river-god is represented as an old man holding an urn, fromwhich a stream issues, and a reclining female figure with aninfant and a cornucopia is the old Roman Tellus or Earth-goddesswith her ancient attributes.[10]
While the countries of the north could not altogether resistthe rising tide of Byzantinism, in Scandinavia, and to a greatextent in England, the autochthonous art was notaltogether obliterated during the early middle ages. InEngland, during the Saxon period, when stone buildingswere rare and even large cathedrals were built ofNorse and Celtic influences
in England.wood, the plastic arts were mostly confined to the use ofgold, silver, and gilt copper. The earliest existing specimensof sculpture in stone are a number of tall churchyard crosses,mostly in the northern provinces and apparently the work ofScandinavian sculptors. One very remarkable example is atall monolithic cross, cut in sandstone, in the churchyard ofGosforth in Cumberland. It is covered with rudely carvedreliefs, small in scale, which are of special interest as showinga transitional state from the worship of Odin to that of Christ.Some of the old Norse symbols and myths sculptured on itoccur modified and altered into a semi-Christian form. Thoughrich in decorative effect and with a graceful outline, this sculpturedcross shows a very primitive state of artistic development,as do the other crosses of this class in Cornwall, Ireland andScotland, which are mainly ornamented with those ingeniouslyintricate patterns of interlacing knotwork designed so skilfullyby both the early Norse and the Celtic races.[11] They belongto a class of art which is not Christian in its origin, though itwas afterwards largely used for Christian purposes, and so isthoroughly national in style, quite free from the usual widespreadByzantine influence. Of special interest from their early date—probablythe 11th century—are two large stone reliefs now inChichester cathedral, which are traditionally said to have comefrom the pre-Norman church at Selsey. They are thoroughlyByzantine in style, but evidently the work of some very ignorantsculptor; they represent two scenes in the Raising of Lazarus;the figures are stiff, attenuated and ugly, the pose very awkward,and the drapery of exaggerated Byzantine character, with longthin folds. To represent the eyes pieces of glass or colouredenamel were inserted; the treatment of the hair in long ropeliketwists suggests a metal rather than a stone design.
The Romanesque period in art was essentially one of architecturalactivity. The spirit of the time did not encouragethat individual thought which alone can producea great development of sculpture and painting. Thusthe plastic art of the 11th and 12th centuries, whichwas still entirely at the service and under the rule ofRomanesque sculpture.the Church, was strictly confined to conventional symbols, ideasand forms. It is based, not on the study of nature, but onthe late Roman reliefs. The treatment of the figures, thoughoften rude and clumsy, and sometimes influenced by Byzantinestiffness, is on the whole dignified, solemn and serious, and bentupon the expression of the typical, and not of the individual.The tympana of the porches, the capitals of columns and thepulpits and choir-screens of the Romanesque churches, and, ona smaller scale, the ivory carvings for book-covers and portableminiature altars, provided the field for the Romanesque sculptorsactivity.
In Italy the strong current of hierarchal Byzantinism hadnever altogether supplanted the antique tradition, though theworks based upon the latter, before Niccola Pisano revivedfor a short while the true spirit of the antique, are of almostbarbaric rudeness, like the bronze gates of S. Zeno at Verona, andthe stone-carving of The Last Supper on the pulpit ofItaly.S. Ambrogio, in Milan. The real home of Romanesquesculpture was beyond the Alps, in Germany and France, andmuch of the work done in Italy during the 12th century wasactually due to northern sculptors—as, for example, the veryrude sculpture on the façade of S. Andrea at Pistoia, executedabout 1186 by Gruamons and his brother Adeodatus,[12] or therelief by Benedetto Antelami for the pulpit of Parma cathedralof the year 1178. Unlike the sculpture of the Pisani and laterartists, these early figures are thoroughly secondary to thearchitecture they are designed to decorate; they are evidentlythe work of men who were architects first and sculptors in asecondary degree. After the 13th century the reverse wasusually the case, and, as at the west end of Orvieto cathedral, thesculptured decorations are treated as being of primary importance—notthat the Italian sculptor-architect ever allowed his statuesor reliefs to weaken or damage their architectural surroundings,as is unfortunately the case with much modern sculpture. Insouthern Italy, during the 13th century, there existed a schoolof sculpture resembling that of France, owing probably to theNorman occupation. The pulpit in the cathedral of Ravello,executed by Nicolo di Bartolommeo di Foggia in 1272, is animportant work of this class; it is enriched with very noblesculpture, especially a large female head crowned with a richlyfoliated Coronet, and combining lifelike vigour with largenessof style in a very remarkable way. The bronze doors at Monreale(by Barisanus of Trani), Pisa and elsewhere are among thechief works of plastic art in Italy during the 12th century.The history of Italian sculpture of the best period is given to agreat extent in the separate articles on the Pisani and otherItalian artists. Here it suffices to say that sculpture neverbecame as completely subservient to architecture, as it did inthe north, and that with Giovanni Pisano the almost classicrepose and dignity of his father Niccola’s style gave way—probablyowing to northern influences—to an increasedsense of life and freedom and dramatic expression. Niccolastands at the close of the Romanesque, and Giovanni on thethreshold of the Gothic period. During the 13th century Romeand the central provinces of Italy produced very few sculptorsof ability, almost the only men of note being the Cosmati.
The power acquired by Germany under the Saxon emperors;upon whom had descended the mantle of the Roman Caesarswas the chief reason that led to the great developmentof Romanesque art in Germany. It is true that,in the 11th century, Byzantine influences stifled thespontaneous naïveté of the earlier work; but about theGerman bronze work.end of the 12th century a new free and vital art arose, based upona better understanding of the antique, and fostered by the riseof feudalism and the prosperity of the cities. Next in importanceto the numerous examples of German Romanesque ivory carvingsare the works in bronze, in the technique of which the Germancraftsmen of the pre-Gothic period stand unrivalled. This isseen in the bronze pillar reliefs and other works, notably thebronze gates of Hildesheim Cathedral, produced by BishopBernward (d. 1022) after his visit to Rome. Hildesheim,Cologne and the whole of the Rhine provinces were the mostactive seats of German sculpture, especially in metal, till therzth century. Many remarkable pieces of bronze sculpturewere produced at the end of that period, of which several specimensexist. The bronze font at Liége, with figure-subjectsin relief of various baptismal scenes from the New Testament,by Lambert Patras of Dinant, cast about 1112, is a work of mostwonderful beauty and perfection for its time; other fonts inOsnabrück, by Master Gerhard, and Hildesheim cathedrals aresurrounded by spirited reliefs, fine in conception, but inferiorin beauty to those on the Liége font. Fine bronze candelabraexist in the abbey church of Combourg and at Aix-la-Chapelle, the latter of about 1165. Merseburg cathedral has a strangerealistic sepulchral figure of Rudolf of Swabia, executed about1100; and at Magdeburg is a fine effigy, also in bronze, of BishopFrederick (d.1152), treated in a more graceful way. The lastfigure has a peculiarity which is not uncommon in the olderbronze reliefs of Germany: the body is treated as a relief, whilethe head sticks out and is quite detached from the ground in avery awkward way. One of the finest plastic works of thiscentury is the choir screen of Hildesheim cathedral, executedin hard stucco, one rich with gold and colours; on its lowerpart is a series of large reliefs of saints modelled with almostclassical breadth and nobility, with drapery of especial excellence.In the 13th century German sculpture had made considerableartistic progress, but it did not reach the high standard ofFrance. One of the best examples of the transition period fromGerman Romanesque to Gothic is the “golden gate” of Freiburgcathedral, with sculptured figures on the jambs after the Frenchfashion. The statues of the apostles on the nave pillars, andespecially one of the Madonna at the east end (1260–1270),possess great beauty and sculpturesque breadth. Of the sameperiod, and kindred in style and feeling, are the reliefs on theeastern choir-screen in Bamberg cathedral.
France is comparatively poor in characteristic examplesof Romanesque sculpture, as the time of the greatest activitycoincides with the beginnings of the Gothic style, sothat in many cases, as for instance on the porchesof Bourges and Chartres cathedrals, Romanesque and Gothicfeatures occur side by side and make it impossible to establish aFrance.clear demarcation between the two. Among the most importantRomanesque monuments of the early 12th century are thesculptures on the porch of the abbey church of Conques, representingthe Last Judgment; the somewhat barbaric tympanumof Autun cathedral (c. 1130); and that of the church ofMoissac.
During the 12th and 13th centuries the prodigious activityof the cathedral builders of France and their rivalry to outshineeach other in the richness of the sculptured decorations, led tothe glorious development that culminated in the full flowerof Gothic art. The façades of large cathedrals were completelycovered with sculptured reliefs and thick-set rows of statuesin niches. The whole of the front was frequently one hugecomposition of statuary, with only sufficient purely architecturalwork to form a background and frame for the sculptured figures.A west end treated like that of Wells cathedral, which is almostunique in England, is not uncommon in France. Even the shaftsof the doorways and other architectural accessories were coveredwith minute sculptured decoration,—the motives of whichwere often, especially during the 12th century, obviously derivedfrom the metal-work of shrines and reliquaries studded withrows of jewels. The west façade of Poitiers cathedral is one ofthe richest examples; it has large surfaces covered with foliatedcarving and rows of colossal statues, both seated and standing,reaching high up the front of the church. Of the same century(the 12th), but rather later in date, is the very noble sculptureon the three western doors of Chartres cathedral, with finetympanum reliefs and colossal statues (all once covered withpainting and gold) attached to the jamb-shafts of the openings.These latter figures, with their exaggerated height and thelong straight folds of their drapery, are designed with greatskill to assist and not to break the main upward lines of thedoorways. The sculptors have willingly sacrificed the beauty andproportion of each separate statue for the sake of the architectoniceffect of the whole façade. The heads, however, are full ofnobility, beauty, and even grace, especially those that aresoftened by the addition of long wavy curls, which give reliefto the general stiffness of the form. The sculptured doors ofthe north and south aisles of Bourges cathedral are fine examplesof the end of the 12th century, and so were the west doors ofNotre Dame in Paris till they were hopelessly injured by“restoration.” The early sculpture at Bourges is speciallyinteresting from the existence in many parts of its originalcoloured decoration.
Romanesque sculpture in England, during the Normanperiod, was of a very rude sort and generally used for thetympanum reliefs over the doors of churches. Christin Majesty, the Harrowing of Hell and St Georgeand the Dragon occur very frequently. Reliefs of thezodiacal signs were a common decoration of theNorman period in England.richly sculptured arches of the 12th century, and are frequentlycarved with much power. The later Norman sculptured ornamentsare very rich and spirited, though the treatment of thehuman figure is still very weak.[13]
The best-preserved examples of monumental sculpture ofthe 12th century are a number of effigies of knights-templarsin the round Temple church in London.[14] They are laboriouslycut in hard Purbeck marble, and much resemble bronze in theirtreatment; the faces are clumsy, and the whole figures stiffand heavy in modelling; but they are valuable examples ofthe military costume of the time, the armour being purelychain-mail. Another effigy in the same church cut in stone,once decorated with painting, is a much finer piece of sculptureof about a century later. The head, treated in an ideal waywith wavy curls, has much simple beauty, showing a greatartistic advance. Another of the most remarkable effigies ofthis period is that of Robert, duke of Normandy (d.1134),in Gloucester cathedral, carved with much spirit in oak, anddecorated with painting. The realistic trait of the crossedlegs, which occurs in many of these effigies, heralds the nearadvent of Gothic art. Most rapid progress in all the arts,especially that of sculpture, was made in England in the secondhalf of the 13th and the beginning of the 14th century, largelyunder the patronage of HenryIII., who employed and handsomelyrewarded a large number of English artists, and also importedothers from Italy and Spain, though these foreigners took onlya secondary position among the painters and sculptors of England.The end of the 13th century was in fact the culminating periodof English art, and at this time a very high degree of excellencewas reached by purely national means, quite equalling and evensurpassing the general average of art on the Continent, exceptperhaps in France. Even Niccola Pisano could not have surpassedthe beauty and technical excellence of the two bronzeeffigies in Westminster Abbey modelled and cast by WilliamTorell, a goldsmith and citizen of London, shortly beforethe year 1300. These are on the tombs of HenryIII. and QueenEleanor (wife of EdwardI.), and, though the tomb itself of theformer is an Italian work of the Cosmati school, there is no traceof foreign influence in the figures. At this time portrait effigieshad not come into general use, and both figures are treatedin an ideal way.[15] The crowned head of HenryIII., with noblewell-modelled features and crisp wavy curls, resembles theconventional royal head on English coins of this and the followingcentury, while the head of Eleanor is of remarkable, almostclassic, beauty, and of great interest as showing the ideal typeof the 13th century. In both cases the drapery is well conceivedin broad sculpturesque folds, graceful and yet simple in treatment.The casting of these figures, which was effected by thecire perdue process, is technically very perfect. The gold employedfor the gilding was got from Lucca in the shape of thecurrent Horins of that time, which were famed for their purity.Torell was highly paid for this, as well as for two other bronzestatues of Queen Eleanor, probably of the same design.
Although the difference between fully developed Gothicsculpture and Romanesque sculpture is almost as clearly markedas the difference between Gothic and Romanesque architecture— indeed, the evolution of the two arts proceeded in parallel stages—thechange from the earlier to the later style is so gradual andalmost imperceptible, that it is all but impossible to follow itstep by step, and to illustrate it by examples. What distinguishesthe Gothic from the Romanesque in sculpture is the striving toachieve individual in the place of typical expression. Thisstriving is as apparent in the more flexible and emotional treatmentof the human figure, as it is in the substitution of naturalisticplant and animal forms for the more conventional ornamentationof the earlier centuries. Statuesque architectonic dignity andcalmness are replaced by slender grace and soulful expression.The drapery, instead of being arranged in heavy folds, clingsto the body and accentuates rather than conceals the form.At the same time, the subjects treated by the Gothic sculptordo not depart to any marked degree from those which fell tothe task of the Romanesque workers, though they are broughtmore within the range of human emotions.
It is only natural that in France, which was the birthplace ofGothic architecture, the sister art of sculpture should haveattained its earliest and most striking development.During the 13th century, the imagiers, or stonesculptors, worked hand in hand with the great cathedralbuilders. This century may indeed Gothic sculp-ture in France.be called thegolden age of Gothic sculpture.
While still keeping its early dignity and subordination toits architectural setting, the sculpture reached a very highdegree of graceful inish and even sensuous beauty. Nothingcould surpass the loveliness of the angel statues round theSainte Chapelle in Paris, and even the earlier work on the façadeof Laon cathedral is full of grace and delicacy. Amiens cathedralis especially rich in sculpture of this date,—as, for example,the noble and majestic statues of Christ and the Apostles atthe west end; the sculpture on the south transept of about1260–1270, of more developed style, is remarkable for dignitycombined with soft beauty.[16] The noble row of kings on thewest end of Notre Dame at Paris has, like the earlier sculpture,been ruined by “restoration,” which has robbed the statuesof both their spirit and their vigour. To the latter years of the13th century belong the magnificent series of statues and reliefsround the three great western doorways of the same church,among which are no fewer than thirty-four life-sized figures.On the whole, the single statues throughout this period are finerthan the reliefs with many figures. Some of the statues of theVirgin and Child are of extraordinary beauty, in spite of theirbeing often treated with a certain mannerism—a curved poseof the body, which appears to have been copied from ivorystatuettes, in which the figure followed the curve of the elephant'stusk. The north transept at Rheims is no less rich: the centralstatue of Christ is a work of much grace and nobility of form;and some nude figures—for example, that of St Sebastian showa knowledge of the human body which was very unusualat that early date. Many of these Reims statues, like thoseby Torell at Westminster, are quite equal to the best workof Niccola Pisano. The abbey church of St Denis possessesthe largest collection of French 13th-century monumentaleffigies, a large number of which, with supposed portraits of theearly kings, were made during the rebuilding of the church in1264; some of them appear to be “archaistic” copies of oldercontemporary statues.[17]
In the 14th century French sculpture began to decline, thoughmuch beautiful plastic work was still produced. Some of thereliefs on the choir screen of Notre Dame at Paris belong to thisperiod, as does also much fine sculpture on the transepts ofRouen cathedral and the west end of Lyons. At the end of thiscentury an able sculptor from the Netherlands, Claus slu*ter(who followed the tradition of the 14th-century school of Tournai,which is marked by the exquisite study of the details of natureand led to the brilliant development of Flemish realism), executedmuch fine work, especially at Dijon, under the patronage ofPhilip the Bold, for whose newly founded Carthusian monasteryin 1399 he sculptured the great “Moses fountain” in the cloister,with six life-sized statues of prophets in stone, painted and giltin the usual medieval fashion. Not long before his death in 1411slu*ter completed a very magnificent altar tomb for Philipthe Bold, now in the museum at Dijon. It is of white marble,surrounded with arcading, which contains about forty small alabasterfigures representing mourners of all classes, executedwith much dramatic power. The recumbent portrait effigy ofPhilip in his ducal mantle with folded hands is a work of greatpower and delicacy of treatment.[18]
Whilst in France there was a distinct slackening in buildingactivity in the 14th century, which led to a correspondingdecline in sculpture, Germany experienced a reawakeningof artistic creative energy and power. That the style had taken root on German soil in thepreceding century, is proved by the fresh, mobileGerman 13th-century Gothic sculpture.treatment of the statues on the south porch of the east façadeof Bamberg cathedral, and even more by the equestrian statueof ConradIII. in the market-place at Bamberg, which supportedby a foliated corbel, exhibits startling vigour and originality,and is designed with wonderful largeness of effect, though smallin scale. The statues of Henry the Lion and Queen Matildaat Brunswick, of about the same period, are of the highest beautyand dignity of expression. Strassburg cathedral, though sadlydamaged by restoration, still possesses a large quantity of thefinest sculpture of the 13th century. One tympanum relief ofthe Death of the Virgin, surrounded by the sorrowing Apostles,is a work of the very highest beauty, worthy to rank with thebest Italian sculpture of even a later period. Of its class nothingcan surpass the purely decorative carving at Strassburg, withvaried realistic foliage studied from nature, evidently with thekeenest interest and enjoyment.
But such works were only isolated manifestations of Germanartistic genius, until, in the next century, sculpture rose to newand splendid life, though it found expression not so much inthe composition of extensive groups, as in the neighbouringFrance, but in the carving of isolated figures of rare and subtlebeauty.
Nuremberg is rich in good sculpture of the 14th century.The church of St Sebald, the Frauenkirche, and the west façadeof St Lawrence are lavishly decorated with reliefs and statues,very rich in effect, but showing the germs of that mannerismwhich grew so strong in Germany during the 15th century.Of special beauty are the statuettes which adorn the “beautifulfountain,” which was formerly erroneously attributed to theprobably mythical sculptor Sebald Schonhofer, and is decoratedwith gold and colour by the painter Rudolf.[19] Of considerableimportance are the statues of Christ, the Virgin, and the Apostleson the piers in the choir of Cologne cathedral, which werecompleted after 1350. They are particularly notable for theiradmirable polychromatic treatment. The reliefs on the highaltar, which are of later date, are wrought in white marble ona background of black marble. Augsburg produced severalsculptors of ability about this time; the museum possessessome very noble wooden statues of this school, large in scaleand dignified in treatment. On the exterior of the choir of thechurch of Marienburg castle is a very remarkable colossal figureof the Virgin of about 1340–1350. Like the Hildesheim choirscreen, it is made of hard stucco and is decorated with glassmosaics. The equestrian bronze group of St George and theDragon in the market-place at Prague is excellent in workmanshipand full of vigour, though much wanting dignity of style.Another fine work in bronze of about the same date is the effigyof Archbishop Conrad (d.1261) in Cologne cathedral, executedmany years after his death. The portrait appeals truthful andthe whole figure is noble in style. The military effigies of thistime in Germany as elsewhere were almost unavoidably stiffand lifeless from the necessity of representing them in plate armour. The ecclesiastical chasuble, in which priestly efligiesnearly always appear, is also a thoroughly unsculpturesqueform of drapery, both from its awkward shape and its absenceof folds. The Günther of Schwarzburg (d. 1349) in Frankfortcathedral is a characteristic example of these sepulchral effigiesin slight relief.
In England, much of the fine 13th-century sculpture wasused to decorate the façades of churches, though, on the whole,English cathedral architecture did not offer such greatopportunities to the imagier as did that of France.A notable exception is Wells cathedral, the west end ofwhich, dating from about the middle of the century,Architectural sculpture in England.is covered with more than 600 figures in the roundor in relief, arranged in tiers, and of varying sizes. The tympanaof the doorways are filled with reliefs, and above them standrows of colossal statues of kings and queens, bishops and knights,and saints both male and female, all treated very skilfully withnobly arranged drapery, and graceful heads designed in athoroughly architectonic way, with due regard to the main linesof the building they are meant to decorate. In this respectthe early medieval sculptor inherited one of the great meritsof the Greeks of the best period: his figures or reliefs form anessential part of the design of the building to which they areaffixed, and are treated in a subordinate manner to their architecturalsurroundings-very different from most of the sculptureon modern buildings, which frequently looks as if it had beenstuck up as an afterthought, and frequently by its violent andincongruous lines is rather an impertinent excrescence thanan ornament.[20] Peterborough, Lichfield and Salisbury cathedralshave hue examples of the sculpture of the 13th century: in thechapter-house of the last the spandrels of the wall-arcade arefilled with sixty reliefs of subjects from Bible history, all treatedwith much grace and refinement. To the end of the samecentury belong the celebrated reliefs of angels in the spandrelsof the choir arches at Lincoln, carved in a large massive way withgreat strength of decorative effect. Other fine reliefs of angels,executed about 1260, exist in the transepts of WestminsterAbbey; being high from the ground, they are broadly treatedwithout any high finish in the details.[21]
Purely decorative carving in stone reached its highest pointof excellence about the middle of the 14th century-rather later,that is, than the best period of figure sculpture. Wood-carving(q.v.), on the other hand, reached its artistic climax a full centurylater under the influence of the fully developed Perpendicularstyle.
The most important effigies of the 14th century are thosein gilt bronze of Edward III. (d. 1377) and of Richard II. andhis queen (made in 1395), all at Westminster. They are allportraits, but are decidedly inferior to the earlier work of WilliamTorell. The effigies of RichardII. and Anne of Bohemia werethe work of Nicolas Broker and Godfred Prest, goldsmith citizensof London. Another fine bronze effigy is at Canterbury on thetomb of the Black Prince (d. 1376); though well cast and withcarefully modelled armour, it is treated in a somewhat dulland conventional way. The recumbent stone figure of LadyArundel, with two angels at her head, in Chichester cathedral isremarkable for its calm peaceful pose and the beauty of thedrapery. Among the most perfect works of this descriptionis the alabaster tomb of Ralph Nevill, first earl of Westmorland,with figures of himself and his two wives, in Staindrop church,county Durham (1426), removed, 1908, from a dark corner ofthe church into full light, a few feet away, where its beautymay now be examined. A very fine but more realistic work isthe tomb figure of William of Wykeham (d. 1404) in the cathedralat Winchester. The cathedrals at Rochester, Lichfield, York,Lincoln, Exeter and many other ecclesiastical buildings inEngland are rich in examples of 14th-century sculpture,used occasionally with great profusion and richness of effect,but treated in strict subordination to the architecturalbackground.
The finest piece of bronze sculpture of the 15th-century isthe effigy of Richard Beauchamp (d. 1439) in his family chapelat Warwick—a noble portrait figure, richly decorated withengraved ornaments. The modelling and casting were doneby William Austen of London, and the gilding and engravingby a Netherlands goldsmith who had settled in London, namedBartholomew Lambespring, assisted by several other skilfulartists.
The first Spanish sculptor of real eminence who need beconsidered is Aparicio, who lived and worked in the 11th century.His shrine of St Millan, executed to the order of DonSancho the Great is in the monastery of Yuso, and isa composition excellent, in its way, in design, grace and proportion.In the early medieval period the sculpture of northernSpain.Spain was much influenced by contemporary art in France.From the 12th to the 14th century many French architectsand sculptors visited and worked in Spain. The cathedral ofSantiago de Compostella possesses one of the grandest existingspecimens in the world of late 12th-century architectonicsculpture; this, though the work of a native artist, MasteiMateo,[22] is thoroughly French in style; as recorded by an inscriptionon the front, it was completed in 1188. The whole of thewestern portal with its three doorways is covered with statuesand reliefs, all richly decorated with colour, part of which stillremains. Round the central arch are figures of the twenty-fourelders, and in the tympanum a very noble relief of Christ inMajesty between Saints and Angels. As at Chartres, the jamb shaftsof the doorways are decorated with standing statues ofsaints—St James the elder, the patron of the church, beingattached to the central pillar. These noble figures, thoughtreated in a somewhat rigid manner, are thoroughly subordinateto the main lines of the building. Their heads, with pointedbeards and a fixed mechanical smile, together with the stiffdrapery arranged in long narrow folds, recall the Aeginetanpediment sculpture of about 500 B.c. This appears strange atfirst sight, but the fact is that the 'works of the early Greek andthe medieval Spaniard were both produced at a somewhatsimilar stage in two far distant periods of artistic development.In both cases plastic art was freeing itself from the bonds of -a.hieratic archaism, and had reached one of the last steps in adevelopment which in the one case culminated in the perfectionof the Phidian age, and in the other led to the exquisitelybeautiful yet simple and reserved art of the end of the 13thand early part of the 14th century-the golden age of sculpturein France and England. In the cathedral of Tarragonaare nine statues, in stone, executed by Bartolomé in 1278 forthe gate.
In the 14th century the silversmiths of Spain produced manyworks of sculpture of great size and technical power. One ofthe finest, by a Valencian called Peter Bernec, is the great silverretable at Gerona cathedral. It is divided into three tiers ofstatuettes and reliefs, richly framed in canopied niches, all ofsilver, partly cast and partly hammered.
In the 15th century an infusion of German influence wasmixed with that of France, as may be seen in the very richsculptural decorations which adorn the main door of Salamancacathedral, the façade of S. Juan at Valladolid, and the churchand cloisters of S. Juan de los Reyes at Toledo, perhaps the mostgorgeous examples of architectural sculpture in the world.These were executed between 1418 and 1425 by a group ofclever sculptors, among whom A. and F. Diaz, A. F. de Sahagun,A. Rodriguez and A. Gonzales were perhaps the chief. Themarble altar-piece of the grand altar at Tarragona was begun
(Photo, Brogi.) | (Photo, Anderson.) |
JACOPO DELLA QUERCIA—Tomb, Ilaria del Carretto, Lucca. | DONATELLO—Equestrian Statue, General Gattamelata, Padua. |
(Photo, Alinari.) | (Photo, Alinari.) | (Photo, Anderson.) |
ANDREA PISANO—The first bronze door of the Baptistery, Florence. | DONATELLO—Statue of St George, Florence. | MICHELANGELO—Head of Colossal David, Florence. |
(Photo, Anderson.) | (Photo, Anderson.) |
VERROCCHIO & LEOPARDI—Bronze Colossal Statue of Bartolommeo Colleoni, Venice. | LUCA DELLA ROBBIA—Girls and boys playing on musical instruments and dancing (Museo dell' Opera, Florence). |
(Photo, Alinari.) | (Photo, Wurthle & Sohn.) | (Photo, Anderson.) |
BENVENUTO CELLINI—Bronze Statue of Perseus and Medusa, in the Loggia dei Lanzi, Florence. | PETER VISCHER—Gilt Bronze Statue of King Arthur, Florence. | BERNINI—Apollo and Daphne (Borghese Gallery). |
(Photo, Giraudon.) | (Photo, Löwy.) |
JEAN GOUJON—Diane de Poitiers (as Huntress), in the Louvre. | CANOVA—Colossal Marble Group of Theseus and Centaur, Vienna. |
(Photo, Giraudon.) | (Photo, Giraudon.) |
HOUDON—Voltaire (Théàtre Français, Paris). | COYSEVOX—Bust of himself, in the Louvre. |
by P. Juan in 1426 and completed by G. De La Mota. Thecarved foliage of this period is of especial beauty and spiritedexecution; realistic forms of plant-growth are mingled withother more conventional foliage in the most masterly manner.The very noble bronze monument of Archdeacon Pelayo (d.1490)in Burgos cathedral was probably the work of Simon of Cologne,who was also architect of the Certosa at Miraflores, 2m. fromBurgos. The church of this monastery contains two of the mostmagnificently rich monuments in the world, especially thealtar-tomb of King John II. and his queen by Gil de Siloe—aperfect marvel of rich alabaster canopy-work and intricateunder-cutting. The effigies have little merit. From the 16thcentury onwards wood was a favourite material with Spanishsculptors, who employed it for devotional and historical groupsrealistically treated, such as the “Scene from Taking of Granada”by El Maestre Rodrigo, and even for portraiture, as in the Bustof Turiano by Alonzo Berruguete (1480–1561).
During the 14th century Florence and the neighbouringcities were the chief centres of Italian sculpture, and therenumerous sculptors of successively increasing artisticpower lived and worked, till in the 15th century thecity had become the aesthetic capital of the world.Gothic sculpture
in Italy.But the Gothic sculptor’s activity was by no meansconfined to Tuscany, for in northern Italy various schoolsof sculpture existed in the 14th century, especially at Veronaand Venice, whose art differed widely from the contemporaryart of Tuscany; but Milan and Pavia, on the other hand, possessedsculptors who followed closely the style of the Pisani. The chiefexamples of the latter class are the magnificent shrine of StAugustine in the cathedral of Pavia, dated 1362, and the somewhatsimilar shrine of Peter the Martyr (1339), by Balduccioof Pisa, in the church of S.Eustorgio at Milan, both of whitemarble, decorated in the most lavish way with statuettes andsubject reliefs. Many other fine pieces of the Pisan school existin Milan. The well-known tombs of the Scaliger family atVerona show a more native style of design, and in general form,though not in detail, suggest the influence of trans alpine Gothic.In Venice the northern and almost French character of muchof the early 15th-century sculpture is more strongly marked,especially in the noble figures in high relief which decoratethe lower story and angles of the doge’s palace;[23] these are.mostly the work of a Venetian named Bartolomeo Bon. Amagnificent marble tympanum relief by Bon can be seen at theVictoria and Albert Museum; it has a noble colossal figureof the Madonna, who shelters under her mantle a number ofkneeling worshippers; the background is enriched with foliageand heads, forming a “lesse tree,” designed with great decorativeskill. The cathedral of Como, built at the very end of the 15thcentury, is decorated with good sculpture of almost Gothicstyle, but on the whole rather dull and mechanical in detail,like much of the sculpture in the extreme north of Italy. Alarge quantity of rich sculpture was produced in Naples duringthe 14th century, but of no great merit either in design or inexecution. The lofty monument of King Robert (1350), behindthe high altar of S.Chiara, and other tombs in the same churchare the most conspicuous works of this period. The extraordinarypoverty in the production of sculpture in Rome during the 14thcentury was remarkable. The clumsy effigies at the north-eastof S.Maria in Trastevere are striking examples of the degradationof the plastic art there about the year 1400; and it was nottill nearly the middle of the century that the arrival of ableFlorentine sculptors, such as Filarete, Mino da Fiesole, and thePollaiuoli, initiated a brilliant era of artistic activity, which,however, for about a century continued to depend on the presenceof sculptors from Tuscany and other northern provinces. Itwas not, in fact, till the period of full decadence had begun thatRome itself produced any notable artists.
In Florence, the centre of artistic activity during the 15thas well as the 14th century, Giotto not only inaugurated themodern era of painting, but in his relief sculpture, and moreparticularly by the influence he exercised upon Andrea Pisano,carried the art of sculpture beyond the point where it had beenleft by Giovanni Pisano. In Andrea we find something ofNiccola’s classic dignity grafted on to Giovanni’s close observationof nature. His greatest works are the bronze south gate of theBaptistery, and some of the reliefs on Giotto’s Campanile. Thelast great master of the Gothic period is Andrea di Cione, betterknown as Orcagna (1308? to 1368), who, like Giotto, achievedfame in the three sister arts of painting, sculpture and architecture.His wonderful tabernacle at Or San Michele is a nobletestimony to his efficiency in the three arts and to his earlytraining as a goldsmith. Very beautiful sepulchral effigies inlow relief were produced in many parts of Italy, especially atFlorence. The tomb of Lorenzo Acciaioli, in the Certosa nearFlorence, is a fine example of about the year 1400, which hasabsurdly been attributed to Donatello. The similarity betweenthe plastic arts of Athens in the 5th or 4th centuryB.C. and ofFlorence in the 15th century is not one of analogy only. Thoughfree from any touch of copyism, there are many points in theworks of such men as Donatello, Luca della Robbia, and AntonioPisano which strongly recall the sculpture of ancient Greece,and suggest that, if a sculptor of the later Fhidian school had beensurrounded by the same types of face and costume as thoseamong which the Italians lived, he would have produced plasticworks closely resembling those of the great Florentine masters.Lorenzo Ghiberti may be called the first of the great sculptorsof the Renaissance. But between him and Orcagna standsanother master, the Sienese, Jacopo della Quercia[24] (1371–1438)who, although in some minor traits connected with theGothic school, heralds at this early date the boldest and mostvigorous and original achievements of two generations hence.Indeed, Jacopo, whose chief works are the Fonte Gaja at Siena(now reconstructed) and the reliefs on the gate of S.Petronioat Bologna, stands in his strong muscular treatment of thehuman figure nearer to Michelangelo than to his Gothic precursorsand contemporaries. Contemporaneously with Ghiberti,the sculptor of the world-famed baptistery gates, and withDonatello, and to a certain extent influenced by them, workedsome men who, like Ciuffa*gni, were still essentially Gothic intheir style, or, like Nanni di Banco, retained unmistakabletraces of the earlier manner. Luca della Robbia, the founderof a whole dynasty of sculptors in glazed terra-cotta, with hisclassic purity of style and sweetness of expression, came nextin order. Unsensual beauty elevated by religious spirit wasattained in the highest degree by Mino da Fiesole, the twoRossellini, Benedetto da Maiano, Desiderio da Settignano andother sculptors more or less directly influenced by Donatello.Through them the tomb monument received the definite formwhich it retained throughout the Renaissance period. Twoof the noblest equestrian statues the world has probably everseen are the Gattamelata statue at Padua by Donatello and thestatue of Colleoni at Venice by Verrocchio and Leopardi. Athird, which was probably of equal beauty, was modelled in clayby Leonardo da Vinci, but it no longer exists. Among othersculptors who flourished in Italy about the middle of the 15thcentury, are the Lucchese Matteo Civitali; Agostino di Duccio(1418–c.1481), whose principal works are to be found at Riminiand Perugia; the bronze-worker Bertoldo di Giovanni (1420–1491);Antonio del Pollaiuolo, the author of the tombs of popesSixtus IV. and Innocent VIII. at St Peter’s in Rome; andFrancesco Laurana (1424–1501?), a Dalmatian who workedunder Brunelleschi and left many traces of his activity in Naples(Triumphal Arch), Sicily and southern France. Finally cameMichelangelo, who raised the sculpture of the modern worldto its highest pitch of magnificence, and at the same time sowedthe seeds of its rapidly approaching decline; the head of hisDavid at Florence is a work of unrivalled force and dignity.His rivals and imitators, Baccio Bandinelli, Giacomo dellaPorta, Montelupo, Ammanati and Vincenzo de’ Rossi (pupilsof Bandinelli) and others, copied and exaggerated his faults without possessing a touch of his gigantic genius. In otherparts of Italy, such as Pavia, the traditions of the 15th centurylasted longer, though gradually fading. The Statuary and reliefswhich make the Certosa near Pavia one of the most gorgeousbuildings in the world are free from the influence of Michelangelo,which at Florence and Rome was overwhelming. Though muchof the sculpture was begun in the second half of the 15th century,the greater part was not executed till much later. The magnificenttomb of the founder, Giovanni Galeazzo Visconti, was notcompleted till about 1560, and is a gorgeous example of thestyle of the Renaissance grown weak from excess of richnessand from loss of the simple purity of the art of the 15th century.Everywhere in this wonderful building the fault is the same;and the growing love of luxury and display, which was thecurse of the time, is reflected in the plastic decorations of the wholechurch. The old religious spirit had died out and was succeededby unbelief or by an affected revival of paganism. Monumentsto ancient Romans, such as those to the two Plinys on the façadeof Como cathedral, or “heroa” to unsaintly mortals, such asthat erected at Rimini by Sigismondo Pandolfo in honour ofIsotta,[25] grew up side by side with shrines and churches dedicatedto the saints. We have seen how the youthful vigour of theChristian faith vivified for a time the dry bones of expiringclassic art, and now the decay of this same belief broughtwith it the destruction of all that was most valuable in medievalsculpture. Sculpture, like the other arts, became the bond-slaveof the rich, and ceased to be the natural expression of a wholepeople. Though for a long time in Italy great technical skillcontinued to exist, the vivifying spirit was dead, and at last adull scholasticism or a riotous extravagance of design becamethe leading characteristics.
The 16th century was one of transition to this state of degradation,but nevertheless produced many sculptors of great abilitywho were not wholly crushed by the declining taste of theirtime. John of Douai (1524–1608), usually known as Giovannida Bologna, one of the ablest, lived and worked almost entirelyin Italy. His bronze statue of Mercury flying upwards, in theUffizi, one of his finest works, is full of life and movement. Byhim also is the “Carrying off of a Sabine Woman” in the Loggiade’ Lanzi. His great fountain at Bologna, with two tiers of boysand mei-maids, surmounted by a colossal statue of Neptune, avery noble work, is composed of architectural features combinedwith sculpture, and is remarkable for beauty of proportion.He also cast the fine bronze equestrian statue of Cosimo deMedici at Florence and the very richly decorated west door ofPisa cathedral, the latter notable for the overcrowding of itsornaments and the want of sculpturesque dignity in the figures;it is a feeble imitation of Ghiberti’s noble production. One ofGiovanni’s best works, a group of two nude figures fighting,is now lost. A fine copy in lead existed till recently in the frontquadrangle of Brasenose College, Oxford, of which it was thechief ornament. In 1881 it was sold for old lead by the principaland fellows of the college, and was immediately melted down bythe plumber who bought it—an irreparable loss, as the onlyother existing copy is very inferior; the destruction was anutterly inexcusable act of vandalism. The sculpture on thewestern façade of the church at Loreto and the elaborate bronzegates of the Santa Casa are works of great technical merit byGirolamo Lombardo and his sons, about the middle of the 16thcentury. Benvenuto Cellini (1500–1569), though in the maingreater as goldsmith than as sculptor, produced one work ofgreat beauty and dignity—the bronze Perseus in the Loggiade' Lanzi at Florence. His large bust of Cosimo de’ Medici in theBargello is mean and petty in style. A number of very cleverstatues and groups in terra-cotta were modelled by AntonioBegarelli of Modena (d. 1565), and were enthusiastically admiredby Michelangelo; the finest are a “Pieta” in S. Maria Pomposaand a large “Descent from the Cross” in S. Francesco, both atModena. The colossal bronze seated statue of JuliusIII. atPerugia, cast in 1555 by Vincenzio Danti, is one of the bestportrait-figures of the time.
The latter part of the 15th century in France was a time oftransition from the medieval style, which had gradually beendeteriorating, to the more fiorid and realistic taste ofthe Renaissance. To this period belong a numberof rich reliefs and statues on the choir-screenof Chartres cathedral. Those on The Renaissance in France.the screen atAmiens are later still, and exhibit the rapid advance of thenew style.
The transition from the Gothic to the Renaissance is to benoted in many tomb monuments of the second half of the 15thand the beginning of the 16th centuries, notably in Roulandde Roux’s magnificent tomb of the cardinals of Amboise atRouen cathedral. Italian motifs are paramount in the greattomb of LouisXII. and his wife Anne of Bretagne, at St Denis,by Jean Iuste of Tours.
The influx of Italian artists into France in the reign of Francis I.,who, with Leonardo da Vinci, Andrea del Sarto, Rosso, andPrimaticcio, had summoned Benvenuto Cellini and otherItalian sculptors to his court, naturally led tothe practical extinction of the Gothic style, thoughisolated examples of medievalism still occur about theThe Italian influence.middle of the 16th century. Such are the “Entombment” in thecrypt of Bourges cathedral, and the tomb of René of Chalonsin the church of St Etienne at Bar-le-Duc. But the main currentof artistic thought followed the direction indicated by the foundingof the italianizing school of Fontainebleau. lean Goujon,(d.1572) was the, ablest French sculptor of the time; he combinedgreat technical skill and refinement of modelling with the floridand affected style of the age. His nude figure of “Diana recliningby a Stag,” now in the Louvre, is a graceful and vigorous pieceof work, superior in sculpturesque breadth to the somewhatsimilar bronze relief of a nymph by Cellini. Between 1540 and1552 Goujon executed the fine monument at Rouen to DukeLouis de Brézé, and from 1555 to 1562 was mainly occupied indecorating the Louvre with sculpture. One of the most pleasingand graceful works of this period, thoroughly Italian in style,is the marble group of the “Three Graces” bearing on their headsan urn containing the heart of HenryII., executed in 1560 byGermain Pilon for Catherine de Médicis. The monument ofCatherine and HenryII. at St Denis, by the same sculptor,is an inferior and coarser work. Maître Ponce, probably thesame as the Italian Ponzio Jacquio, chisel led the noble monumentof Albert of Carpi (1535), now in the Louvre. Another veryfine portrait effigy of about 1570, a recumbent figure in fullarmour of the duke of Montmorency, preserved in the Louvre,is the work of Barthelemy Prieur. François Duquesnoy ofBrussels (1594–1644), usually known as Il Fiammingo, was aclever sculptor, thoroughly French in style, though he mostlyworked in Italy. His large statues are very poor, but his reliefsin ivory of boys and cupids are modelled with wonderfully softrealistic power and graceful fancy.
To these sculptors should be added Jacques Sarrazin, wellknown for the colossal yet elegant caryatides for the grandpavilion of the Louvre; and François Augier, the sculptor ofthe splendid mausoleum of the duc de Montmorency.
In the Netherlands the great development of painting wasnot accompanied by a parallel movement in plasticart. Of the few monuments that claim attention,we must mention the bronze tomb of Mary of Burgundyat Notre-Dame, Bruges, executed about 1495 by Jande Baker, and the less remarkable The Netherlands.though technically morecomplete companion tomb of Charles the Bold (1558).
The course of the Renaissance movement in German sculpturediffers from that of most other countries in so far as it appearsto grow gradually out of the Gothic style in thedirection of individual, realistic treatment of thefigure which in late Gothic days had become somewhatconventional and schematic and idealized. MarkedBeginning of the Renaissance in Germany.physiognomic expression, careful rendering of movement,costume and details, and the suggestion of differenttextures, together with almost tragic emotional intensity, arethe chief aims of the 15th-century sculptors who, on the whole, adhere to medieval thought and arrangement. The Italianinfluence, which did not make itself felt until the early daysof the 16th century, led to brilliant results, whilst the workersretained their fresh northern individuality and keen observationof nature. But in the latter half of this century it began tochoke these national characteristics, and led to somewhattheatrical and conventional classicism and mannerism.
One speciality of the 15th century was the production of animmense number of wooden altars and reredoses, painted andgilt in the most gorgeous way and covered with subject-reliefsand statues, the former often treated in a very pictorial style.[26]Wooden screens, stalls, tabernacles and other church-httingsof the greatest elaboration and clever workmanship were largelyproduced in Germany at the same time, and on into the 16thcentury.[27] Jörg Syrlin, one of the most able of these sculptorsin wood, executed the gorgeous choir-stalls in Ulm cathedral,richly decorated with statuettes and canopied work, between1469 and 1474; his son and namesake sculptured the elaboratestalls in Blaubeuren church of 1496 and the great pulpit in Ulmcathedral. Another exceptionally important work of this typeis the magnificent altar at St Wolfgang in Upper Austria,carved by the Tirolese, Michael Pacher, in 1481. Veit Stossof Cracow, who later settled in Nuremberg, a man of bad character,was a most skilful sculptor in wood; he carved the highaltar, the tabernacle and the stalls of the Frauenkirche atCracow, between 1472 and 1494. One of his finest works is alarge piece of wooden panelling, nearly 6ft. square, carved in1495, with central reliefs of the Doom and the Heavenly Host,framed by minute reliefs of scenes from Bible history. It isnow in the Nuremberg town-hall. Wohlgemuth (1434–1519),the master of A. Dürer, was not only a painter but also a cleverwood-carver, as was also Dürer himself (1471–1528), whoexecuted a tabernacle for the Host with an exquisitely carvedrelief of Christ in Majesty between the Virgin and St John,which still exists in the chapel of the monastery of Landau.Dürer also produced miniature reliefs cut in boxwood andhone-stone, of which the British Museum (print-room) possessesone of the finest examples. Adam Krafft (c. 1455–1507) wasanother of this class of sculptors, but he worked also in stone;he produced the great Schreyer monument (1492) for St Sebald’sat Nuremberg,—a very skilful though mannered piece ofsculpture, with very realistic figures in the costume of the time,carved in a way more suited to wood than stone, and too pictorialin effect. He also made the great tabernacle for the Host,80ft. high, covered with statuettes, in Ulm cathedral, and thevery spirited “Stations of the Cross” on the road to the Nurembergcemetery.
The Vischer family of Nuremberg for three generations wereamong the ablest sculptors in bronze during the 15th and 16thcenturies. Hermann Vischer the elder worked mostly between1450 and 1505, following the earlier medieval traditions, butwithout the originality of his son, Peter Vischer.
Next to Nuremberg, the chief centres of bronze sculpturewere Augsburg and Lübeck. Innsbruck possesses one of thefinest series of bronze statues of the first half of the 16th century,namely twenty-eight colossal figures round the tomb of theemperor Maximilian, which stands in the centre of the nave,representing a succession of heroes and ancestors of the emperor.The first of the statues which was completed cost 3000 florins,and so Maximilian invited the help of Peter Vischer, whose skillwas greater and whose work less expensive than that of thelocal craftsmen. Most of them, however, were executed bysculptors of whom little is now known. They differ much instyle, though all are of great technical merit. The finest is anideal statue of King Arthur of Britain, in plate armour of the14th or early 15th century, very remarkable for the nobilityof the face and pose. That of Theodoric is also a very fineconception. Both are wrongly said to be the work of PeterVischer himself. Of the others, the best, nine in number, areby Master Gilg. The others, which range from stiffness toexaggerated realism, are executed by inferior workers.In the latter part of the 16th century the influence of thelater Italian Renaissance becomes very apparent, and manyelaborate works in bronze were produced, especially at Augsburg,where Hubert Gerhard cast the fine “Augustus fountain” in1593, and Adrian de Vries made the “Hercules fountain” in1599; both were influenced by the style of Giovanni di Bologna,as shown in his magnificent fountain at Bologna.
At the beginning of the 16th century sculpture in Englandwas entering upon a period of rapid decadence, and to someextent had lost its native individuality. The finestseries of statues of this period are those of life-sizehigh up on the walls of HenryVII’s chapel at Westminsterand others over the various minor altars.The Renaissance in England.These ninety-five figures, which represent saints and doctorsof the church, vary very much in merit: some show Germaninfluence, others that of Italy, while a third class are, as itWere, “archaistic” imitations of older English sculpture.[28] Insome cases the heads and general pose are graceful, andthe drapery dignified, but in the main they are coarse bothin design and in workmanship compared with the betterplastic art of the 13th and 14th centuries. This decadence ofEnglish sculpture caused HenryVII. to invite the FlorentineTorrigiano (1472?–1522) to visit England to model and castthe bronze figures for his own magnificent tomb, which stillexist in almost perfect preservation. The recumbent effigies ofHenryVII. and his queen are fine specimens of Florentine art,well modelled with lifelike portrait heads and of very finetechnique in the casting. The altar-tomb on which the effigieslie is of black marble, decorated with large medallion reliefsin gilt bronze, each with a pair of saints-the patrons of Henryand Elizabeth of York-of very graceful design. The altar andits large baldacchino and reredos were the work of Torrigiano,but were destroyed during the 17th century. The reredos hada large relief of the Resurrection of Christ executed in paintedterra-cotta, as were also a life-size figure of the dead Christunder the altar-slab and four angels on the top angles of thebaldacchino; a number of fragments of these figures haverecently been found in the “pockets” of the nave vaulting,where they had been thrown after the destruction of the reredos.Torrigiano’s bronze effigy of Margaret of Richmond in thesouth aisle of the same chapel is a very skilful but too realisticportrait, apparently taken from a cast of the dead face andhands. Another terra-cotta effigy in the Rolls chapel is also,from internal evidence, attributed to the same able Florentine.Another talented Florentine sculptor, Benedetto da Maiano, wasinvited to England by Cardinal Wolsey to make his tomb; ofthis only the marble sarcophagus now exists and has been usedto hold the body of Admiral Nelson in St Paul’s Cathedral.Another member of the same family, named Giovanni, wasthe sculptor of the colossal terra-cotta heads of the Caesarsaffixed to the walls of the older part of Hampton Court Palace.
In Spain, in the early part of the 16th century, a strong Italianinfluence superseded that of France and Germany, partly owingto the presence there of the Florentine Torrigianoand other Italian artists. The magnificent tomb ofFerdinand and Isabella in Granada cathedral is a finespecimen of Italian Renaissance sculpture, somewhatSpanish Renaissance Sculpture.similar in general form to the tomb of SixtusIV. by Ant.Pollaiuolo in St Peter’s, but half a century later in the styleof its detail. It looks as if it had been executed by Torrigiano,but the design which he made for it is said to have been rejected.The statue of St Jerome, which he executed for the conventof Buenavista, near Seville, was declared by Goya to be superiorto Michelangelo’s “Moses.” Some of the work of this period,though purely Italian in style, was produced by Spanish sculptors, —for example, the choir reliefs at Toledo cathedral, and thosein the Colegio Mayor at Salamanca by Alonzo Berruguete,sculptor, painter and architect, trained in Rome and Florence,and the greatest designer of Spain up to that time. He workedunder Michelangelo and Vasari, and on his return to Spain in1520 was appointed court painter and sculptor to CharlesV.The same position was occupied under PhilipII. by GasparBecerra (1520–1570), whose masterpiece is a figure of Our Ladyof the Solitude, in Madrid. Esteban Jordan, Gregorio Hernandezand other Spanish sculptors produced a large number of elaborateretables, carved in wood with subjects in relief and richlydecorated in gold and colours. These sumptuous masses ofpolychromatic sculpture resemble the 15th-century retables ofGermany more than any Italian examples, and were a sortof survival of an older medieval style. J. Morlanes was thefirst of Spanish sculptors to adopt the style of Albert Dürer,which afterwards became general. Philip de Vigarni, Christopherof Salamanca, and Paul de Cespedes, who was native of Cordova,are names of great prominence up to the end of the century.Alonzo Cano (1600–1667), the painter, was remarkable for cleverrealistic sculpture, very highly coloured and religious in style.Montañes, who died in 1614, was one of the ablest Spanishsculptors of his time. His finest works are the reliefs of theMadonna and Saints on an altar in the university church ofSeville, and in the cathedral, in the chapel of St Augustine, avery nobly designed Conception, modelled with great skill.
In the 17th century sculpture in wood still prevailed. Thestatue of St Bruno of Montañez seems to have inspiredothers to repeat the subject in the same material: Juan deJuin (d.1614) is a case in point. Pedro de Mena and Zarcilloachieved great success in this class of sculpture. A. Pujol ofCatalonia and Peter Roldan carried on the Spanish tradition.The chief names in the 18th century are those of Don P. DuqueCornesso of Seville, Don J. de Hinestrosa, A. Salvador (knownas “the Roman,” d.1766), Philip de’ Castro of Galicia, one ofthe most eminent sculptors of his time (d.1775), and F.Gutierrez (d.1782).[29]
If the immediate followers of Michelangelo showed a tendencyto turn the characteristics of the master’s style into exaggeratedmannerism, the beginning of the 17th century findsItalian sculpture in a state of complete decadence,statuesque dignity having given way to violentBaroque sculpture
in Italy.fluttering movement and ilorid excesses, such as wasrevived in a later century. From Italy this “baroque” stylespread over the whole continent of Europe and retained its holdfor nearly two centuries. The chief sculptor and architect ofthis period was the Neapolitan, J.L. Bernini (1598–1680), who,with the aid of a large school of assistants, produced an almostincredible quantity of sculpture of the most varying degreesof merit and hideousness. His chief early group, the Apollo andDaphne in the Villa Borghese, is a work of wonderful technicalskill and delicate high finish, combined with soft beauty andgrace, though too pictorial in style. In later life Bernini turnedout work of brutal coarseness,[30] designed in a thoroughly unsculpturesquespirit. The churches of Rome, the colonnadeof St Peter’s, and the bridge of S. Angelo are crowded with hisclumsy colossal figures, half draped in wildly fluttering garments,—perfectmodels of what is worst in the plastic art. And yethis works received perhaps more praise than those of any othersculptor of any age, and after his death a scaffolding was erectedoutside the bridge of S. Angelo in order that people might walkround and admire his rows of feeble half-naked angels. For allthat, Bernini was a man of undoubted talent, and in a betterperiod of art would have been a sculptor of the first rank; manyof his portrait-busts are works of great vigour and dignity, quitefree from the mannered extravagance of his larger sculpture.Stefano Maderna (1571–1636) was the ablest of his contemporaries;his clever and much-admired statue, the figure of thedead S. Cecilia under the high altar of her basilica, is chieflyremarkable for its deathlike pose and the realistic treatmentof the drapery. Another clever sculptor was Alessandro Algardiof Bologna (1598?–1654), who formed a school, which includedG. Brunelli, D. Guidi and C. Mazza of Bologna.
In the next century at Naples Queirolo, Corradini and Sammartinoproduced a number of statues, now in the chapel ofS. Maria de’ Sangri, which are extraordinary examplesof wasted labour and neglect of the simplest canonsof plastic art. These are marble statues enmeshed inThe classicist revival in Italy.nets or covered with thin veils, executed with almostdeceptive realism, perhaps the lowest stage of tricky degradationinto which the sculptor’s art could possibly fall.[31] In the 18thcentury Italy was naturally the headquarters of the classicalrevival, which spread thence, throughout most of Europe.Canova' (1757–1822), a Venetian by birth, who spent most of hislife in Rome, was perhaps the leading spirit of this movement,and became the most popular sculptor of his' time. His workis very unequal in merit, mostly dull and uninteresting in style,and is occasionally marred by a meretricious spirit very contraryto the true classic feeling. His group of the “Three Graces,”the “Hebe,” and the very popular “Dancing-Girls,” copies ofwhich in plaster disfigure the stairs of countless modern hotels andother buildings on the Continent, are typical examples of Canova’sworst work. Some of his sculpture is designed with far moreof the purity that, distinguished antique art; his finest workis the colossal group of Theseus slaying a Centaur, at Vienna.Canova’s attempts at Christian sculpture are singularly unsuccessful,as, for example, his pretentious monument to Pope ClementXIII.in St Peter’s at Rome, that of Titian at Venice, andAlfieri’s tomb in the Florentine church of S. Croce. Fiesole inthe 19th century produced one sculptor of great talent, namedBastianini. He worked in the style of the great 15th-centuryFlorentine sculptors, and followed especially the methods ofhis distinguished fellow-townsman Mino da Fiesole. Many ofBastianini’s works are hardly to be distinguished from genuinesculpture of the 15th century, and in some cases great priceshave been paid for them under the supposition that they weremedieval productions. These frauds were, however, perpetratedwithout Bastianini’s consent, or at least without his power toprevent them. Several of his best terra-cotta works may beseen in the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Whilst monumental sculpture in France during the 17thcentury continued to be influenced by Italy, the nationaltradition was carried on to a certain extent by such In Franceportraitists as the two Coustous and their masterCoysevox (1640–1720), whose works are marked by a greatIn France.sense of life and considerable technical skill. The exaggeratedelegance in the treatment of the female figure, whichbecame so marked a characteristic of French sculpture duringthis period, is the chief trait of Francois Girardon (1630–1715),who was chiefly employed on the sculptural decorations atVersailles, and on the famous equestrian statue of LouisXIV.,which was destroyed during the Revolution and for whichhundreds of exquisite drawings and studies were made, now inthe French national collection. Far more strength and grandeurmark the work of Pierre Puget (1622–1694), who is best knownby his “Milo of Crotona” for Versailles. His training wasentirely Italian, and in style considerably influenced by Bernini.He worked for some considerable time in Italy, particularly inGenoa. The same opposed movements which run side by sidein French 18th-century painting, academic allegory and frivoloussensuality, can be traced in the sculpture of this period. Of the first, the chief representatives are Lemoyne and his pupilFalconet, who executed the equestrian statue of Peter the Greatat St Petersburg; of the other, Clodion, whose real name wasClaude Michel (c. 1745–1814). The latter worked largely interra-cotta, and modelled with great spirit and invention, butin the sensual unsculpturesque manner prevalent in his time.
In the later part of the 18th century France produced twosculptors of great eminence in Jean-Baptiste Pigalle (1714–1785)and Jean Antoine Houdon (1740–1828). Houdonmay be regarded as the precursor of the modern schoolof French sculpture of the better sort. Towards theend of the 18th century a revolution was brought about in thestyle of sculpture by the suddenly revived taste for antiqueart. A period of dull pseudo-classicism succeeded, whichin most cases stifled all original talent and reduced theplastic arts to a lifeless form of archaeology. Regarded even asimitations the works of this period are very unsuccessful: thesculptors got hold merely of the dry bones, not of the spirit ofclassic art; and their study of the subject was so shallow andunintelligent that they mostly picked out what was third-ratefor special admiration and ignored the glorious beauty of thebest works of true Hellenic art. Thus in sculpture, as in paintingand architecture, a study which might have been stimulatingand useful in the highest degree became a serious hindranceto the development of modern art; this misconception andmisdirection occurred not only in France but in the othercountries of Europe. In France, however, the victoriesof Napoleon I. and his arrogant pretension to create a Gaulishempire on the model of that of ancient Rome caused the tastefor pseudo-Roman art to be more pronounced than elsewhere.Among the first sculptors of this school were AntoineChaudet (1763–1810) and Joseph Bosio (1769–1845).Early 19th century.The latter was much employed by Napoleon I.; heexecuted with some ability the bronze spiral reliefsround the column of the Place Vendome and the statue ofNapoleon on the top, and also modelled the classical quadriga onthe triumphal arch in the Place du Carrousel. Jacques Pradierof Geneva (1792–1862), produced the “Chained Prometheus”of the Louvre and the Niobe group (1822). He possessed greattechnical ability, but aimed in most of his works at a soft sensuousbeauty which is usually considered to be specially unsuited tosculpture. François Rude (1784–1855), worked in a stylemodelled on Graeco-Roman sculpture treated with some freedom.His bronze Mercury in the Louvre, is a clever work and theenormous high-relief on the Arc de l’Etoile in Paris, representing“The Song of Departure to Battle,” is full of vigour and movement,but his statues of Marshal Ney in the Luxembourg Gardensand of General Cavaignac (1847) in the cemetery of Montmartreare conspicuously poor. The reliefs on the pediment of thePanthéon are by Pierre Jean David of Angers (1789–1856);his early works are of dull classic style, but later in life hebecame a realist and produced very unsculpturesque results.A. bronze statue of a Dancing Fisher-lad modelled by FrancoisJoseph Duvet, now in the Luxembourg collection, is an ablework of the genre class. Other French sculptors who werehighly esteemed in their time were Ottin, Courtet, Simart,Etex and Carpeaux. The last was an artist of great ability,and produced an immense number of clever but often, sculpturesquelyconsidered, offensive statues. He obtained the highestrenown in France, and, hailed as a great innovator by thosewho welcomed a greater measure of naturalism, he was denouncedby the “ pure” and classic school as a typical example of thesad degradation of taste which prevailed under the rule ofNapoleon III.
The modern schools of French sculpture are the most importantin the world; they are dealt with in a separate section later.Technical skill and intimate knowledge of the human form arepossessed by French artists to a degree which has probablynever been surpassed. Many of their works have a similarfault to that of one class of French painters: they are muchinjured by an excess of sensual realism; in many cases nudestatues are simply life-studies with all the faults and individualpeculiarities of one model. Very unsculpturesque results areproduced by treating a statue as a representation of a nakedperson,—one, that is, who is obviously in the habit of wearingclothes,—a very different thing from the purity of the ancientGreek treatment of the nude. Thus the great ability of manyFrench sculptors has been degraded to suit, or rather to illustrate,the taste of the voluptuary; An extravagance of attitude andan undignified arrangement of the figures do much to injure someof the large groups which are full of technical merit, and executedwith marvellous anatomical knowledge. This is specially thecase with much of the sculpture that decorates the buildingsof Paris. The. group of nude dancers by Carpeaux outside theopera-house is a work of astonishing skill and sensual imagination,unsculpturesque in style and especially unfitted to decoratethe comparatively rigid lines of a building. The egotism ofmodern French sculptors, with rare exceptions, has not allowedthem, when professedly aiming at providing plastic decorationfor buildings, to accept the necessarily .subordinate reservewhich is so necessary for architectonic sculpture. Other Frenchworks, on the other hand, have frequently erred in the directionof a sickly sentimentalism, or a petty realism, which is fatal tosculpturesque beauty; or they seek to 'render modern life,sometimes on the scale of life-size, even to the point of securingatmospheric effect. This exaggerated misconception of thefunction of sculpture can only be a passing phase; yet as anymovement issuing from Paris finds adherents throughout othercountries, the effect upon sculptors and upon public taste canhardly be otherwise than mischievous. The real power andmerits of the modern French school make these faults all themore conspicuous.
Whatever work of importance was produced by Netherlandishsculptors in the 17th and 18th centuries, was due entirely toItalian training and influence. Francois Duquesnoy(usually called “The Fleming”) (1594–1644) hasalready been mentioned; he worked principally inNetherlandish sculptors.Rome, in rivalry with Bernini, and most of his workshave remained in Italy, but, inasmuch as his style is conspicuouslyFrench, he is here included in the French school. His pupilArthur Quellinus is best known by his allegorical groups on thepediments of Amsterdam 'town-hall, and has also left sometraces of his activity in Berlin. P. Buyster, native of Brussels(b. 1595), passed into France and is also often classed as aFrench sculptor.
By far the greatest sculptor of the classical revival was BertelThorwaldsen (1770–1844), an Icelander by race, whose boyhoodwas spent at Copenhagen, and who settled in Romein 1797, when Canova’s fame was at its highest. TheSwedish sculptors Tobias Sergell and Johann ByströmScandinavian sculptors.belonged to the classic school; the latter followed in,Thorwaldsen’s footsteps. Another Swede named Fogelberg wasfamed chiefly for his sculptured subjects taken from Norsemythology. H. W. Bissen and Ierichau of Denmark producedsome able works,—the former a fine equestrian statue of FrederickVII. at Copenhagen, and the latter a very spirited and widelyknown group of a Man attacked by a Panther.
During the troublous times of the Reformation, sculpture,like the other arts, continued to decline. Of 17th-centurymonumental effigies that of Sir Francis Vere (d. 1607)in the north transept at Westminster is one of the best,though its design-a recumbent effigy overshadowedSeventeenth century in England.by a slab covered with armour, upborne by fourfigures of men-at-arms—is almost an exact copy ofthe tomb of Engelbert II. of Vianden-Nassau.[32] The finestbronze statues of this century are those of George Villiers,duke of Buckingham (d. 1628), and his wife at the north-eastof Henry VII.’s chapel. The effigy of the duke, in rich armourof the time of Charles I., lies with folded hands in the usualmedieval pose. The face is fine and well modelled and the castingvery good. The allegorical figures at the foot are caricaturesof the style of Michelangelo, and are quite devoid of merit, butthe kneeling statues of the duke’s children are designed with grace and pathos. A large number of very handsome marbleand alabaster tombs were erected throughout England duringthe 17th century. The effigies are poor and coarse, but the richarchitectural ornaments are effective and often of beautifulmaterials, alabaster being mixed with various richly colouredmarbles in a very skilful way. Nicholas Stone (1586–1647),who worked under the supervision of Inigo Jones and was master masonto King Charles I., was the chief English sculptor of histime. The De Vere and Villiers monuments are usually attributedto him.[33] One of the best public monuments of London is thebronze equestrian statue of Charles I. at Charing Cross, whichwas overthrown and hidden during the protectorate of Cromwell,but replaced at the Restoration in 1660; it is very nobly modelledand was produced under Italian influence by the French sculptorHubert Le Sœur (d. 1670). The standing bronze statue ofJames II., formerly behind the Whitehall banqueting room,very poorly designed but well executed, was the work of GrinlingGibbons (1648–1721), a native of Holland, who was chieflyfamed for his extraordinary skill in carving realistic fruit andflowers in pear and other white woods. Many rich and elaborateworks of his exist at Trinity College, Oxford, at Cambridge,Chatsworth, and several other places in England. In the earlypart of the 18th century he worked for Sir Christopher Wren,and carved the elaborate friezes of the stalls and screens inSt Paul’s Cathedral and in other London churches.
During the 18th century English sculpture was mostly inthe hands of Flemish and other foreign artists, of whom Roubiliac(1695–1762), Peter Scheemakers (1691–1773), andJ. M. Rysbrack (1694–1770) were the chief. Theridiculous custom of representing Englishmen of theEighteenth century in England.18th and 19th centuries in the toga or in the armourof an ancient Roman was fatal alike to artistic merit and eikonictruth; and when, as was often the case, the periwig of theGeorgian period was added to the costume of a Roman generalthe effect is supremely ludicrous. Nollekens (1737–1823), apupil of Scheemakers, though one of the most popular sculptorsof the 18th century, was a man of very little real ability. JohnBacon (1740–1799) was in some respects an abler sculptor.John Flaxman (1755–1826) was in England the chief initiatorof the classical revival. For many years he worked for JosiahWedgwood, the potter, and designed for him an immense numberof vases covered with delicate cameo-like reliefs. Many ofthese, taken from antique gems and sculpture, are of greatbeauty, though hardly suited to the special necessities of fictileware. Flaxman’s large pieces of sculpture are of less merit,but some of his marble reliefs are designed with much spirit andclassic purity. He modelled busts as well as small portraitmedallions for production in Wedgwood’s pottery. His illustrationsin outline to the poems of Homer, Aeschylus and Dante,based on drawings on Greek vases, have been greatly admired,but they are unfortunately much injured by the use of a thickeroutline on one side of the figures—an unsuccessful attempt togive a suggestion of shadow. Flaxman’s best pupil was Baily(1788–1867), chiefly celebrated for his nude marble figure of Eve.
On the whole the 17th and 18th centuries in Germany, as inEngland, were periods of great decadence in the plastic art;little of merit was produced, except some portraitfigures. Among the rare exceptions mention mustbe made of Andreas Schliiter, of Hamburg (c. 1662–1714),Modern German sculpture.who produced many decorative bronze reliefsfor the royal castle in Berlin, and the famous colossal equestrianstatue of the Great Elector on the bridge in Berlin. Anotherartist who approached greatness in a period of utter degradationwas Rafael Donner, whose principal work is the large fountainwith lead figures of Providence and the four rivers of Austria(the Enns, Ybbs, Traun and March), in Vienna, a very remarkableexample of baroque sculpture which to this day is known as theDonner fountain. In the second half of the 18th-century, therewas a strong revival in sculpture, especially in the classic style;and since then Germany has produced an immense quantityof large and pretentious sculpture, mostly dull in design andsecond-rate in execution. Gottfried Schadow of Berlin (1764–1850)finished a number of portrait figures, not in the customaryantique guise, but in the costume of the period; Some of hisworks are ably modelled. He was followed by Christian Rauch(1777–1857), whose works are, however, mostly weak and sentimentalin style, as, for example, his recumbent statue of QueenLouisa at Charlottenburg (1813), and his statues of generalsBülow and Scharnhorst at Berlin. Rauch became the leaderof an important school in Berlin, but will be most honourablyremembered by this splendid monument of Frederick the Great,in Berlin—an elaborate work, modern in feeling and of greattechnical accomplishment. Friedrich Drake was the ablestof Rauch’s pupils, but he lived at a very unhappy period for thesculptor’s art. His chief work is perhaps the colossal bronzeequestrian statue of King William of Prussia at Cologne. AlbertWolff was a sculptor of more ability; he executed the equestrianportrait of King Ernest Augustus at Hanover, and a “Horsemanattacked by a Lion” now in the Berlin Museum, Augustus Kiss(1802–1865) produced the companion group to this, the celebratedAmazon and Panther in bronze, as well as the fine group, of StGeorge and the Dragon in a courtyard of the royal palace atBerlin. The St George and his horse are of bronze; the dragonis formed of gilt plates of hammered iron. Kiss worked onlyin metal. The bad taste of the first half of the present centuryis strongly shown by many of the works of Theodore Kalidé,whose “Bacchanal sprawling on a Panther’s Back” is a marvelof awkwardness of pose and absence of any feeling for beauty.Ernst Rietschel (1804–1861) was perhaps the best Germansculptor of this period, and produced work superior to that ofhis contemporaries, such as Haagen, Wichmann, Fischer andHiedel. Rietschel’s career was marked by steady progress froma meaningless classicism to serious realism. It was his task toerect monuments in memory of some of the greatest intellectualheroes of Germany, such as his Lessing monument in Braunschweig,the monument to Goethe and Schiller in Weimar,and that to Martin Luther at Worms. Some revival of a betterstyle is shown in certain sculpture, especially reliefs, by Hähnel,whose chief works are at Dresden. Schwanthaler (1802–1848),who was largely patronized by King Louis of Bavaria, studiedat Rome and was at first a feeble imitator of antique classicart, but later in life he developed a more romantic and pseudo-medievalstyle. By him are a large number of reliefs and statuesin the Glyptothek at Munich and in the Walhalla, also thecolossal but feeble bronze statue of Bavaria, in point of size oneof the most ambitious works of modern times.[34] JohannesSchilling (b. 1826) is the author of the colossal national monumenton the Niederwald near Rüdesheim, and Ernst Bandel of theimposing monument of Hermann Arminius in the TeutoburgForest near Detmold.
It was Reinhold Begas (b. 1831) who definitely broke awayfrom the all-pervading classicist tradition. His art has morein common with that of the Rococo period than with that ofCanova and his followers. Not only did he excel in the renderingof textures, and in giving life and animation to his figures, buthis earlier work was marked by unconventionality and greatboldness of disposition. Unfortunately his rapid success, andthe official favour that was shown to him, led him subsequentlyto hasty and what might almost be described as factory-likeproduction. His work became pretentious, and though someof the reliefs and single figures on his monuments are remarkablefor his keen gift of observation, the whole effect is frequentlyspoilt by the unnecessary introduction of disturbing decorativefeatures, ill-disposed and singularly lacking in sculptural dignity.The monument of the emperor William I. with the two beautiful reliefs of Peace and War, and the Neptune fountain, both infront of the imperial palace, and the Schiller monument beforethe royal theatre, all in Berlin, are perhaps his most successfulworks. The Bismarck in front of the Reichstag building suffersfrom the excessive use of allegorical motifs and from othererrors of taste.
Of Begas’s many pupils, Who participated in the executionof the numerous statues that flank the Siegesallee in the BerlinThiergarten, the most distinguished is Joseph Uphues (b. 1850),who is the creator of the Moltke monument in Berlin, and ofthe Frederick the Great in the Siegesallee, a replica of whichis to be found in Washington. Adolf Brütt (b. 1855) and GustavEberlein should be mentioned among the most successful Berlinsculptors; Robert Dietz, as the founder of an important schoolin Dresden; and Wilhelm Ruemann (d. 1906) and RudolfMaison among the modern sculptors of Munich.
The closing years of the 19th century were marked by anenormous advance, not only in public appreciation of sculpturebut in productive activity. The younger generation of Berlinsculptors includes such distinguished artists as Fritz Klimsch,who is best known by “The Triumph of Woman” and “TheKiss "; Hugo Lederer, the designer of the Bismarck monumentin Hamburg; August Gaul, who excelled in statuettes of animals;Max Kruse, a woodcarver of great ability; and Louis Touaillon,who spent his early years in Rome, and became famous for theexcellent anatomy and, action of his equine studies. KarlSeffner, of Leipzig; August Hudler, of Dresden; Georg Weba,Fritz Christ, Erwin Kurz, Hermann Hahn, Theodor von Gosenand Hugo Kaufmann, all of Munich, should also here be mentioned.Adolf Hildebrand (b. 1847) is best known by his Wittelsbachfountain in Munich and his Reinhard fountain in Strassburg.He has also executed some excellent medals and plaquettes.Franz Stuck, who has ranked among the leading painters ofmodern Germany, has also produced some powerful pieces ofsculpture, such as the Beethoven, and the “Athlete holdinga heavy Ball.” Max Klinger (b. 1857), famous as painterand etcher, revived polychromatic sculpture in Germany. HisBeethoven monument, at the Leipzig Museum, is the best knownexample of his work in this direction. The great composer isconceived as Jupiter enthroned, with the eagle at his feet. TheWork caused an enormous sensation on its first appearance beforethe public and became a veritable apple of discord around whicha wordy war was waged by the different factions. The LeipzigMuseum also owns his Cassandra and a rough-hewn portraitbust of Liszt. One of his most striking works is the Nietzschebust at Weimar. At the Albertinum, in Dresden, is an importantlate work of his, a marble group of three beautifully modelledlife-size figures, “The Drama.” (J. H. M.59; M. H. S.; Template:SFO-caps)
During the first half of the 19th century the prevalence of acold, lifeless pseudo-classic style was fatal to individual talent,and robbed the sculpture of England of all real vigourand spirit. Francis Chantrey (1782–1841), produceda great quantity of sculpture, especially sepulchralModern British sculpture.monuments, which were much admired in spite oftheir limited merits. Allan Cunningham and Henry Weekes,who excelled in busts of men, worked in some cases in conjunctionwith Chantrey, who was distinguished by considerable technicalskill. John Gibson (1790–1866) was perhaps after Flaxmanthe most successful of the English classic school, and producedsome works of real merit. He strove eagerly to revive thepolychromatic decoration of sculpture in imitation of thecircumlilio of classical times. His “Venus Victrix,” shown atthe exhibition in London of 1862 (a work of about six yearsearlier), was the first of his coloured statues which attractedmuch attention. The prejudice, however, in favour of whitemarble was too strong, and both the popular verdict and thatof other sculptors were strongly adverse to the “tinted Venus.”The fact is that Gibson’s colouring was timidly applied:it was a sort of compromise between the two systems, and thushis sculpture lost the special qualities of a pure marble surface,without gaining the richly decorative effect of the polychromeeither of the Greeks or of the medieval period. The other chiefsculptors of the same inartistic period were Banks, theelder Westmacott (Who modelled the Achilles in Hyde Park),R. Wyatt (who cast the equestrian statue of Wellington, removedfrom London to Aldershot), Macdowell, Campbell, CalderMarshall, and Bell. Samuel Joseph (d. 1850), working in anaturalistic spirit, produced some excellent work, notably(in 1840) the remarkable statue of Samuel Wilberforce now inWestminster Abbey. The brilliant exception of its period is theWellington monument in St Paul’s cathedral, probably thefinest plastic work of modern times. It was the work of AlfredStevens (1817–1875), a sculptor of the highest talent, who livedand died almost unrecognized by the British public. The valueof SteVens’s work is all the more conspicuous from the feeblenessof most of the sculpture of his contemporaries.
During the last quarter of the century a great change cameover British sculpture—a change so revolutionary that it gavea new direction to the aims and ambitions of the artist, andraised the British school to a level wholly unexpected. It cannotbe pretended that the school yet equals either in technicalaccomplishment, in richness or elasticity of imagination, or increative freedom, the schools of France and Belgium, for thesehave been built up upon the example of national works of manygenerations of sculptors during several centuries. Britishsculptors, whose training was far less thorough and intelligentthan that which is given abroad, found themselves practicallywithout a past of their own to inspire them, for there existedno truly national tradition; with them it was a case of beginningat the beginning.
The awakening came from without, brought to Englandmainly by a Frenchman—Jules Dalou—as Well as by LordLeighton, Alfred Gilbert and, in a lesser degree, by OnslowFord. To Carpeaux, no doubt—despised of the classicists—thenew inspiration was in a great measure due; for Carpeaux,who infused life and flesh and blood into his marble (too muchof them, as has been here shown, to please the lovers of purism),was to his classic predecessors and contemporaries much whatin painting Delacroix was to David and the cold professors ofhis formal school. But it was to Jules Dalou that was chieflydue the remarkable development in Great Britain. A politicalrefugee at the time of the Commune, he received a cordialwelcome from the artists of England, and was invited to assumethe mastership of the modelling classes at South Kensington.This post he retained for some years, until the amnesty forpolitical offenders enabled him to return to his native land;but before he left he had succeeded in making it clear thatsevere training is an essential foundation of good sculpture.This had been but partly understood—is not even now whollyrealized; yet by the impression he made, Dalou improved thework in the schools beyond all recognition. The whole conceptionof sculpture seemed to be modified, and intelligent enthusiasmwas aroused in the students. When he departed, he left in hisstead Professor Lantéri, who became a naturalized Englishman,and who exercised a beneficent influence over the students equalto that of his predecessor. Meanwhile, the Lambeth Art Schools—whereMr W. S. Frith, a pupil of M. Dalou, was conductinghis modelling class under the directorship of John Sparkes(d. 1907)—were being maintained with great success. At theRoyal Academy, where in 1901 the professorship of sculpturewas revived after many years, the inspiring genius of AlfredGilbert aroused the students to an enthusiasm curiously contrastingwith the comparative apathy, which passed as dignifiedrestraint, of earlier days. British sculpture, therefore, whenit is not coloured directly from the Italian Renaissance, iscertainly influenced from France. But it is remarkable that inspite of this turning of British sculptors to romantic realismas taught by Frenchmen and Italians, and in spite of the factthat the spirit of colour and decoration and greater realism inmodelling had been brought from (abroad, the actual characterof British sculpture, even in its most decorative forms, is notin the main other than British.
Nevertheless, there has been shown a tendency towardsreviving the application of colour in sculpture which has not met with universal approval. Although the polychromaticwork of the Renaissance, for example, may keep its place, it isheld to clash with the idea of sculptural art; for though thereis no absolute approach to imitation, there is a very strongsuggestion of it. The use of a variety of marbles and metals,or other materials, such as has been increasingly adopted, doesnot offend in the same measure, as the result is purely formal.Yet, in the final result, the work becomes not so much sculpturebroadly seen, as an “object of art,” amiably imagined anddelicately wrought.
Indeed, the sculptor has been greatly reinforced by theartificer in metal, enamel, and the like. But the revival ofmetal-work, cut, beaten, and twisted, however fine in itself,does not help sculpture forward very much. It may evenkeep it back; for, popular a.nd beautiful as it is, it really tendsto divert the attention from form to design, and from light andshade, with planes, to ingenuity, in pleasing lines—a verybeautiful and elevated art, but not sculpture. As an adjunct,it may be extremely valuable in the hands of a fine artist whodoes not mistake the mere wriggles and doubling which arethe mark of the more extravagant phase of the so-called “NewArt” for harmonious “line.” But it must always suggest theman with the anvil, shears, and pincers, rather than the manwith the clay and the chisel. It is mainly to Alfred Gilbert thatis due the delightful revival of metal-work in its finest formwedded to sculpture, with the introduction of marbles, gems,and so forth, felicitous and elegant in invention and ornament,and so excellent in design and taste that in his hands, at least,it is subservient to the monumental character of his sculpture.
The first effectual rebellion against the Classic, and the birth ofIndividualism, dates back to Alfred Stevens. The picturesquefancy of the Frenchman Roubiliac (who practised for many yearsin England), with his theatrical arrangement and skilful technique,inherited from his master. Coustou, had left little mark on theEnglishmen of his day. They went on, for the most part, with theirpseudo-classic tradition, which F laxman carried to the highestpoint. But until Stevens, few in England thought of instilling reallife andblood and English thought and feeling into the clay andmarble. It was not only life that Stevens realized, but dignity,nobility of form, and movement, previously unknown in Englishwork. Follower though he was of) Michelangelo and the ItalianRenaissance, he was entirely personal. He was no copyist, althoughhe had the Italian traditions at his fingers’ ends, and his feeling forarchitecture helped him to treat sculpture with fine decorative effect.Yet even Stevens and his brilliant example were powerless to weakenthe passion for the Greek and Roman tradition that had engrossedEnglish sculptors—with their cold imitations and lifeless art,pursued in the name of their fetish, “the Antique.”
Until towards the close of the 19th century this pseudo-classicart was blindly pursued by a non-Latin race, and a public favouritelike W. Calder Marshall (1813–1894; A.R.A., 1844; R.A., 1852)never attempted, except perhaps in the “Prodigal Son,” now at theTate Gallery, to break away towards originality of thought.
Thomas Woolner (1825–1892; A.R.A., 1871; R.A., 1874), whohad represented a modern heroine as a Roman matron, and hadshown in his monument to Bishop Jackson in StPaul’s cathedralan archaic severity and dryness altogether excessive, sought elevationof conception such as brought him applause for his “Tennyson” inportraiture and for his classically-inspired relief “Virgilia lamentingthe Banishment of Coriolanus”—probably his most admirable andmost exquisitely touching work.
Meanwhile, Baron Carlo Marochetti (1809–1867; A.R.A., 1861;R.A., 1866), an Italian of French arentage, had tried to introducea more modern feeling, and his “Richard Cœur de Lion” at Westminsterevoked great enthusiasm. It is difficult, now, to admirewithout reserve the incongruity of the 12th-century king, mountedon a modern thoroughbred, and raising arm and weapon with anaction lacking in vigour. The intention was excellent and fruitful,notwithstanding, and the statue is not without merit. It was hewho cast for Landseer the lions of the Nelson monument in TrafalgarSquare, London.
Later on Charles Bell Birch (1832–1893; A.R.A., 1880), with hisGerman training, introduced a new picturesque element in his“Wood Nymph,” “Retaliation,” “The Last Call,” and the “Memorialto Lieut. Hamilton, V.C., dying before Kabul”; but neitherthe vigour nor the individuality of is work influenced his contemporariesto any extent, doubtless on account of the strongTeutonic feeling it displayed.
Sir Joseph Edgar Boehm, R.A. (1834–1890), an Austrian bybirth, was more successful, and his influence, held by the talentof able studio-assistants (Professor Lantéri, Alfred Gilbert, andothers), contributed somewhat to thaw the chill which the coldmarble still seemed to shed around. There was not much inspirationin his monument of “General Gordon” in StPaul’s cathedral, andhis “Wellington Memorial” is cold and empty, though correctenough; but the “Herdsman and Bull,” among his ideal subjects,the “Carlyle” on Chelsea Embankment, among his portrait-statues,had the right feeling in them. His busts were usually excellent.
J. H. Foley (1818–1874; A.R.A., 1849; R.A., 1858), who at firstwas all for “the unities” and a “pure style,” seemed in his lateryears to throw his previous convictions to the winds, when he producedthe finely spirited equestrian statue of “General Sir JamesOutram,” now erected in India, and-the statue of Sir Joshua Reynoldsin the Tate Gallery. This statue was welcomed with enthusiasmin the art world, and helped to remind the public that monumentsneed not be staid to dulness, nor stiff and dead in their imperturbability.
Meanwhile Henry Hugh Armstead (1828–1905; A.R.A., 1875;R.A., 1880), who had begun by devoting himself to the art of thesilversmith, fashioning the “St George’s Vase,” “The PackingtonShield,” and “The Outram Shield,” was working in the spirit of theyounger school; he made his first appearance in the exhibitions in1851. He was carrying out commissions of considerable magnitude—inthe Palace of Westminster, and in the Abbey itself, for whichhe executed the marble reredos with its many figures, the whole ofthe external sculptural decorations for the Colonial Office in Whitehall,as well as the eighty-four life-sized figures on two sides of thepodium of the Albert Memorial, with the four bronze statues,“Chemistry,” “Astronomy,” “Medicine,” and “Rhetoric.”Portrait-figures of all ages are here classed together, and the workis a better-sustained piece of designing and carving than is commonlyunderstood. The statue set up at Chatham of “Lieutenant Waghorn”is a good example of Armstead’s sculpture, impressive by itsbreezy strength and picturesqueness; but a more remarkable work,technically speaking, is the memorial to a son of the earl of Wemyss,“David and the Lion,” now fixed in the Guards’ Chapel. It is invery fiat relief; Ninevite in character of treatment, and carvedwholly by the artist directly from the living model, it is, in point oftechnique, one of his best productions. His marble statuette of“Remorse,” bought for the Chantrey Collection, is a remarkableexample of combined intensity of expression and elevated purityof style. The work of Armstead is monumental in character—thequality which has been so rare among British sculptors, yet the finestquality of all; and in almost everything he did there is a “bigness”of style which assures him his lace in the British school.
Following the chronological order of the artists’ first, publicappearance, as being the most convenient and the only consistentmethod that will prevent overlapping, we come to F. J. Williamson(b.1853), who executed many works for Queen Victoria; JohnHutchison, R.S.A. (b.1856), a Scottish sculptor of the Classicschool; and George A. Lawson, H.R.S.A. (1832–1904). Lawsonwas a pupil of Alexander Ritchie, of the Royal Scottish Academy,and in a measure of Rome. He went to London in 1867, and soonproved himself one of the best sculptors Scotland has produced.“In the Arena” was his first striking group; “Daphnis” is anexcellent example of his Classic life-size work; and “Motherless”one of his greater successes in a more modern and pictorial spirit,a group full of pathetic pathos and free and sympathetic handling.“Callicles,” “The Weary Danaid,” “Old Marjorie,” and the statueof “Robert Burns,” erected at Ayr, are all in their way noticeable,Lawson’s work, which only requires a little more animation to befine, has the quality of “style,” and is strong, manly, and full ofdistinction.
Sir Edwin Landseer (1802–1873) had exhibited in 1866 a “Stagat Bay,” but his four colossal lions for the Nelson monument inTrafalgar Square, London, constitute his principal plastic works.They engaged him from 1859 to 1867, the year in which they wereset up. The casting of them, as already stated, was carried out byBaron Marochetti. Each is 20 ft. in length and weighs 7 tons.They have great nobility and dignity of pose, and although they arenot altogether sculptural in treatment, they are finely impressivewith a good sense of style.
George Simonds (b. 1844) is a product of the foreign schools.He is the author of many monumental works and not a little decorativesculpture, but he is best recognized by ideal subjects, such as“Dionysus astride his Leopard” (his finest work), “The GoddessGerd,” “The Falconer” (in the Central Park, New York), “Cupidand Campaspe” and “Anemone, the Wind Flower.” His treatmentof the undraped female figure is refined and delicate, and thereis an intellectual reality about his best work, as well as imaginationin conception. A. Bruce-Joy (b. Dublin, 1842) has produced idealwork and statues of public men for public spaces, and many busts.
Thomas Brock (b. 1847; A.R.A., 1883; R.A., 1891), whose workis prodigious in amount as well as solid and scholarly, came to Londonfrom Worcester in 1866 and fell early under the influence of thesculptor Foley, who was soon to rebel against the formalism thatprevailed. When his chief died, in 1874, Brock was appointed tocarry out the great unfinished works in the studio—the “O’ConnellMonument” in Dublin, the “Lord Canning” in Calcutta, andseveral others. But he felt the foreign current; and even when hisstyle was formed, his career being already assured, he was perceptiveenough to modify it, and, so developed, he left his master very farbehind. The ideal work that marked this transition was “The Moment of Peril,” a fine, scholarly work representing a mountedRed Indian repelling the attack of a great serpent which has thrownhis horse to earth. How greatly he improved in technical qualityand in refinement of taste is to be seen in the life-sized marble statuecalled “The Genius of Poetry”—graceful where the “Moment ofPeril” was violent in action, reposeful and harmonious where thatwas vigorous, and sculpturesque where that was anecdotal. Ahigher intellectual point was reached in “Song” and in the “Eve,”now in the Tate Gallery in London. A similar advance is to beobserved in Brock’s portraiture. The statues of “Robert Raikes”(on the Thames Embankment) and “Sir Richard Temple” (inBombay Town Hall), for. example, are finely treated, unconventionalfigures; but “The Rt. Rev. Henry Philpott, D.D., Bishop ofWorcester,” in which the inherent difficulty of a seated figure ishappily surmounted, marks the progress. The skill with which theartist has given the drapery, especially of the sleeves, a lightnessnot commonly seen, is striking. There are no black holes of shadow:the depressions are shallow and of the right shape to hold light evenwhile securing shadow; yet weakness. is avoided and crispness issecured by the sharpening of the edge of the folds—the principlewhich is established in the Pheidian group of “The Fates,” forexample, among the Elgin Marbles. Other works of importance inthe same class are the effigy of “Dr Benson, archbishop of Canterbury,”and the admirable statue of “Sir Richard Owen” in theNatural History Museum, South Kensington, and especially the“Thomas Gainsborough” in the Tate Gallery, are all of a high orderwhether as to character or handling. With these may be groupedthe statue of “Sir Henry Irving,” the tribute of British actors tothe memory of the great dramatic artist (1910), and the seated marblestatue of Lord Russell (1904). The bust of Queen Victoria is oneof the noblest and most dignified works of its class executed in England;full of tenderness and of character, lovingly rendered; andwith a delicate feeling for form, rightly realized. This head heraldedthe noble work by which the memory of Lord Leighton is to be keptgreen in the aisle of St Paul’s cathedral. In proportion and inharmony of design and of line, alike in conception and in reticence,it is the sculptural expression of a well-ordered mind and taste.The effigy shows Leighton asleep, while figures personifying his arts,painting and sculpture, guard his sarcophagus at head and foot.There is a note of triumph in the great design for the “QueenVictoria Memorial,” which provides London with it s most elaboratesculptural effort, rising 10ft. high on a plateau 200ft. across, withnumerous emblematically figures of great size and imposing arrangement.It is based on an elevated style, dignified, refined andmonumental; for Brock is a sculptor in the full sense of the term,and his lines are always good.
D. W. Stevenson, R.S.A. (1842–1904), in his general work showedbut little sympathy with modern developments. The “BronzeLectern” (in St Cuthbert’s Church, Edinburgh) is perhaps the mostdecoratively effective; but his most ambitious work, called “ThePompeian Mother,” is a modern adaptation of the “Niobe and herDaughter” by a follower of the school of Scopas in the UffiziGallery.
Although Horace Montford, modelling master at the RoyalAcademy, passed much time in the studio of Matthew Noble (1818–1876),he did not thereby lose his sculptural taste. Not that hedisplayed it much in the share he had, as assistant to C.B. Birch,A.R.A., in the modelling of the notorious “City Griffin” at TempleBar—a weird but spirited beast, the design for which had beensupplied by the city architect, Sir Horace Jones. “A Hymn toDemeter,” a life-size statue full of movement, and the statue of“Psyche and the Casket of Venus,” may be named as typical ofthe style of Montford, whose work is usually broad and sculpturesque,distinguished by firmness and grace.
Sir Charles B. Lawes-Wittewronge (b. 1843) has produced threelarge works which have attracted attention: an elaborate andspirited equestrian group of a female Mazeppa—“They Bound meon” (1888); “The United States of America” (1890), decorativeand not without elegance, and “The Death of Dirce.” The last named,of heroic size, in variously coloured bronze, was first exhibitedat the Royal Academy in 1908, and again, in coloured marbles (yetnot truly polychromatic in character) in colossal size, at the Franco-BritishExhibition (1908). The complexity of the design, the skilfulcomposition and arrangement of the elaborate group, the vigour ofthe modelling, and the impressiveness with which the work imposesitself upon the spectator, combine to render this perhaps the mostimportant sculptured group of its kind exhibited in England.Sir Charles’s work is always strong and robust, though occasionallysomewhat lacking in repose.
W. Hamo Thomycroft (b. 1850; A.R.A., 1881; R.A., 1888)became a great influence for good in the British school. His tendencytowards the Greek has been a wholesome reminder of the danger ofthe over-enthusiasm for naturalism, and yet was never forced toconventionalism. Alike in ideal work, in monumental sculptureand in portraiture, his art is marked by refined taste and scholarshipand a noble sense of beauty. It is strong, yet without undue displayof power. In him we have to appreciate an unaffected sympathywith grandeur and style, and in all, a big, broad rendering of thehuman form, with something of the movement of the Greek sculptorsand not a little of their repose, yet individual and unmistakablybelonging to the British order of mind. In his largest monumentalgroup, however, the “National Memorial to W. E. Gladstone,” erected in the Strand, London, there is little trace of the classic.In this work, asin the bronze statue of Bishop Creighton in St Paul’sCathedral, there is a modern feeling entirely responsive to the feelingof the people. Mr Thornycroft’s seated marble statue of LordTennyson (1909) in Trinity College, Cambridge, is one of his finestportrait figures, full of dignity and excellent in likeness—a worthymemorial of the poet.
J. Havard Thomas began in 1872 to exhibit portrait sculpture,and soon turned his attention to ideal work, but he did not attractwidespread attention until 1886, when he produced “The SlaveGirl.” This marble nude was a curious contrast to most SlaveGirls by other sculptors—that by Hiram Powers, for example.Somewhat stunted in form, she is nevertheless full of very humangrace and well-felt realism, and is a good example of the artist’scarving. Mr Thomas, indeed, is one of the few to carve his ownmarbles, often without taking the intermediate step of making a claymodel. This of course cannot be the case with his large sculpture,such as his great statue of “The Rt. Hon. W. E. Forster” at Bradford,and his “Samuel Morley, M.P.,” and “Edmund Burke, M.P.,” bothat Bristol; but the beautiful small heads of peasants and children—suchas the Donatellesque “Pepinella”—of Capri, where he livedfor years from 1889 onwards, are mostly carved direct from life.The beauty of his chisel work can be seen to perfection in theexquisite bust of Mrs Wertheimer in the Tate Gallery; the marbleseems to turn to flesh under his chisel and to palpitate with life:it is, perhaps, too much like flesh. This is very far from the“Classic,” with over-attention to which, Mr Thomas has curiouslyand quite inaccurately been reproached. It is true that his muchdiscussed statue “Lycidas” appears to be a distant echo of Myron;it is in truth archaistic, but with an aim altogether different fromthat of the Greek. It is Classic in a sense, full of life and wonderfullymodelled, but the attainment of perfection of human beauty wasnot the intention of the sculptor, and yet it appears to the unobservingas but a rifacimento. There is a vivid sense of style inMr Thomas’s work, and sometimes a search for beauty in subjectswhich to the common eye may suggest the ugly. But Mr Thomasmust be recognized as an artist of great power and originality andto the last degree conscientious. Sculptural subtleties he loves,and he works in a low key, quiet and unobtrusive, and severe thoughhe is, he is a poet in sentiment with extreme refinement of taste.His reliefs are fine in rhythm, and by their accentuated definition,allied with delicacy, extremely telling.
From the year 1873 Edwin Roscoe Mullins (d. 1905) producednumerous busts and statues, and his work was in the main idealand decorative. His best figure is probably that of “Cain—MyPunishment is Greater than I can Bear,” executed in 1896; his latestwork, “The Sisters” (1905), shows considerable grace. Mullinswork in architectural embellishment was good in style, appropriateand effective.
Joseph Swynnerton (d. 1910) was a sculptor who spent a good dealof his time in Rome and worked under her influence. His colossalfountain of flowers, zephyrs and splashing nymphs is, on the contrary,rather rococo in style, with charming passages. On the other hand,“Love’s Chalice” is Classic in feeling. Generally speaking,Swynnerton’s work has an appearance of strength, without commonnessor lack of effect.
E. Onslow Ford (1852–1901; A.R.A., 1888; R.A., 1895) was lostto British art before he had passed middle age. His seated statue of“Henry Irving as Hamlet” is a well-conceived piece of realism, withexpression subtly marked, and verging upon the theatrical—whichis precisely what an actor’s character-portrait should be. Comparedwith this work, the later seated statue, that of “Huxley,” keen andrefined, is more strictly sculpturesque—for in it there is no “subject,” and there are no ornaments to divert the attention and suggest afalse appearance of decoration. The statue of “Gordon” mountedon a camel—reminding us too vividly of the “Arab Chief” byBarye—is more open to criticism on the score of the elaborateness ofthe ornamental details, which almost reach the boundary of what isallowable in sculpture. It is erected at Chatham, and a replica hasbeen set up (1902) in Khartum. A finer memorial is that to thehonour of “Shelley.” It is, however, better in its parts than in itsentirety, because the decorative scheme injures, rather than helps,the sculptural dignity of the drowned poet’s exquisitely-renderedfigure. Of Onslow Ford’s other memorials, that of Queen Victoriaat Manchester is perhaps the most discussed and the least to beadmired, for although the conception is dignified and characteristic,it does not rank by any means with the best of which the artist wascapable. As a truthful portraitist Onslow Ford had few rivals.The sitter is before the spectator, without undue flattery, yet withoutever showing the commoner side of the model. Flesh, bone, hair,clothing, are all in their true relation, and the whole is admirablyrealizei Idealism, or at least poetic realism, Onslow Ford cultivatedin a series of small works. Of his last figure, “Glory to the Dead,” it may be said that, although statuesque, it carries realism ratherfar in treatment. It may be objected that in funerary art, so tocall it, the nude was never resorted to by the Greeks in such arelation; but Onslow Ford felt that he was working, not for ancientGreeks, but for modern Englishmen, and that sentiment, and not archaeology, must in such matters be the guide. There are, besides,the “Marlowe Memorial,” set up in Canterbury—graceful and refined,but rather trifling in manner—and the “Jowett Memorial,” a walldecoration, in the style of the Italian Renaissance. The work ofOnslow Ford always charms, for he had a strong sense of the picturesqueand a true feeling for beauty, but with insufficient power.But for his delight in decorative detail, he would have been greaterthan he was; for over-enrichment is in inevitable opposition to thegreater qualities of the monumental and the dignified in glyptic art,and abundance of small details involves poorness of effect. Butagainst Ford’s taste, especially against his admirable dexterity,little can be said. The high degree of refinement, the charm ofmodelling, grace of line and composition, sweetness of feeling, whichare the note of his work, are in a great measure a set-off againstoccasional weakness of design and character, and lack of monumentaleffect.
H. R. Hope Pinker is primarily a portrait-sculptor. Of all hisworks the seated statue of “Dr Martineau” is perhaps the best, forinterest, refinement, and for technical qualities. His reliefs are asnumerous as his statues, of which the most popular is the “HenryFawcett” in the Market Place of Salisbury, but his most importantwork is the colossal statue of Queen Victoria executed for thegovernment of British Guiana.
The most remarkable work executed by any British amateur sculptoris the “Shakespeare Memorial,” presented to the nation. byLord Ronald Sutherland Gower, and set up by him outside theShakespeare Theatre at Stratford-on-Avon (1888). This monument.carried out in Paris, represents the poet on the summit, attendedbelow by the four great characters—“Hamlet,” “Henry V.,”“Lady Macbeth” and “Falstaff,” designed with singular abilityand a happy display of symbolic inventiveness. Lord Ronald alsomodelled statues of “Marie Antoinette,” “The Dying Guardsman,”and other works which have secured wide attention.
In 1877 there burst upon the world a new sculptor, in the personof Sir Frederick (afterwards Lord) Leighton (1830–1896; A.R.A.,1864; R.A., 1868), who, in the following year, was to be the presidentof the Royal Academy. His first work was “An Athlete Strugglingwith the Python.” No piece of sculpture of modern times made agreater stir on its appearance; for here was a work, by a painter, awork, it was declared, which would have done honour to the ancients.fine in style, noble in type and in form, learned in the knowledge ofthe figure it displayed, original and strong in pose, in action andmovement; scholarly in execution and instinct, with the manner ofthe painter himself. The group was hailed as a masterpiece by onewho was thought to be not yet even a student in sculpture, and it wasdeclared by the most exacting critics to be worthy to rank with thebest examples of all but the finest periods. Yet it is somewhat lackingin expression—in that kind of humanity which every really greatmasterpiece of art should exhibit; and connoisseurs applauded thetechnique, the surface qualities and the like, when they should havebeen caught by the sentiment. But as Leighton was seeking only thebeauty and expression of form, to the neglect of sentiment, he waswell content with the reception and world-wide recognition of hiswork. One day the model for the “Athlete,” tired out, rose andstretched himself, and the sculptor was so enraptured by the posethat he forthwith began the model for the “Sluggard.” This workis in its way of still higher accomplishment than the “Athlete.”It is just as Greek as the other in its devotion to form and its worshipof the beauty of the human frame. But it is a condition, a sensation,an idea, rather than an action, that is here recorded; and so it isthe higher conception. And it has some of the mystery which isdistinctive of the finest art of ancient times, in which modern sculptureis almost entirely deficient. Yet while the “Athlete” may becompared, in idea, with the relatively debased “Laocoon,” which itseems in some degree to follow if not to challenge; the “Sluggard”belongs to a more elevated expression of a distinctly pagan art, and,as it were, to a better period. Great as was the sensation made bythese works, and by the charming little statue of “Needless Alarms ”(cast by the “lost-wax” process), Leighton seems to have left nodirect follower or imitator among the younger men.
T. Stirling Lee, by natural ability as well as by cultivation, is anartist of unusual elevation of mind and excellence of execution, andin his composition he aims at securing beauty by the arrangement ofhis figures in the panel, rather than at enriching them with details,as a designer would do. He is an ascetic in choice of materials, sothat his works generally remain beautiful studies of the human form,draped or undraped. It is for his power of telling a story beautifullyin marble—as in his panels for St George’s Hall, Liverpool, which areamong the finest work of their kind in England—that Mr Lee willcontinue to be admired: he is, beyond almost all others, a sculptor’ssculptor. His statue of “Cain,” extremely simple in conception, is amasterpiece of expression.
John M. Swan (1847–1910; A.R.A., 1894; R.A., 1905); a pupilof the Royal Academy and of Gérôme and Frémiet, specialized as asculptor of a particular class of subject. He is a stylist in a highdegree, whose work is full of beauty and importance. For the mostpart, but by no means exclusively, his sculptures are studies ofanimals, mainly of the felidae; but he would pass from the accentuationof action to the covering of skin and hair, without seeking muchto emphasize the bone and flesh, because they alone display, with thefascinating expressiveness of their sinuous bodies, the whole range ofthe passions in the most concentrated form. In the “LeopardPlaying with a Tortoise,” “Leopard Running,” “Puma andMacaw,” and similar works, we have the note of his art—sinuosity,with tense muscles, stretched and folded skin, suppressed frenzy ofenjoyment. The note of Barye, the' great Frenchman, from whom insome measure Swan drew inspiration, is power and strength anddecorative form, but his aim is rather at fine, grim, naturalisticstudies of a great cat’s crawl, with amazing vivacity and vitality.In certain groups, such as “Orpheus” and “Boy and Bear Cubs,”the sculptor combines the human figure with animal forms. In thecomposition of these there is always the note of originality.
Another student of animal life is Harry Dixon, whose bronze“Wild Boar” is in the Tate Gallery. “A Bear Running,” excellentalike in character, form and construction, and especially in movement,“Otters' and Salmon,” and the figure-subject called “TheSlain Enemy”—a prehistoric man with a dead wolf—are among hischief works.
Andrea C. Lucchesi is one of the few who, in spite of all discouragement,has not only persisted in concentrating his attention on idealwork, but has devoted most of it to the rendering of the female form.Prominent among his figures are those called “Destiny,” “TheFlight of Fancy,” “The Mountain of Fame,” “The Myrtle’s Altar,”“Carthage, 149 B.C.,” and “Verity and Illusion.” Mr Lucchesi’smain excellence is in the treatment of nude forms, in which he hassucceeded, through agreeable working out of idea and excellentexecution, in interesting a public usually indifferent to this branch ofsculpture.
Alfred Gilbert (b. 1854; A.R.A., 1887; R.A., 1892; resigned,1909) is to be regarded as one of the greatest figures in British sculpture,not only as being a master of his art, but as having preachedin his work a great movement, and in less than a decade effectedmore than any other man for the salvation of the British school,and inspired almost as much as Carpeaux or Dalou, the youngsculptors of the country. Among his earlier works are two fineheads of a man and a girl, pure in style and incisive in character,which were cast by the cire perdue, or “lost-wax,” process, whichhe had learned in Naples. Its introduction into Great Britain—or,it may be more correct to say, its revival—had considerable influenceon the treatment of bronze sculpture by British artists. In Gilbert’sportraiture we have not merely likenesses in the round, but littlebiographies full of character, with a spiritual and decorative as wellas a physical side, and the mental quality displayed with manlsympathy. Flesh and textures are perfectly realized, yet broad:simple, and modest. Many of these qualities are as obvious in hisportrait-statues, such as the fine effigy set up to “John Howard”in the market-place of Bedford. The monument with which Gilbert’sname will ever be associated is the “Statue of Queen Victoria” setup at Winchester, which, since its erection and re-erection in thatcity, has been irretrievably injured by depredations, and remainsincomplete in its decorative details. The queen is shown with extraordinarydignity. Large in its masses, graceful in its lines, theperson of the queen enveloped by all the symbolical figures andfanciful ornaments with which the artist has chosen to enrich it,the monument marks the highest level in this class to which anysculptor and metal-worker has reached for generations. The profusionof an ardent and poetic imagination is seen throughout inthe arrangement of the figure itself in the exquisite “Victory”that used to surmount the orb, in the stately throne. Invention,originality, and inspiration are manifest in every part, and everydetail is worked out with infinite care, and birth is given to a scoreof dainty conceits, not all of them, perhaps, entirely defensiblefrom the purely sculptural point of view. In a measure it suggestsgoldsmithry, to which the genius of Gilbert has so often yielded, asin the exquisite epergne presented to Queen Victoria on her jubileein 1887, typifying Britannia’s realm and sea power in endless poeticand dainty suggestions of beautiful devices. Among Gilbert’smemorials, not mentioned elsewhere, are those to “Frank Holl,R.A.,” and to “Randolph Caldecott,” both in the crypt of St Paul’scathedral, London; the “Henry Fawcett” memorial in WestminsterAbbey, which, with its row of expressive little symbolical figures,has been styled “a little garden of sculpture.” The finest workof its kind in England is the “Tomb of the Duke of Clarence” inSt.George’s chapel, which in 1910 still awaited final completion.Perhaps his best composition expressive of emotion is the half lengthgroup “Mors Janua Vitae,” a terra-cotta group designed to beexecuted in bronze or the hall of the Royal College of Surgeons.Few artists in any age have shown greater genius as at once artificerand sculptor. Gilbert is fond of dealing with a subject which allowshis fancy full play. His Work is full of colour; it is playful andbroad. The smallest details are big in treatment, and every 'part iscarefully thought out and most ingenious in design. His play ulnesshas caused him at times to be somewhat too florid in manner; buthis taste is so just, and his fancy so inexhaustible, that he has safelygiven rein to his imagination where another man would have runriot and come to grief.
Robert Stark is an animal sculptor who has usually attracted thenotice of connoisseurs rather than of the greater public, and hisfine bronze statuette of an “Indian Rhinoceros” is to be seen inthe Chantrey Collection. Mr Stark has a profound knowledge of
(Photo, London Stereoscopic Co.) | (Photo, Mansell & Co.) | |
ALFRED STEVENS—The Wellington Monument, St Paul's Cathedral, London. | SIR GEORGE FRAMPTON, R.A.— The Dr Barnardo Memorial. | LORD LEIGHTON, P.R.A.—The Sluggard. |
(Photo, Frederick Hollyer.) HARRY BATES, A.R.A.—Homer. | ||
H. H. ARMSTEAD, R.A.—Lieutenant Waghorn. | G. F. WATTS, R.A.—Hugh Lupus. | A. GILBERT—Icarus. |
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animal anatomy; his range is considerable, and he is as easy witha rhinoceros as with a cart-horse or a hunter.
Conrad Dressler is best known for his busts of distinguished men,but his statue of “A Girl Tying up her Sandal,” and his two largemarble panels for St George’s Hall, Liverpool, assured him hisposition. There is a cleverness, a daring, in his marked style, vigourof treatment, and a tendency towards emphasis, especially in hisdecorative work. much of which is designed for execution in DellaRobbia ware. Since his return to pure sculpture he has executedsome important work, including a bronze “Bacchante.”
In the work of Harry Bates (1850–1899; A.R.A., 1892), especiallyin the reliefs, with its balance and dignity, its rhythmical line andfine expression, is to be seen a flexibility which few Englishmen hadshown up to that time. Style and a genuinely modern treatmentof classic form, which is not weakened by touches of naturalism,were also to be recognized. Nor—in his “Homer,” for example—doesthe background detract from the main subject: Homer andHumanity in front; and behind, a vision of the Parthenon and PallasAthene, and the great Sun of Art rising with the dawn of Poetry.“Psyche” is more delicate in thought and treatment, but it haslittle of the originality or force of the “Homer,” or of the classicstyle seen in the head called “Rhodope.” The serene and reposefulstatue of “Pandora,” about to open her ivory casket, successfullyachieves the purity of style at which the sculptor aimed. “Houndsin Leash” (the bronze of which belongs to the earl of Wemyss) is avigorous group which was undertaken by Bates in response to thecriticism that he could design no figures but such as are at rest.The plastic group is in the Tate Gallery, where it figures along withthe “Pandora.” In “Endymion” the sculptor seems to haveunited in some degree the sculptural ideas expressed in the “Homer”and the central relief of “Psyche”: there is in it a good deal ofthe grace of the one and of the decorative force of the other, togetherwith a lofty sense of beauty. The portrait-busts of Harry Batesare good pieces of realism—strong, yet delicate in technique, andexcellent in character.
Sir George Frampton (b. 1860; A.R.A., 1894; R.A., 1902;knighted, 1908), pupil of the Royal Academy, the Lambeth Schools,and Mercié in Paris, is a particularly versatile and original artist,thoroughly in the “new movement” which he has done so much todirect. Highly accomplished, he is at home in every branch of hisart, and covers the whole field. He first exhibited “SocratesTeaching” (1884), and followed this with “The Songster” (1887),“An Act of Mercy” (1888), “In Silence Prayeth She,” “The Angelof Death” (1889), “Caprice” (1891), and in 1892 “The Children ofthe Wolf”—his last ideal statue of the kind. It was followed by“Mysteriarch,” heralding a class of work with which the artist hassince identified himself; or being in open rebellion against “whitesculpture,” he thenceforward devoted himself to colour. “Motherand Child” is an experiment in polychromatic figure-work. Thehalf-length figure called “Lamia,” with ivory face, head, and neck,and in a quaint head-and-neck dress of bronze jewelled, is a furtherdeparture from the true reserve of sculpture, but beautiful anddelightful in feeling. The statue of “Dame Alice Owen,” in bronzeand marble, and “King Edward VI.” are original, notwithstandingthe pseudo-medieval taste of their conception. Frampton is happiestin distinctly decorative sculpture. His prolific and inventive fancyhas expressed itself in such works as the bronze “The Steamship”and “The Sailing Ship” for Lloyd’s Registry in London, and inthe memorial “Monument to Charles Mitchell,” at Newcastle-on-Tyne.Herein a new note is sounded, and we have some of the moststriking features of Frampton’s design. That is to say, he seeksto escape from the purely architectural forms, pediments andmouldings, introducing his own inventions of curved lines, andfrequently substituting tree-forms for columns or pilasters, withroots for bases, trunks for pillars, and branches and foliage forcapitals. Besides these should be mentioned “The Vision,” theseven heroines from the Morte d’Arthur, “My Thoughts are myChildren,” “Music” and “Dancing,” and memorials and busts of“Charles Keene,” “R. Stuart Poole,” “Leigh Hunt,” “PassmoreEdwards,” “Dr Garnett,” a colossal statue of “Queen Victoria”erected in Calcutta, and another, an extremely successful work, forLeeds. His group of “Maternity” (1905) and the full-length seatedstatue of the marquess of Salisbury (1907) have added to his reputation.There are always charm of arrangement, delicacy of workmanship,and daintiness of feeling, as well as considerable power ofdesign, simplicity, and breadth in his work. Sir George Framptonhas also produced a number of fine medals.
W. S. Frith, one of the most successful teachers of sculptors inEngland, is chiefly remarkable for the decorative quality of hiswork. As in the monument to “Wheatstone, Inventor of the Telegraph,”or again, the standard lamps at the Astor Estate Office onthe Thames Embankment, the sculptor shows charm of thought andspirit of design, vigour, and richness of effect. His ideal statuaryand portraiture are not his chief work, however; his decorativesculpture for ecclesiastical and secular buildings is vast in extentand has had good influence on the younger school. One of his chiefworks is the “Bishop Ellicott’s Memorial,” a tomb with recumbentfigure, a design of considerable imagination.
Henry A. Pegram (b. 1862; A.R.A., 1904), a pupil of HamoThornycroft and of the Royal Academy, attracted early attentionwith “Death Liberating a Prisoner,” and by the two high reliefs“Ignis Fatuus” (acquired for the Chantrey Collection) and “TheDoom of Medusa.” These were followed by “Eve,” “SibyllaFatidica,” “The Last Song,” “The Bather,” “Labour,” and“Fortune,” by decorative work for the exterior of the ImperialInstitute, and later by the great candelabra which flank the interiorwestern end of St Paul’s cathedral. “Into the Silent Land” (1905)is a group typical of the funerary sculpture on which his chisel wasengaged in later years. His portraiture is also noteworthy. and hiswork generally is usually sculpturesque, with movement and life.
A. G. Walker has produced notable work in the class of puresculpture, including the relief representing “The Last Plague: TheDeath of the Firstborn,” “Adam and Eve: And They were Afraid”and “The Thorn” (exhibited in bronze in 1910), graceful andquaintly charming, with elegance in the pose and in the action.His chief decorative work includes the sculptural figures in StamfordHill Church.
The name of Captain Adrian Jones was for many years chieflyassociated with the spirited work called “Duncan’s Horses,” a groupdisplaying great knowledge of equine anatomy, form and action;since then his equestrian statue of “The Duke of Cambridge,”erected in Whitehall, London, outside the War Office, has beenrecognized as a vigorous performance. His most important work isthe monumental quadriga designed to crown Burton’s great Arch atHyde Park Corner, London.
W. Reynolds-Stephens (b. 1862), more devoted to goldsmith’sfigure-work than to larger and more searching sculpture, must beconsidered less as a statuary than as “a poet who sings in metal.”A relief, after Sir L. Alma-Tadema’s “Women of Amphissa” (1889),was followed by. a “Wall Fountain,” “Truth and Justice,” and the“Sleeping Beauty,” a bas-relief, full of thought, invention, and daintyconceits. In the highly decorated “Launcelot and the Nestling,”“Guinevere and the Nestling,” and similar works, the artist makesuse of various coloured metals, ivory, ems and the like, with prettysymbolism. Apart from his choice of material, there is a delicatelanguor about the lines', of his figures and reliefs, which display acharming feelings and refined taste. By two striking works he hasre-entered the field of pure sculpture—the dramatic and somewhattool anecdotal “A Royal Game” and “The Scout in War,” exhibitedin 1908, an equestrian group of great refinement and excellence.
Alfred Drury (b. 1857; A.R.A., 1900) was a pupil of Dalou, whoseassistant for a time he became. The first result was the curious echoof the master’s style, “The Triumph of Silenus” (1885). “TheGenius of Sculpture” and “The First Reflection” (bought by thequeen of Saxony) and “The Evening Prayer” (1890, ManchesterCorporation Gallery) were followed by the statue of “Circe” (1893),which, through its grace, elegance of line, and symbolical realizationof the subject, achieved a great popular success and was acquiredby Leeds. The bronze head of “St Agnes” (1894) is one of the firstexamples of Mr Drury’s later style, belonging to the higher order ofconception which, generally speaking, he has since maintained.This may be seen also in “Griselda” (bought for the ChantreyCollection), “The Age of Innocence,” and other busts symbolical ofchildhood, and in the series of “The Months,” at Barrow Court.For the decoration of the City Square at Leeds Drury executed thestatue of Dr Priestly, consisting of the colossal figure entitled“Even.” His colossal groups for the decoration of the War Office,the monumental panels in high relief for the piers of Lambeth Bridge;and the decorative sculpture for the façade of the new Victoria andAlbert Museum, all in London, are works of considerable importance.Among the latter are the figures of “Inspiration” and “Knowledge,”executed in 1907. Drury’s quiet, suave, and contemplative art lendsitself well as decorative sculpture to architectural embellishment.His portraiture is also good, reticent, and full of character, and as amanipulator of clay he represents the highest contemporary standardof English sculptors.
Frederick W. Pomeroy (A.R.A., 1906), pupil of the Lambeth andRoyal Academy Schools, and of M ercié, is of equal taste and ability.After 1888, when he exhibited the bronze statuette “Giotto,” heproduced many ideal works—“Love, the Conqueror” (Walker ArtGallery, Liverpool), “Pleasures are like Poppies Spread,” “BoyPipin,” “Dionysos,” and “The Nymph of Loch Awe” (both in theTate Gallery), “A Nymph Finding the Head of Orpheus,” “Undine,”“Pensée,” and the clever study of the nude called “The Potter.”“Perseus is an inspiration from Benvenuto Cellini, but “TheSpearman” is an original and powerful work. “Feroniae” (1909)is a nude statue, in bronze, remarkable for grace and sculpturalanimation. In ideal portraiture he has produced the statues. of“Admiral Blake,” “Dean Hook” (a colossal work for Leeds);“Oliver Cromwell” (also colossal, for St Ives, Huntingdonshire),“Robert Burns” for Paisley, as well as “R. P. Bonington” (1910),“Monsignor Nugent of Liverpool” (1905), an impressive group,and similar work, together with the life-size panel of “ArchbishopTemple,” in bronze, for St Paul’s cathedral. In true portraiture,Pomeroy executed the Liberal Memorial Statue of Mr Gladstone, inthe lobby of the Houses of Parliament, and the recumbent effigy ofthe Duke of Westminster, for Chester cathedral. His work is strongand sculpturesque, and his statues “stand” well. He sees nature in abig broad way, and his decoration is effective and well designed.
Albert Toft became known by his statue of “Lilith” (1889), and emphasized the impression then created by “Fate-Led” (1892,Walker Art Gallery), “Age and the Angel of Death,” “In the Sereand Yellow Leaf” (a remarkable study of old age), “The Goblet ofLife,” and “Hagar.” “The Spirit of Contemplation” and “TheCup of Immortality” are more complete and display dignity andrefinement. His memorials of the Boer War, at Cardiff and Birmingham,in design and silhouette, are among the most striking in thecountry. In “Mother and Child” (1903) and “Maternity” (1905)he has greatly raised the high-water mark of his achievement.Toft’s busts, such as those of W.E. Gladstone and Philip Bailey, aswell as his statue of Sir Charles Mark Palmer, at Jarrow, and similarworks, have force and breadth of character; and in his ideal workthere is an effort, well sustained and successful, after dignity,harmony, evenness of balance, and relation of the whole.
Professor Édouard Lantéri, a naturalized Englishman, to whomBritish sculpture owes much, employed his own striking gifts toteach rather than to produce. But “The Fencing Master,” “TheDuet,” and “A Garden Decoration” have exercised influence onthe younger school through their fine sculptural qualities of vitality,richness, joyousness, sensuousness, and movement. His portraitbusts are full of life and have that refinement and elegance pushed tothe utmost length, which are characteristic of all his work; in hisnude figure called “Pax” we have much of the severity, dignity, andplacid repose of the Greek.
W. Birnie Rhind, R.S.A., has produced little work so important asthe elaborate decorations for the doorway of the Scottish NationalPortrait Gallery, but some of his statues and busts—“King JamesV. of Scotland,” “Lord Salisbury,” and others—show the influenceof the modern school.
W. Goscombe John (b. 1860; A.R.A., 1899, R.A., 1909) achievedan early reputation with a figure of “St John the Baptist,” an austerecreation of real importance. His other chief works are “Morpheus,”“A Girl Binding her Hair,” “A Boy at Play” (Tate Gallery), “TheGlamour of the Rose,” and “The Elf”—a weird creation of truecomedy. In these are shown a love of the purity and refinement ofnature, realized with delicacy and a feeling for beauty. In portraitureMr John is not less successful. The colossal seated statue of “TheDuke of Devonshire” at Eastbourne has been acknowledged by thebest critics in France and England to be one of the finest things of itskind, good in design and uiet suggestion of power. Among his chiefmemorials are the tomb of the marquess of Salisbury in WestminsterAbbey, the “Memorial of the King’s Regiment” at Liverpool, theequestrian statue of “Viscount Tredegar” at Cardiff, the “Maharajahoil Balrampur” at Lucknow, and the monument to Sir ArthurSullivan in the Embankment Gardens, London. These all sustainthe reputation of the sculptor who has from the first been lo allyencouraged by his fellow-countrymen of Wales. The striking frieze“The Battle of Trafalgar,” for the pedestal of the statue of ViscountTredegar (1910), is a remarkable performance.
Bertram Mackennal (A.R.A., 1909), the son of a Scottish sculptorsettled in Australia, acknowledges no school, but was chiefly influencedby study in Paris. In his early ideal works, such as “Circe”and “For She Sitteth on a Seat in the High Places of the City,” thereare boldness and a sense of drama, with a keen appreciation of eleganceof form, not without severity and power of design. But theygive little hint of the excellence that was to follow and to bring himto the very front rank of British sculptors, so that in 1910 he wasselected to design the coinage of the new reign. His great pedimentin the Local Government Offices in Whitehall is perhaps the finestwork of its kind in the Kingdom., “Diana,” 1908, bought for theChantrey Collection in the same year, is a marble nude of extraordinarygrace, beauty, and refinement; and his small “Earth and theElements,” similarly acquired in the preceding year for the ChantreyCollection, reveals a poetic beauty rare in these days. “TheMother” (1910) belongs to this group. The bronze statue of “TheDancer” (1904) is a work not less subtle, in which the learnedness ofthe sculptor is evident to every discerning eye, and “War,” a colossalfemale bust, reveals a power, amounting almost to ferocity, notdisclosed in the other works. Among Mackennal’s other importantstatuary are the War Memorial at Islington and statues of QueenVictoria for India, Australia, and Blackburn; in all of these thesculpture is marked by good style, with movement, vigour, grace andnervousness of treatment.
G. Herbert Hampton made his first appearance in the Paris Salonwith “The Mother of Evil,” and then the statues of “David” andApollo” and “The Broken Vow,” “A Mother and Child,” “Narcissus,”“Orpheus” and other works were seen in the Londongalleries. Portraiture of merit has come from Mr Hampton, but hisgreatest success, perhaps, has been achieved in decorative sculpture.
F. E. Schenck (d. 1908) was similarly and more emphatically anarchitect’s sculptor—one of those who have done much to embellishmany of the numerous great buildings which during the last twentyyears of the 19th and the opening decade of the present centurysprang up all over Great Britain. The municipal buildings atStafford and Oxford, the public library at Shoreditch, and theScotsman offices in Edinburgh—involving groups of colossal, figuresbearing close relation to their architectural setting—are among theworks which made his reputation. His defect was a “curliness”in his ornamental forms, which frequently detracts from the dignityand seriousness of his work.
J. Wenlock Robbins is another architectural sculptor of real powerand individuality, whose work for the New General Hospital inBirmingham and for the Town Hall of Croydon is of a high order.His portraiture is also good, the colossal statue of “Queen Victoria”for Belfast being the most important of his achievements. Of idealwork, the statue called “Nydia” is the best known.
Henry C. Fehr (pupil at the Royal Academy and of T. Brock)contributed the group of “Perseus and Andromeda” to the Academyin 1893, when it was purchased for the Chantrey Collection (TateGallery). His subsequent ideal works, “Hypnos Bestowing Sleepupon the Earth,” “The Spirit of the Waves,” “St George and theRescued Maiden,” and “Ambition’s Crown Fraught with Pain,”confirmed the high opinion of his cleverness; but in some of themhis exuberance tells somewhat against their general effect, in spiteof their inherent grace and strength. On the other hand, the statueof “James Watt” for the City Square of Leeds exhibits thosequalities needful for open-air portraiture; and his busts and statueshave character and life. “Isabella and the Pot of Basil” is freefrom this defect, and is an original treatment of the subject; and“The Briton” (1908), though full of vigour and imagination, showsrestraint.
George Wade is essentially a sculptor of busts and statues; themost noteworthy of his works are the memorial to Sir John Macdonaldin Montreal, the seated figure for Madras of the native judge,Sir Aiyar Muthuswamy, and a number of ambitious monumentalworks.
Gilbert Bayes, at first a modeller in the flat of horses treated in adecorative manner, produced “Vanity,” “A Knight-Errant,” andsimilar picturesque bibelôts on a large scale; and later still, suchwork as “The Fountain of the Zodiac,” showing a talent at oncemore serious, ordered and graceful. “The Coming of Spring”(1904) and “The Gallopers” (1905) are reliefs noteworthy for theintelligence and the sculptural appropriateness they display. Theequestrian “Sigurd” (1909 and 1910) is full of fancy anti) illustratesthe personal talent of the sculptor: the latter group was acquired forthe Chantrey Collection. He is the designer of the great seal (1910).
W. R. Colton (b. 1867; A.R.A., 1903) is a sculptor of strongindividuality, capable equally(of deep feeling and dainty fancy.“The Girdle,” “The Image-Finder,” “The Crown of Love,” “TheWavelet” and the “The Spring-tide of Life” revealed a sculptorof exceptional ability, whose love of truth and life has sometimesinspire him to place a touch of rather awkward realism in a gracefuland charming composition; the result is something unusual, yetquite natural, and because it imparts to the work a flavour ofquaintness and originality, it is not only unobjectionable but welcome.;Later, Colton struck out another path especially in themonumental and statuary work executed in England and India.Among his principal efforts are the South African memorial to theRoyal Artillery erected in the Mall, London, during the summerof 1910, the statue of the Maharajah of Mysore (1906) and a monumental“Tiger” (1909) in bronze—a work of considerable power.His vigour of design and sense of style made him a force in theyounger school of sculptors. He has acted as professor of sculptureat the Royal Academy.
David McGill first attracted attention with the relief of “Heroand Leander,” following it with a series of figures, of which the moststriking is “The Bather,” a work at once of vigour and of humour.His work is good in pose and line, refined in drawing and feeling, andexcellent in style.
Charles J. Allen belongs to the same group. “Love and theMermaid” (Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool), “A Dream of Love,”“Rescued” and “Love’s Tangles” (1908) are works of high merit,in every case good in treatment, free in modelling and pleasing indesign. His important Queen Victoria memorial in Liverpool wasunveiled in 1906, and the monument to “Rt. Hon. Samuel Smith,M.P.,” and numerous busts have followed. “The Woman whomThou gavest to be with me” is probably his completest ideal work.
F. M. Taubman, who had both French and Belgian teaching, hasproduced a series of works which display his power of design andstrength of technique. “The Angel of Sad Flowers,” “Orpheus andEurydice” and “Adam and Eve” reveal his strength in ideal work;and the statue of “Sir Sidney Waterlow” at Highgate is a goodexample of his monumental portraiture; In “The Sandal,” a smallnude kneeling figure, he has turned frankly to classic coldness, andeven the purity of design and modelling cannot warm it into life.
J. Pittendrigh Macgillvray, R.S.A., belongs to the rather meagreScottish group, of whom he is generally regarded as the chief. Hischief work consists mainly of monuments and colossal memorials.The “Peter Low Memorial” in Glasgow cathedral, the “RobertBurns,” the “Allan Family Memorial,” the fine relief of “Rhythm”.and the “National Gladstone Memorial” for Scotland are hisleading works. With these should be considered the “Dean MontgomeryMemorial” in St Mary’s cathedral, Edinburgh, and the“John Knox Memorial” in St Giles’s cathedral.
F. Derwent Wood (A.R.A., 1910) is a scul tor of exceptionalability. His varied training—at the Royal College of Art, theSlade School, the Royal Academy schools, and under M. Rodinand Mr Brock—gave him a wide outlook without impairing hisindividuality. His merit was recognized as soon as he quitted hismasters, and he forthwith won the competition for a series of statues
W. R. COLTON, A.R.A.—Maharajah of Mysore. | SIR CHARLES LAWES-WITTEWRONGE— The Punishment of Dirce. | G. F. WATTS, R.A.—Clytie. |
SIR J. EDGAR BOEHM, R.A.—Carlyle. | W. R. COLTON, A.R.A.—The Crown of Love. | THOMAS BROCK, R.A.—The Genius of Poetry. |
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representing the arts for the Kelvingrove art gal lery at Glasgow.A great mural tomb followed, with “Love Sacred and Profane” asits motif, together with a series of other works of growing artisticimportance. “Cain” (1905), a vigorous, dramatic, yet whollysculpturesque figure, is in powerful contrast to the three works thatappeared in successive years: “Abundance” (a group of a woman andtwo children) and the marble statues “Atalanta” and “Psyche”—allof them the type of grace in pose and of beauty of face and form.At the same time Derwent Wood produced the two boy figures onthe piers to the southward of the Queen Victoria Memorial in frontof Buckingham Palace. There is marked individuality in all hedoes, sculpturesque character, firmness and delicacy of handling,with a richness of style and appreciation of breadth and simplicity.
Paul Montford, the son of Horace Montford, after a brilliantacademic career made his mark in decorative sculpture. It is notby such work as “Court Favourites” (1906) that he sustains hisreputation, but rather by the sculptural embellishments wherewiththe archway connecting the Local Government offices with theHome Office in Whitehall is enriched. “The Spinning Girl” is oneof his best ideal figures, and the 18th century “Viscount Bolingbrokeand “The Storm Waves” are characteristic of his vigorousstyle and personal conception and execution. .
John Tweed, who studied under Falguiere and Rodin, was influencedmore by the latter than by the former, and inclines ratherto the impressionistic school than to the academic. His statue ofCecil Rhodes has power and emphasis—it impresses rather than attracts.The statues of Queen Victoria at Aden, of van Riebeckat Cape Town, and the Wilson Memorial in Rhodesia are amonghis chief works. He was selected to “complete” Alfred Stevens’sWellington Memorial in St Paul’s cathedral. Basil Gotto has notless force, and he is more exuberant in his realization of life—anexuberance which does not always make for refinement. “BrotherRuffino” has dignity and strength, and the “Bacchus” of 1907 isrealistic enough to repel those who ask for elegance even in anunrefined subject. The work, however, is ably treated.
Henry Poole belongs to the same vigorous school, and has a truesense of the monumental. as is evident in his colossal group of “TheMermaids”; while his “Naiad” (1909) shows an innate refinement.
S. Nicholson Babb, for some years an assistant of Mr Brock, hasproduced an ambitious “War Memorial” and many able groupsand figures, among which “The Coming of Spring” (1910) revealsthe modern French influence.
Albert H. Hodge stands by himself. Asa sculptor-decorator withspecial views on relief-work in which he adheres to the sentimentand character of the architecture it is to embellish, he adopts aconvention which gives the appearance of high relief to what isreally low, by sharpness of edges and by a learned use of light andshade. His panels of “Science and Art” (1904) and “Commerce”(1906) are good illustrations of this original kind of architectonicwork, while his large equestrian group of “Prosperity” applies thesame principles to the round. These three works were modelledfor the town of Hull.
A man of similar force is Joseph Epstein, who replaces refinementby vigour, archaic simplicity, and primitiveness of outlook, as thoughcasting his vote in favour of the Garden of Eden as against/thegarden of the Tuileries. His work, in which he leans towards themodern German view, is mainly decoration for buildings; his mostdiscussed productions are the statues (1907) on the topmost storeyof the British Medical Association offices.
Richard Garbe, a sculptor of equal strength, was a pupil of theLondon County Council School of Arts and Crafts and began toexhibit in 1898. Rugged power both in subject and execution markhis productions. His ideal works, such as “The Egoist” (1906),“Man and the Ideal” (1907), “The Idealist” (1908) and “Undine”(1909), illustrate his range of thought and reveal his uncommon vigourwhich amounts, it might be said, to well-controlled, idealisticbrutality; they are broad and impressive, and are conceived in amonumental spirit.
Charles L. Hartwell has grace and strength combined. The nudefigure representing “The Rising Tide” (1906), reminding us a littleof Leighton’s work, and “The Bathers” (1907), are both works ofrefinement and elegance, and “Dawn” (1909) displays unusualcharm and, like the others, offers a silhouette of much interest.While much poetry of expression and grace of composition distinguishhis “Sirens" (1910), vigour is the note of the small group f' A Foulin the Giants' Race,” which was acquired by the Chantrey trusteesin 1908.
Benjamin Clemens, pupil of Professor Lantéri and the RoyalCollege of Art, is another member of this talented group. His lifesizeideal figures, “Sappho” (1902), “Cain” (1904), “Eurydice”(1906), “Andromeda” (1907) and “Aurora” (1908), all made theirmark when exhibited in the Royal Academy, and showed the sculptorto be possessed of the qualities of sensitiveness, elegance, and strength.The group of “Kephalos and Prokris” (1910) is his most importantand most striking work.
Harold Parker came to England from Australia in I$96 at the ageof twenty-three, and after studying under W. S. Frith, made manyAcademic successes, and in 1904 exhibited his plaster life-size statueof “Ariadne,” which, translated into marble and re-exhibited in1908, was bought by the trustees of the Chantrey Collection and isnow in the Tate Gallery. His other more .important works include“The Long, Long Dreams of Youth” (1905), “Narcissus” (1906),and “Prometheus” (1909). Without revealing any striking originality,Parker displays very considerable accomplishment and a goodsense of the sculpturesque, and his busts are refined and good.
Oliver Wheatley, formerly assistant to Brock, and pupil of Aman-Jean,has done much decorative work. His life-size recumbentstatue “Awakening” is among the best of his figures.
T. Tyrrell, who first attracted attention by his decorative figureson Professor Pite’s house in Mortimer Street, London, has shown2nuch)graceful fancy in his “The Ideal,” such as “The Whisper”1906 .
Reuben Sheppard has shown himself poetic and pleasing insymbolic suggestion in his striking half-length group “The Music ofDeath” (1907); and Oliver Sheppard, in his “Eve” of the sameyear, produced a graceful work.
The Irish sculptor, John Hughes, achieved a great success by hismonument to Queen Victoria erected in Dublin. It is a fine combinationof sculptural and architectural effect and richness of grouping,and although it reveals too great a love of ornament it is impressivealike in mass, design, silhouette, and general arrangement.
There should also be mentioned, among the younger sculptors,Mortimer Brown (“St John the Baptist”), David B. Brown(“The Spirit of Ivy”), Bertram Pegram (“Down to the Sea”), theScotsmen, McFarlane Shannan (“The Arcadian Shepherd’sDream”), Kellock Brown, and J. Crosland McLure (“Leicester WarMemorial”); Herbert Ward (bronzes of South African savages,“The Idol Maker” and the like), Alfred Turner, Charles Pibworth,and F. Arnold Wright.
The women sculptors include such accomplished amateurs asH.R.H. the duch*ess of Argyll (“A Crucifix”—the ColonialMemorial in St Paul’s cathedral) and Countess Gleichen. Theprincipal recent names are those of Mary Pownall (Mrs Bromet),(“A Harpy”), E.M. Rope (“Springtime,” relief), Ruby Levick(“Fishermen hauling a Net”), Margaret Winser (“Mourners,” arelief), Esther Moore (“At the Gates of the Past”), Edith Maryon(“The Poet of Umbria”), and Gwendolen Williams (“The Lorelei,”1907, and charming groups of children).
The sculptor-decorators make a group of workers of striking fancyand ability. Lynn Jenkins, whose frieze in bronze, ivory andmother-of-pearl at Lloyd’s Registry is a remarkable achievement, isone of the leaders. He has latterly devoted himself to pure sculpture,such as the life-size bronze figure on a sarcophagus, “Destiny” (1909and 1910) and bust portraits remarkable for exquisite feeling anddelicacy of carving. Walter Crane designed for Manchester a macethat is remarkable for beauty of conception and felicity of symbolism.Alexander Fisher and Nelson Dawson should be included inthe group. Other sculptors already mentioned, including Thornycroft,Gilbert, Frampton, Pomeroy, Colton and Toft, have all devotedthemselves to sculptural decoration pure and simple, whetherin metal, stone, or marble.
The painter-sculptors claim among them Alfred Stevens, SirEdwin Landseer, Lord Leighton, J.M. Swan, W. Reynolds-Stephens,George Richmond, and G. F. Watts. George Richmond’s real talentmay be gauged by his “Monument to Bishop Blomfield” in St Paul’scathedral. His son, Sir William Richmond, K.C.B., has alsopractised in sculpture—the memorial tomb of Mr and Mrs Gladstoneis his. Watts educated himself artistically on the Elgin Marbles,and he produced half a dozen pieces of sculpture which place himhigh among the world’s finest sculptors of the 19th century. Therecumbent effigy of “Bishop Lonsdale” in Lichfield cathedral wasan epoch-marking work, not only in the technical matter of the boldtreatment of the drapery, but in largeness and breadth and its noblesense of style, and the “Lord Lothian” in Bickling church is alsovery remarkable. The artist then produced the colossal equestriangroup of “Hugh Lupus” for the duke of Westminster (Eaton Hall),a composition as imaginative and original asit is grand and sculpturesque.Then followed “Physical Energy,” another equestriangroup, which, after being about twenty years in progress, was cast in1902; it was executed in duplicate; one copy has been set up inSouth Africa, to the memory of Cecil Rhodes, whose character it maybe held to symbolize, and the other has been erected in KensingtonGardens, London, at the expense of the British government. In 1902also, the startle of “Lord Tennyson” was completed. But the bustof “Clytie” is surpassed in bigness and classic purity of style andfeeling by nothing ever produced in England; it is a complete andnoble thing. There is no sculptor who has come nearer to obtainingthe grandeur of form which is so wonderful in the Greek masterélpieces.Simple in line, immense in character, full and rich in mo elling,Watts’s work is instinct with vigour, breadth and movement. Itsets the true standard, and is a constant and a noble warning tosculptors of the younger school not, to be led away by the dainty andfanciful, however alluring. Especially it warns them against whathas become a feature with a certain section—the devotion to metalworking,enamelling, and the like, and the free introduction of theseaccessories into serious sculptural work. Irresistible in the hands ofa great artist like Alfred Gilbert, such work, at all times attractive,is the goldsmith’s and iron smith’s business rather than the sculptor’s;and although it has coloured the work of some of the youngersculptors of the day, it is not likely to obtain any very wide hold, or to exercise permanent influence for evil. The variety and independenceof the British School are such that it is impossible to define anyparticular tendency in its practice other than towards an ever increasingrise in the level of technical excellence and the power ofdesign. There is, broadly speaking, a general stand against the“modernity” imported into sculpture by the younger members ofthe foreign schools, and a disinclination to bend the art to the illustrationof everyday life and to the rendering of effects not hithertoconsidered to be the function of the plastic arts. (M. H. S.)
After 1870, when a great artistic movement marked theresuscitation of France after the Franco-German War, sculptureespecially revived with exceptional vigour, and the lastthirty years of the 19th century were a memorableepoch in its history. Not that many new and unexpectedmen of genius suddenly arose, for most of the artistswho then came to the front had already distinguished themselvesby equally noble work; but sculpture, like the other arts,benefited by the pause for thought, and by the ripe and manlytone stamped on the national mind by the discipline of events.Intense ardour animated the admirable group of French sculptors:the oldest still found some lofty expression; the men in theirprime showed their powers with unwonted force and fire;and the younger generations grew up in rapid succession, aclose phalanx of sculptors whose number is still increasing,for if we include only living artists, and those who have takenhonours in the Salons, we find a list of seven hundred exhibitors.The first generation of survivors of the war, who led the wayin the new period, still boasted of such men as Dumont (1801–1884),Cavelier (1814–1894), Bonnassieux (1810–1892), Jouffroy(1806–1882), Schoenewerck (1820–1885), Carrier-Belleuze (1824–1887),Aimé Millet (1819–1891) and Clésinger (1814–1883).These artists, born in the first quarter of the 19th century, werefor the most part each the head of a studio,” their teaching beingcarried on till the end of the century. Next to them followedtheir immediate pupils, already their rivals, and some indeedfamous before the new era; such were Guillaume, Dubois andFrémiet; others, fresh from the Academy at Rome, at once roseto distinction, and all combined to form the remarkable groupof artists to which the modern school of French sculpture owesits world-wide fame. At this time Eugene Guillaume (1822–1905) was exhibiting his “Roman Marriage,” his “Bust of MgrDarboy,” his “Orpheus,” and “Andromache,” works of learnedskill and severe distinction. Paul Dubois (1829–1905) executedhis “Narcissus,” and the “Tomb of General Lamoriciere,” onwhich the decorative figures of Charity, Faith, and MilitaryCourage are popular favourites, full of grave and patheticfeeling. Chapu (1833–1891) executed his exquisite figure of“Youth” for the tomb of Henri Regnault, and that of“Thought” for the tomb of Daniel Stern, his monuments toBerryer and to Mgr Dupanloup. Barrias' (1841–1905) “FirstInterment” won him the medal of honour in 1878; besideshis patriotic group of the “Defence of Paris.” F alguiere(1831–1900) produced a remarkable series of statues, characterizedby their life-like power; some dignified or pathetic, as“St Vincent de Paul,” “La Rochejacquelein,” and “CardinalLavigerie”; some full of bold and- dashing spirit, as his “Diana,” his “Nereids,” and “Hunting Nymphs.” Mercié gave us“Gloria Victis,” “Quand Meme,” and his monuments, amongwhich that called “Memory” must be mentioned; his pedimentfor the Tuileries; his “Genius of Art,” &c. Delaplanche(1836–1890) produced his “Mother's Teaching,” “Music,” “The Virgin with a Lily,” and “Aurora”; and Allar “TheDeath of Alcestis.” To these names must be added those ofDegeorge, who, with Chapu, gave so powerful an impetus to theart of the medallist; of Gautherin, Hiolle, Thomas, Crauck,Lafrance, Maniglier and Moreau-Vauthier—one of the men who,with Gérome (the painter) and Frémiet, revived the taste forcoloured sculpture, a style first attempted long before by Simart;besides many more. These artists created a supremely healthyand vital school of sculpture, dignified and elegant, learned andvaried, fresh and charming, and, above all, as single-heartedand as well trained as in any period of history.
To understand, however, the position of contemporarysculpture in France, it will be necessary to look back evenfurther than 1870. It must be remembered that the wholehistory of French sculpture, as far back as the 17th century,is connected with the invasion of Italian influence in the 16thcentury, which remained paramount over French art for morethan three hundred years. Statue-making, until then an artof expression-national, popular, human and Christian—lostit* primitive character under the dilettante refinement of anaristocratic society closely gathered round a king who madeart subservient to his splendour or his pleasure; it sank intosuperficial and conventional beauty, and became almost exclusivelythe interpreter of trivial ingenuity or flattering allegoriesderived from the dead fables of heathen mythology. The bestthat would be expected from this was choice elegance of line,a harmonious treatment of mass and composition, a lovingstudy of the nude-in short, a purely plastic type of art. Andsculpture had become the art of the nobility and of the court,having no hold, as it had in the past, on the great human family—thenation. Still, even at the high tide of Louis XIV.'s reign,some dissatisfaction became evident, even some rebellion, inthe great though solitary spirit of Puget, who strove to animatethe marble with the passions of humanity. In the next centuryhe found followers-Falconet, Pigalle and Houdon, who alsoasserted their right to infuse life and passion and movementinto their statues, seeking them in the despised province of sternreality. The great cataclysm of the Revolution, which mighthave been expected to break the bonds of thought, turned men'sminds to contemplate the Antique, and though it certainlymodified the style of sculpture, was far from changing the sourceof its inspiration, since it sent it once more to the Antique.Indeed, at the beginning of the 19th century, when the teachingof David was paramount in spite of Gros, who, then in themaster's studio, was unconsciously sowing the seed of romanticismin painting, a robust individuality was developing amongFrench sculptors-a spirit somewhat rugged, independent,and partly trained, beyond the academic pale, prepared to carryon the tradition of Puget, and quite simply, without any revolutionaryairs of innovation, to shake off torpid conventionality.By the mere force of a strong plebeian temperament Rude quitenaturally happened on a style of art-high art-at once expressiveand popular. He was the first to raise the cry of liberty insculpture, and he left successors who bravely worked out whathe had begun. Barye and Carpeaux were both in 1875 on thethreshold of an era to which they bequeathed a fruitful influence.Barye carried on Rude's tradition of expression, and transformedwhat had previously been mere decorative carving into a newstyle and branch of art now adopted by a whole phalanx ofadmirable artists: the sculpture, namely, of animals, the firstglance that sculpture had till then bestowed on nature apartfrom man. Carpeaux, who was much younger, was in his dayasPuget had been-an exceptional personality; he carriedon the slow revolt of two centuries which was to break the narrowmould of school-training and infuse a soul of more ardent vitalityinto sculptured forms.
The importance of these two great artists in relation to contemporaryart was not fully seen till after their death. In pointof fact Painting had until now amply filled the new part assignedto Art; its vehement efforts had strongly influenced publicopinion; and as, in the early years of the 19th century, it hadlargely extended the field of human vision over the remotepast and the domains of feeling, with the promise of surveyingall nature, space and time, the spirit of the age asked no more,and did not expect sculpture, too, to abandon old-world myths.It must also be said that those sculptors who at that time carriedon the classical tradition had renewed its youth by their learnedand enthusiastic love of it; they had reverted to the past,but it was the past of the really great masters, either of antiquityor of the early Florentine school, no less enamoured of life,beauty and nature. Guillaume and Paul Dubois, Chapu andFalguiére, Mercié, and Delaplanche were the rivals in sculptureof the great idealist painters-Puvis de Chavannes, GustaveMoreau, Ricard, Delaunay, Baudry, and Henner-who wereworking at the same time.
A. FALGUIĖRE—St Vincent de Paul. | E. BARRIAS—The First Funeral. | E. DELAPLANCHE—The Virgin with the Lily. |
A. IDRAC—Mercury inventing the Caduceus. | ||
JUSTE BECQUER—St Sebastian. | L. GÉRÔME—Bonaparte at Cairo. | L. MARQUESTE—Galatea. |
FRÉMIET—The Bear Hunter. | ||
L. LONGEPIED—Immortality. | GUILLAUME—The Roman Marriage. | D. PUECH—The Siren. |
R. DE SAINT-MARCEAUX—Genius guarding the Secret of the Tomb. | A. MERCIÉ—Souvenir. | A. RODIN—The Kiss. |
This it is which accounts for the fact that romanticism thenfound so little acceptance among sculptors. But in the nextgeneration the sowers of the seed might see their harvest. Thepupils of Rude, of Barye and of Carpeaux, allied by schoolsympathies-the little drawing-school conducted by Lecoqde Boisbaudran, which, in despite of the studios of the BeauxArts, created a group of independent and highly original artists—formedthe centre of a distinct force which increased day by day.Young men, fresh from Rome, persistently kept up the spiritof the Antique. A galaxy of learned and refined artists wasrepresented by such men as Hiolle (1833–1887) (“Arion,”“Orpheus”), Idrac (1840–1884) (“Mercury inventing theCaduceus,” “Salammbo”), Marqueste (“Galatea,” “Eros,”“Perseus beheading the Gorgon,” “The Rape of Europa”),and Coutan (“Eros,” “A Woman carrying Loaves,” “ASergeant-at-Arms,” &c.), Lanson (“The Iron Age”), Longepied(1849–1888) (“Immortality”), Peinte (“Orpheus charmingCerberus to Sleep”), Gustave Michel (“In a Dream,” “Meditation”),Carlés (“Innocence,” “Abel”), A. Boucher (“Earth,”“Au but”), besides Carlier, Léonard and Turcan (1846–1895)—soonto be followed by another generation: Puech (“The Siren,”“The Muse of André Chénier”), Verlet (“The Monument toMaupassant,” “Orpheus”), Larche (“The Brook and theMeadow,” “Violets”), Sicard (“Hagar and Ishmael”), andDaillon, Escoula, St Lami, and many more. In opposition tothese there stood a group of sculptors, young and old, who soughttheir subjects in mythology, legend, history or poetry, ormerely in the scenes of daily life, and aimed at presenting theideal of their time under its external aspects, but more especiallythe deepest emotions of the modern mind. It was Frémiet,with his striking and vivid conceptions, who led the advance withnew and dramatic subjects: primeval man and the fierce beastswith which he disputed his rule (“A She-Bear and a Man of theStone Age,” “An Oran-utan and a Savage,” “Gorillas”),or embodiments of the heroes of the past (“Joan of Arc,” “SaintLouis,” “Saint George,” “Louis of Orleans,” &c.); thenfollowed lust Becquet (1829–1907), the excellent artist whor*presented the stricken figures of “Ishmael” and “SaintSebastian”; Christophe (1827–1892), with his symbolical presentmentsof “The Human Comedy,” “Fortune” and “TheSupreme Kiss”; Aubé (“Monument to Gambetta,” “Dante,”“Bailly,” &c.); A. Legros the naturalized English painterand sculptor, who executed some fine fountains for the dukeof Portland; Injalbert, returned from Rome (“Hippoméne,”“Christ on the Cross,” “The Herald”); and, younger thanthese, Desbois (“Leda”), Dampt (“A Grandmother’s Kiss,”“Melusine”), Alexandre Charpentier, Carriès, Baffier, PierreRoche, Madame Marie Cazin and many more.
The disruption of the Salons in 1890 showed very plainlythe bent of this group, who seceded to the Champ de Mars,where the leaders were Dalou and Rodin, and where Bartholomémade an unexpected and original appearance. Foreignersadded a contingent of the highest merit, such as the AmericanSt Gaudens, and, more especially, the Belgian ConstantinMeunier, affiliated to France by their early training, to say nothingof descent. Meunier especially, with his statues and statuettesof labouring figures—miners, puddlers, hammerers, glass-blowers,and the like—gave to his art a keynote new to France, whichfound a response even in academic circles. A broad democraticcurrent was swaying public feeling. The questions which turnon the status of the working man had become the programme ofevery party, even of the most conservative. Art being themirror of society, the novel, the drama and painting devotedthemselves to the glorification of a new factor in modern life,namely, Labour. Sculpture now, in rivalry with painting,through which Millet had immortalized the peasant, and Courbetthe working man, also sought inspiration from such themes;and at the same time the demands of the democratic movementcalled for monuments to the memory and deeds of great oruseful men.
Sculpture, under this modern tendency, assumed an unexpectedaspect; its highest expression is seen in the work of three menvery dissimilar: Dalou, Rodin, and Bartholomé. In Belgium,as has been said, where modern social questions are stronglyfelt, Constantin Meunier had interpreted the democratic impulsein a very striking manner, under the influence, no doubt, of J.F.Millet. In France, Jules Dalou (1838–1902), with a broaderview, aimed at creating an art which should represent theaspirations and dreams of this phase of society while adheringto the fine old traditions of the art of LouisXIV., stamped withmagnificence and grandeur, but applied with graver, simplerand severer feeling to the glorification of the people. He revivedthe older style of sculpture, giving it greater power and truerdignity by a close study of life, supported by a scholarly andserious technique. In his “Triumph of the Republic,” and themonuments to “Alphand,” to “Delacroix,” to “Floquet,”to “Victor Hugo,” and others, he strove to create a style apartfrom life, to which he is alien and indifferent, but based on life,the outcome of the needs of society, the impersonation of itscharacteristics, the expression in eloquent form of its nature,spirit, and moral idiosyncrasy.
Treading the same path, though in a different step, is AugusteRodin. He disregards every contingent fact; even when hetakes his subject from legend or history, whether “Eve” or“St John the Baptist,” “The Age of Bronze” or “The Burgessesof Calais,” “Victor Hugo” or “Balzac,” he avoids all theconventional details and attributes of his personages to embodythe very essence of humanity as expressed in the quiveringflesh. He, like Carpeaux, has gone back, to Dante and to Michelangeloto force the “Gates of Hell”—the subject chosen forthe entrance to the Musée des Arts Décoratifs—and to readthe deepest mysteries of the human soul. His is the art ofsuffering, anguish and terror, of cruel and despairing pleasure—awild cycle of proud and bitter melancholy. All the effortsmade in the past to infuse life into Art, all that Puget, Falconet,Pigalle and Houdon tried to effect, and that Rude, Barye andCarpeaux strove for in their turn—all this was part of theendeavour of these their successors, but with a clearer purposeand more conscious aim. By good hap or providence theywere greeted on their way by the voice of the most devotedapostle who was to preach the new doctrine, namely, LouisCourajod, the founder of the French sculpture gallery in theLouvre. From his professor’s chair in the schools he cursedthe Italian intruders of the 16th century for having debasedFrench art with “noble attitudes,” extravagant gestures andallegorical antics; and he carried his pupils and his hearersback to the great national period of French sculpture, which,in the dark medieval ages, had created the splendid stone imagesof the noble French cathedrals.
A marked individuality now appeared in protest againstacademic traditions—Albert Bartholomé. He, after beginningas a painter, was tempted by sculpture, more particularly, in thefirst instance, by a wish to execute a monument to a comradehe had loved. From this first effort, carried out in his studio,without any school training, but with a firm determinationto master technical difficulties and fulfil his dream, followed abroader purpose to execute a great expressive and vitallyhuman work which should appeal to the heart of the populace.From this arose the idea of a “Monument to the Dead” in PereLachaise. Bartholomé had started without a guide, but heinstinctively turned to the great tradition of Northern Christianity,which his mind subsequently associated with that of theantique race who had ever done most honour to Death, thepeople of Egypt.
Thus two currents contended, as it were, for the guidanceof French sculpture, each claiming a descent from the historicpast; one inheriting the classic tradition of the Renaissance,of Latin and Hellenic origin, to which the French school, sincethe time of lean Goujon, has owed three centuries of glory.This is the pagan art of the South; its marks are balance,reasonableness and lucidity; it was the composer of apotheoses,the preserver of the ideal of beauty. The other, reverting, aftercenturies of resignation or of impotent rebellion, to the genuineFrench past which produced the noble works of the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries—to the tradition of Flanders and ofBurgundy, which was smothered in the 16th century by Italianart–to the Christian and naturalistic art of the North, whichrenounced the canons of antiquity, and expressed itself bymethods essentially human and mutable, living and suffering appealsto all mankind. The immediate result of this antagonismwas no doubt a period of agitation. The outcome, on the whole,is confusion. Still, however vexatious the chaos of form andmovement may be, it is Life, a true reflection of the tumultof modern thought in its complexity and bewilderment; it isthe reawakening of sculpture.
Monumental and decorative statuary found an extendedsphere through the founding or restoration of public buildingsafter the events of 1870. Memorial sculpture obtained constantemployment on patriotic or republican monuments erectedin various parts of France, and not yet complete. Illustriousmasters have done themselves honour in such work. Dalou,Mercie, Barrias, Falguiére, and many others less famous executedmonuments to the glory of the Republic or in memory of thenational defence, and figures of loan of Arc as a symbol ofpatriotism, &c., as well as numberless statues erected in themarket-places of humble towns, or even of villages, in commemorationof national or local celebrities: politicians, soldiers,savants and artists—Thiers, Gambetta, Jules Ferry, Carnot,Pasteur, Claude Bernard, Delacroix, Ingres, Corot, Millet, VictorHugo, Lamartine and many more. The garden of the Luxembourgalone has become a sort of Elysian Fields, where almostevery day some fresh statue rises up in memory of contemporaryFrench poets. The funereal style of monument, in which Frenchart was at all times conspicuously distinguished, was also revivedin sympathy with that general sentiment which regards reverencefor the dead as a religion, and gave rise, as we have seen, to somesplendid work by Chapu (the monuments to Regnault, to DanielStern, of Mgr Dupanloup); by Paul Dubois (the monumentto General Lamoriciére); by Mercie (the tombs of Baudry,of Cabanel, of King Louis Philippe and his queen Marie Amelie);by Dalou (the monuments to Victor Noir, to Floquet andBlanqui); and by many more, with Bartholome at their head.The cemetery of Pere Lachaise is indeed one of the best spotsto visit for a review of contemporary sculpture.
While man has been diligently studied in every class of sculpture,more particularly in portrait sculpture, which finds a morepractical adaptation to daily uses by a bust or small statue,such as Theodore Riviere was the first to produce, by medallions,or by medals, closely related to statuary, nature now holds aplace in the sculpture of animals-a place created, so to say,by Barye and carried on by Fremiet, Mene, Cain, and, witheven greater vigour and a closer study of character, by Gardet(“Panthers,” in the Luxembourg, “Lions” and “Dogs,” atChantilly, &c.); Peter, Valton, Le Duc, Isidore Bonheur,Peyrol, Cordier, Surand, Virion, Mérite and others. Finally,the class of la petite sculpture—the statuette and small group—afterlong hesitation in the hands of the two men who firstcultivated it, Fremiet and the painter Gerome, made a suddenstart into life, due in no small measure to the success attendingthe charming and pathetic statuettes of Theodore Riviére(“Salammbo and Maltho,” “Ultimum feriens,” “CharlesVI.and Odette,” “The Vow,” “Fra Angelico,” “The ShunammiteWoman,” &c.). Riviere was wont to use—as Gérôme did in his“Bellona,” and subsequently in his small “Tamerlane”—materialsof various colours, and even precious stones andmetals, which he employed with great effect. A whole class ofart was not, indeed, originated, but strongly vivified by thismethod of treatment. Claudius Marioton and Dampt, whoalways affected small and precious work, Agathon Leonard(e.g. a table decoration of “Dancers” in Sèvres china), LaporteBlairsy, Ferrary, Levasseur, Belloc, E. Lafont, &c., utilizedevery process and every kind of material—marble and metal,wood and ivory, enchanced by the most costly goldsmiths’ workand gems.
It would seem now that sculpture, thus endowed with newideas and the most various means of expression, and adaptedto every comprehension and every situation, was fully on a levelwith the other graphic arts. What it had chiefly to fear was,in fact, the wealth of means at its disposal, and its competitionor collaboration with other arts. And this the later generationsseem to have understood-the men who were the outcome ofthe two conflicting traditions: order and moderation on oneside; character, life, and emotion on the other. Though veryvariously inspired by the facts or ideals of contemporary life,such young artists as Jean Boucher (“Evening,” “The Antiqueand the Modern”), Roger Bloche (“Childhood,” “Cold”),Derré, Boverie, Hippolyte Lefebvre, Desruelles, Gaston Schnegg,Pierre Roche, Fix-Masseau, Couteil has, and others seem to showthat French sculpture is about to assume a solid position on asound foundation, while not ceasing to keep in touch withthe tastes, aspects and needs—in short, the ideal—of the day.Thus, while painting -engaged the attention of the public by, itsnew departures, its daring, and its very extravagance, sculpture,which by the conditions of its technique is less exposed to transientinfluences, has, since the close of the 19th century, developednormally but with renewed vigour. If the brilliancy of the schoolwas not so conspicuous and its works gave rise to little discussionor speculation, it is not the less certain that at the beginningof the 20th century the younger generation offered the encouragingprospect of a compact group of sculptors who would probablyleave works of permanent merit. Yet sculpture too had gonethrough a crisis, and been deeply stirred by the currents whichso violently agitated all modern thought. We have alreadyspoken of its “state of mind,” torn between the noble traditionsof a glorious past which link it to the antique, and the cravingto render in its own medium, with greater freedom and fullerforce of expression, all those unuttered meanings of the universeand of contemporary thought which the other arts-painting,literature, the drama, and even music-have striven to identifyand to record. But the acute stage of tentative and incoherenteffort seemed in 1910 to be past; inspiration had returned# toits normal channel and purely plastic expression.
The powerful individuality which had the most vital influenceon modern sculpture in France, and, it may be added, on manyforeign schools, is that of Rodin. During the ten years whichfollowed the Great Exhibition in Paris (1900) and the specialdisplay of his works, his reputation spread throughout thecountries of the world and his fame was fully established. Thestate liberally contributed to his triumph by commissions andpurchases, and in the Luxembourg Gallery may be seen aboutfive and twenty of his finest works. His productiveness wasunbroken, but it was chiefly evolved in relation to his first greatconception, “The Gate of Hell”; its leading features weretaken up again, modified, expanded, and added to by theircreator. But besides the numberless embodiments of voluptuous,impassioned, or pathetic ideas—of which there is need to nameonly “Les ombres” (the Shades) and “Le penseur” (theThinker), now placed in front of the steps of the Pantheon;several monuments, as for instance to Victor Hugo, to Whistler,and to Puvis de Chavannes; besides a large number of portrait busts.Enthusiastic literary men, and the critics of the day whoupheld Rodin in his struggles, more from an instinct of pugnacityand a love of paradox than from conviction and real comprehensionof his prodigious and fertile genius, have tended to givehim a poetic and prophetic aspect, and make him appear as asort of Dante in sculpture. Though his art is vehement in expression,and he has revelled in the presentment of agonizedsuffering and the poignant melancholy of passion, it is by themethods of Michelangelo and essentially plastic treatmentthan power of modelling. His modelling is indeed the mostwonderful that modern sculpture has to show, the most purelyplastic technique, and this characteristic is always evidentin his work, combined with reverence for the antique. Rodinmade his home in the midst of Greek statues, a museum of theantique which he collected at Meudon; and some of his own latework, such as the male torsos which he exhibited at the Salon,has a direct relationship to the marbles of the Parthenon—theIlyssus and the Theseus. It is the fuller understanding of these
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S. SINDING—The Captive Mother. (Danish.) | (Photo, W. Titzenthalen, Berlin.) REINHOLD BEGAS—Statue and Memorial of Emperor William I. (German.) | ||||
ETTORE XIMENES—Revolution. (German.) | A. QUEROL—Memorial to Alphonso XII. (From the Model.) (Spanish.) | M. ANTOKOLSKI—Satan. (Russian.) | |||
JEF LAMBEAUX—The Human Passions. (Belgian.) | C. MEUNIER—Uploading. (Belgian.) |
characteristics of Rodin’s work, apart from some exaggerationof expression to which they have given rise, that has had the mostvaluable influence on the younger generation.
Nothing need be particularly noted as to the development ofmasters long since recognized, whatever branch of the school theybelong to; such as Frémiet, Mercié, Marqueste, Injalbert, Saint-Marceauxand others already spoken of. The very distinct individualityof Bartholomé, after asserting itself in his crowning effortthe “Monument of the Dead,” found very delicate expression innumerous works on a more modest scale, nude figures, monumentalgroups, and portraits. His monument to Jean-Jacques Rousseau forthe Pantheon (1909) is a fine example of his art.
We must not omit, after the elder generation, the name of AlfredLenoir, who particularly distinguished himself in portrait-statues bydealing successfully with the difficult problem of modern dress, as inthe monuments of Berlioz, to César Franck, to Marshal Canrobert,in the bust of M. Moreau, &c.; nor that of Gustave Michel, a spiritloftily inspired in his decorative compositions and figures forgalleries, “Le rêve” (the Dream), “La pensée” (Thought)—both inthe Luxembourg Gallery,—“Au soir de la vie” (in the Evening ofLife), and “Automne.” H. Gréber, after some realistic works, such as“Le Grisou” (Fire-damp) and portrait-statuettes, as the tiny full lengthfigures of “Frémiet” and of “Gévine,” distinguished himselfin the Salon of 1909 by a statue of “Narcissus” at the edge of afountain-pool, very ele ant and Italian in feeling. And among theyounger men of the school we must name Verlet, Gasq Vermare,Ernest Dubois, and Larche, all employed on important works.
It must indeed be said that in France, apart from the select committeesWhich have, with more or less success, peopled provincialtowns with monumental statues, the government has always takenan interest in encouraging the art of sculpture. Any considerablework of that class could hardly be undertaken without its support.The former Council of Fine Arts in Paris foresaw the application ofsculpture to the decoration of the park of Saint Cloud; the presentcouncil has encouraged a strong competition among our sculptors bydecorating the squares of the Carrousel and of the Champ de Mars,by carrying on the decorative work in the Panthéon, &c. They havethus given commissions to a group of rising artists, who quickly madea distinguished reputation. The names of these younger sculptorshave already been recorded here; in the ten years 1901–1910 theycame into the front rank of their contemporaries by their conspicuoustalent and the firm expression of their ideals. The first fact to benoted about them is their determination to be men of their time.Many artists before them were indeed possessed by this idea: Legros,Dalou, the Belgian sculptor Constantin Meunier, the American StGaudens,and among their immediate precursors Alfred Lenoir.But now this purposeful bias is more strongly marked; the new mendo not restrict themselves to the merely monumental or commemorativeaspect, to the picturesque treatment of the miners or the tillersof the soil. Every type of the people, even of the middle-class citizen,is included in the programme. Alexandre Charpentier (d.1909) wasone of the earliest of these younger realists, and he gave it expressionnot only in sculpture proper, but in medal work, and bas-reliefsintroduced into architecture, in decorative furniture and in everyform of ornamental sculpture. Thus he produced the “Womansuckling her Infant” (1883) and a large bas-relief of “Bakers,”executed in stone and placed in the square of StGermain des Prés,Paris; and, following in his footsteps, other artists gave expressionto the same ideas. An instructive fact is that one off these men wasa pupil of the École des Beaux Arts and of the academy at Rome.Hippolyte Lefebvre devoted himself to proving that the commonaspects of modern life are not an insuperable problem for thesculptor’s art; nay, that the actually afford him new subjects mostsuitable to his methods. If; persisted in this purpose, and finallywon the adhesion of his fellow-artists and the medal of honour for his“Jeunes aveugles” (Blind Boys), in the Luxembourg Gallery. Wehave also by him in this manner of the day, handled with trulysynthetic breadth, “Summer,” a youthful female figure in an ordinarywalking dress carrying a parasol, her straw hat tilted over her eyes;“Ninter”, an old lady wrapped in furs, coming down snow-coveredsteps; “Spring,” more accurately the “Age of Love,” a group ofsix figures, and others. His comrade Roger Bloche has gone evenfurther, asserting with no little pugnacity the same ideas in figuresderived from the people, and in episodes of daily life, as in the“Accident,” a recumbent figure surrounded by about twentybystanders, drawn from every rank of society and rendered with thatfirm decision and breadth of treatment which alone constitute a workof art. This work earned him a first prize in the Salon of 1909.These awards are an unmistakable sign of official recognition ofthese tendencies, so long ignored and disapproved. Such encouragementhas borne fruit. Francois Sicard and Henri Bouchard, whoboth had won the prix de Rome, started boldly on the new road, onein his monumental sculpture (a “Monument of the War of 1870” atTours “Monument to Barbey”; “Monument to Bertagna”; apediment for a college for girls at Tours), the other in works recallingthe feeling of Constantin Meunier by subjects of labour, in town orcountry, small figures in bronze, or large and important decorativegroups, as “La Carrière” (the Quarry) and “Le Défrichement”(Turning the Sod), a group of six oxen led by two men. This wasintended to decorate the Champ de Mars.
Meantime the study of beauty in the nude, far from being neglected,seemed to start on a new flight. Some students of the Roman schoolrevived this tradition. Victor Ségoffin and Maximilien Landowski,each in his own nervous, vivid and characteristic manner, and, borneon an independent current, Louis Convers and Aimé Octobre showa feeling for grace and charm.
This is the normal and traditional heritage of the school; we seehow strikingly it has renewed itself. In opposition to the followersof Rodin we find another group which represents an antagonisticschool. Mademoiselle Camille Claudel, José de Charmoy and HenriMatisse typify the extremes of this manner; Emile Bourdelle,Aristide Maillot and Lucien Schnegg might be regarded as some ofthe artists who best deserved attention. With various characteristicsand vehement or equable temperament they all reveal in the highestdegree a fine sense of purely plastic qualities; in them we.find nolapse into the pictorial, no purpose or arrière-pensée that is not of theessence of sculpture. Emile Bourdelle has given us busts of Beethoven,Carpeaux, Heracles (in the Luxembourg Gallery), PallasAthena, and the large group of “Wrestlers of Tarn et Garonne” forcompletion in bronze. Maillot for his part prefers to work in marbleand stone with large surfaces, after the tradition of the ancients; heexhibited in the autumn Salons several heads of girls and of oldwomen, a figure of a youth in bronze (1909) and a stooping nudefemale figure in plaster., Lucien Schnegg’s (d.1909) reputationwould have been assured by one bust only from his hand, that,namely, of his pupil “Mademoiselle Jane Poupelet.” This inmarble is now in the Luxembourg Gallery, and is a masterpiece forgrace and dignity in the best spirit of the antique.
Besides these there should be named Jean Boucher, who has executeda monument to Renan, the “Evening of Life” and “Ancientand Modern”; E. Derré, an inventive decorator, with socialtendencies and grateful emotional feeling; Max Blondat, lively andwitty, as is seen in a fountain with frogs entitled “Jeunesse” (exhibitedin the Royal Academy, 1910) and “Love” in the Luxembourg,Gallery); Abbal, Pierre Roche, who loves to handle veryvarious materials—marble, stone and lead; Moreau-Vauthier,D. Poisson, Fix-Masseau, Gaudissard, David, Jacquot, Despiau,known by some fine busts, Drivier, Niclausse and Michel Cazin.
Sculpture on a small scale was effectively carried on by L. Dejean,Vallgren, Carabin, who carves in wood, Cavaillon and Féomont-Meurice.The sculpture of animals, since G. Gardet and P. Péter, hasbeen brilliantly executed by Paul Jouve, Christophe, Navellier, Bigot,Perrault-Harry, Marie Gautier, Berthier and others. (L. Be.)
The inevitable reaction in Belgium following upon the longperiod of dry and lifeless academic sculpture is difficult to traceto any particular pioneer or leader. Nevertheless thethree men who certainly mark this period of revoltare Guillaume Geefs, DeBay and Simonis. Thereis, however, very little to be remembered of these menModern Belgian sculpture.except that they were the best of their time. Geef’s workwas marred greatly by his frivolous and unessential details andpoverty of thought, together with a frigid coldness of expressionin his modelling. In his statue of General Belliard at Brussels,however, he shows the tendency to search for a broader and truerinterpretation that warrants his being mentioned as belongingto the movement against the academic school. DeBay was asculptor of a more artistic temperament, and though some ofhis works are charming and sympathetic when judged by thestandard of his own day, few show evidence of advanced ideas.The work of Simonis is very different. Beyond the mere endeavourto grasp something more true, his work is fresher andperhaps more honest, more bold and gifted with more life. Suchqualities are shown in his “Young Girl,” in the museum atBrussels, and “Godefroid de Bouillon,” in the Place Royale.Besides these three sculptors there was no man of note tostrengthen the revival of sculptural art until Paul de Vigne(1843–1901). His early work bears the unmistakable influenceof the Italian Renaissance, but after studying in Paris and inRome he became a follower of the true classic ideal, not of theso-called classicism of Canova and his followers. He was aprolific artist, and from his numerous works it is difficultto pronounce one as his masterpiece. Perhaps that mostgenerally considered his best is the sepulchral marble figure of“Immortality” in the museum at Brussels. Almost its equal inbeauty and truthful rendering are his two bronze groups, “TheTriumph of Art,” on the façade of the Palais des Beaux Arts atBrussels, and the monument to Breydel and De Koninck atBruges. Among his other works are “Fra Angelico of Fiesole,” the bust of Professor Moke, at Antwerp, “Heliotrope” in themuseum at Ghent, “Portrait of M. Charles van Hutten,” theWilson monument in the Musée Communal, Brussels, the statueof “Marnix de Sainte Aldegonde” in Brussels, the monumenterected at Courtrai to Mgr de Hearne, the monument of Meddepenningenat Ghent, and the monument of the Gevaert familyin the Communal Cemetery at Evere.
The art of Charles van der Stappen (b. 1843) is decorative incharacter, mostly applied to architecture, though he proved himselfa versatile sculptor, producing many statues, reliefs, groups, monumentalworks, and statuettes. His works include a silver centrepieceexecuted for the town of Brussels, the statue of William theSilent in the Square du Petit Sablon, Brussels, a bust for the monumentof Edouard Agneesens in the cemetery of St Josse-ten-noode,St Michael in the Gothic hall of the Hôtel de Ville, Brussels, themonument to Baron Coppens near Sheel, the Alexandre Gendebienmonument at Brussels, statues for the Alhambra theatre andCaryatids for the architect DeCurtis’ house in the same city, and thegroup of tired workmen, called “The Builders of Cities.”
The work of Thomas Vingotte is characterized chiefly by its vigourand vitality. Vingotte is classed by some authorities as belonging tothe classic group, but his work is less graceful than that of de Vigneand more vigorous and life-like than Van der Stappen’s. There isperhaps more movement in his work than in that of any of his contemporaries.The many portraits he executed reveal the ability ofgrasping the essentials of portraiture as well as the discriminationnecessary to discard everything that does not render the work alikeand characteristic. Among his works are a statue of Giotto in theBrussels Museum, “Music,” on the façade of the Palais des BeauxArts, the Godecharles monument in the Park, the bronze group of the“Horsebreaker” in the Avenue Louise, and the statue “Agneessens”in the Boulevard du Midi, all of them in Brussels. There is also abronze group of horses and Tritons for the park of the Chateaud’Ardenne.
Few men have exercised such influence upon Belgian sculptureas Ief Lambeaux (1852–1908), the Flemish artist. He was born atAntwerp of (poor and obscure parents. At an early age he showedgreat aptitu e for drawing, and after a very meagre education he wasapprenticed to a wood carver. While there he studied at the academyschools. At sixteen he completed his course and undertook his firstimportant commission, that for two reliefs for the tympana of theFrench theatre. He was successful for a time in producing statuettes,but after a while his success waned and he was obliged toabandon sculpture and to take any work he could get. After aperiod devoted to odd employments—sometimes painting, sometimesmodelling—he again saved money to enable him to produce somegood works. The first of these, “The Kiss,” was finished in 1880.It had a great success and was bought by the Antwerp Museum.This discovery of a sculptor of talent led the town of Antwerp tofind the means for sending Lambeaux to Italy. After studying inFlorence he returned to produce “La Folle Chanson,” which bysome is considered his masterpiece. The group of “Intoxication”produced later is less satisfactory. The figures show a curious andunpleasant development which the sculptor’s previous work scarcelyhinted at. A work which may be placed with his “Folle Chanson”is the “Fountain of Brabo” in front of the Hôtel de Ville at Antwerp.This in fact is declared by many critics to be Lambeaux’s chef-d’œuvre;it is certainly his most imposing monument. Other worksof his are “The Robber of the Eagle’s Nest,” the wonderful colossalglief, “The Passions of Humanity,” “The Wrestlers” and “TheOrgy.”
Less bold and energetic than Lambeaux’s is the work of JulienDillens (b. 1849). Though it does not possess that sense of life andthe directness which is found in his brother sculptor, his standard ofexcellence was steadier. He will be remembered as one of Belgium’sfinest decorative sculptors, for his best work has been done in architecturalenrichment. His pediment for the Hospice des TroisAlliés at Uccle is a successful treatment of the difficult dress ofmodern times. Dillen’s masterpiece is without doubt the group of“Justice” in the Palais de justice at Brussels. He is responsiblefor many other important works, the chief of which are the bustsof De Pede and Rubens in the Brussels Museum, a statue of VanOrley in one of the squares of Brussels, “The Lansquenets,” on thesummit of the Royal Palace (before its reconstruction), a statue ofJean de Nivelles on the front of the Palais de justice at Nivelles,and the marble statues of St Victor and St Louis at Epernay.
There is yet another artist who ranks as one of the greatestsculptors of Flanders: This is Jules Lagaë (b. 1862). He was apupil of Ief Lambeaux. His work does not call for further distinctionfrom that of Dillens and Lambeaux, than that it is what may betermed “delicate” and possessed a distinctive charm of spontaneousfreshness. His “Mother and Child,” shown at Florence in 1891, isa good example of the first quality, while “The Kiss,” a terra-cottabust, shows his spontaneity.
In the Walloon provinces two sculptors have done much for therenaissance of the art. Achille Chainaye and Jean Marie Gaspar.Achille Chainaye (b. 1862) is not a prolific sculptor, but all his workis inspired, it would seem, by similar motives and ideas to thosewhich inspired the early sculptors of Florence. The scarcity of hisworks may be accounted for by the fact that his productions werereceived with ridicule and derision. Meeting with scant success, heabandoned sculpture and devoted himself to journalism.The work of Jean Marie Gaspar (b.1864) shows the inspiration ofa whole gamut of emotions, but hardly the continuity of purposenecessary to carry to completion half of his conceptions. Hestudied under Lambeaux, and, while still in his master’s studio, heproduced a wonderful group,” “The Abduction,” two men on furious,plunging horses wrestling for the possession of a struggling woman.This group was shown at the Paris Exposition of 1889, and brou htimmediate fame to the then unknown sculptor. Of his otherfinished works may be cited “The Brave,” an Indian on horseback;“Adolescents,” a charming group of two nude children embracing;“The Young Girl on a Rock,” and the “Panther,” destined for thebotanical gardens at Brussels.
From the death in 1904 of Constantin Meunier (b. 1831) up to theyear 1910 no man had advanced beyond the standard set up bythat great sculptor. At the outset of his career Meunier had, likeall pioneers, to contend with the hostility and derision of the publicand of the press. His work touched a hitherto unawakened note.His sympathies lay all with the people who, obscure and unsung,work for the enrichment of the nation. Thus we find his energiesand love of work wrapped around the iron foundry, the mine, thefield and the factory. His art is not the art of the pseudo-classic,nor is he influenced by the masters of the Renaissance. His work isfree and straightforward, true almost to brutality, but withalinspired by a love of doing homage to the workers of the people.He studied in the studio of Fraikin. But it is unlikely that he wasmuch influenced by him, and he soon forsook sculpture for painting.He was for some years one of the group of independent painters,which included De Groux, Dubois, Boulanger, and Baron. Whenthese artists fell apart, Meunier stood alone, painting where nopainter had before ventured or given a thought, working amongstthe machinery, the pits, and the great factory yards. He continuedfor twenty-five years to paint in this manner, ignoring public ridiculeand neglect. Then Meunier suddenly returned to his old love andproduced some small, statuettes. One of these—a puddler seatedin an attitude of weariness, hard and rough and muscular, clad inlittle beyond his leathern apron—attracted much attention at theexhibition of the “Society of the XX.” at Brussels. The subjectand the treatment, so different to the recognized precepts of theschools, created a vast amount of discussion. From that timeMeunier continued on the road he had taken, and, produced workswhich gained to him new believers and new friends. Among hischief productions are “Fire-damp,” in the Brussels Museum, “TheMower,” in the Jardin Botanique at Brussels, “The Glebe,” and“Puddlers at the Furnace,” both in the Luxembourg Museum,“The Hammerman,” the statues on the façade of Notre Dame dela Chapelle, and the monument to Father Damien at Louvain.
Jacques de Lalaing is the author of the masterly monumenterected at Evere to the English officers and men who fell at Waterloo,an elaborate work full of imagination and sculptural force andoriginality. His statue to Robert Cavelier de la Salle, at Chicago, isalso a noteworthy performance, and important decorative works byhim are to be seen embellishing public gardens in Brussels. Amongthe leading sculptors of to-day is to be reckoned Charles Samuel,who leans towards the traditions of yesterday.
Canova so dominated the world of sculpture at the beginningof the 19th century that the pseudo-classic style which heintroduced remained typical of all the Italian sculptureof note until Bartolini led the movement whichultimately crushed it. In Rome Canova completelyovershadowed all other sculptors except perhapsModern Italian sculpture.Thorwaldsen, the Danish sculptor, who resided for some timein that city. It is true that Pompeo Marchesi (1789–1858)at the outset of his career enjoyed great popularity, but at thetime of his death he was well-nigh forgotten. The intervalbetween the death of Canova and the rise of Bartolini and thenew school was filled in by men of mediocre talent, in whosework the influence of the leader of classicism is strongly marked.Francesco Carradori (1747–1824), Camillo Pacetti (1758–1826),Rinaldo Rinaldi (b. 1793) and Giuseppe Fabris (b. 1800) were allfollowers of Canova, the last three being pupils of that master.
Lorenzo Bartolini (1777–1850) became the leader of themovement towards naturalism. This was nothing more norless than the servile copying of form-both in natural formsand in dress. Nevertheless Bartolini must be rememberedas the pioneer of a different kind of naturalism which was of fargreater importance than the manner of treating forms andtexture. His true originality layi in his representations ofcharacter. In place of the classic subjects invariably treated in his time, he applied himself to the study of actual life. Insteadof the expressionless faces of the pseudo-classic, he gave vitalityand energy.
A sculptor who was much talked of in his day was PietroTenerani (1789–1869), a native of Torano near Carrara. Heworked for some time as assistant to Thorwaldsen. Later thesetwo sculptors jointly accepted a commission for the monumentof Eugene Beauharnais, and as Thorwaldsen wished to suppressthe younger man’s name, they quarrelled and finally separated.Tenerani visited Munich and Berlin, where he enjoyed thepatronage of Frederick WilliamIV. During the disturbancesof 1848 and 1849 he was obliged to leave Rome with his family,in consequence of his sympathy with the Papists and his friendshipfor Count Pellegrino Rossi, who was assassinated in 1848.Amongst Tenerani’s works are a statue of Count Rossi, a monumentto PiusVIII. in the sacristy of St Peter’s, “The Angel ofResurrection” in the Friedenskirche at Potsdam, a low reliefin the church at Castle-Ashby, Northamptonshire, and “TheDescent from the Cross,” in the Torlonia chapel in St JohnLateran. The last-named reveals the close study of nature socharacteristic of his work.
The most distinguished Piedmontese sculptor of this periodwas Marochetti, who is referred to above in connexion with theBritish school.
Although Vincenzio Vela (1820–1891) was Swiss by birth,he was Italian both by adoption and in his sympathies. In1838 he won the prize offered by the government to the studentsof the Lombard-Venetian provinces of Austria, and becameknown by his statue of Spartacus. His chief works are a statueof Bishop Luinl at Lugano; Desolation, at the Villa Gabrina,Lugano; William Tell, at Lugano; the Alfieri and statuesof Dr Gallo at the university, and of Cesare Balbo, allat Turin; the statues of Tommaso Grossi and Gabrio Piolaat the Brera, Milan; Dante and Giotto at Padua; JoachimMurat at the Certosa, Bologna; and Cavour at Genoa. Hismasterpiece is the seated figure of Napoleon at Versailles.
After Bartolini, sculpture in Italy slowly developed along thelines of “naturalism” suggested by that leader. Perhaps thegreatest activity and advance are to be recorded around Naples, acity till then of subordinate importance in art. Tommaso Solari(b. 1820), who may be regarded as one of the group belonging. toNaples, produced work which is hardly distinguishable from that ofVela. His statue of Carlo Poerio, which occupies an importantposition in Naples, is characteristic of his work. He was followedby several sculptors whose works betray but little originality exceptin some cases in the forcing of qualities they wished to accentuate,and the selection of darin or dramatic subjects—qualities whichreveal the true character of the Neapolitan. The work of RaffaeleBelliazzi, another Neapolitan (b.1835), like that of Solari, is full ofconscientious study, but his naturalism shows no genius. Among hisworks are “The Sleeping Boy,” in the Gallery of Modern Art, Rome;“A Woman and Child,” and two terra-cotta busts at Capodimonte.Emilio Franceschi (1839–1890) and Achille D’Orsi (b. 1845) bothbelonged to the Neapolitan group of sculptors. Though the formerwas not a native of Naples, he resided there from 1869 until hisdeath. But while Franceschi was influenced to a very large extentby the Neapolitan school, D’Orsi, broke away from it and created adistinctive style of his own. He studied in Rome, and in 1876returned to Maples, where he produced “Il Cabalista,” followed by“The Parasites,” the latter establishing his fame by its singularityboth of subject and treatment. It represents two gluttons in a stateof extreme intoxication. The group is remarkable as showingD’Orsi’s powers of characterization.
A man of perhaps greater original thought was Francesco jerace,who seems to have been entirely free from the “academic” smallnesswhich characterized the followers of the naturalistic movement.He was born at Polistena in Calabria in 1853. His work bears theimpress of his personality and his rather marked aloofness from hiscontemporaries. He is the author of the monument to Mary Somerville,the English mathematician, which is in the Protestant cemeteryat Naples; Vittoria Colonna, exhibited at the Brera, Milan, in1894;;and the Beethoven exhibited at Venice, 1895. At Bergamothere is a statue of the musician Donizetti, which was placed there in1897.
Vincenzo Gemito was born at Naples in 1852 of parents in a veryhumble position. He picked up a living in various occupationsuntil, at the age of fourteen, he entered the studio of EmanueleCaggiano (1866). He worked hard and to some purpose, for twoyears after he modelled “The Gamester,” which is at Capodimonte.This work shows evidence of astounding precocity. His work isrealistic, but forcible and more alive than that of many sculptors ofhis day. Gemito was supremely confident of his powers, and in amanner this was justified b his early recognition both amongstcritics and the public. He designed a statue of CharlesV. for thefaçade of the Royal Palace at Naples. A small figure of a water carrierupon a fountain is now in the Gallery of Modern Art at Rome;in the same gallery are his statuette of Meissonier and a terra-cottafigure of Brutus.
A sculptor of quite a different class of subject is CostantinoBarbella, born at Chieti in 1853, who gave his entire attention topastoral subjects, dealing with the costumes, types and occupationsof the folk among whom his early life was spent. In the Royal Villaat Monza is a replica of his three peasant girls—a group in terra-cotta.In the national gallery at Rome there are a group of “The Departureof the Conscript,” “The Conscript’s Return,” and another called“April.”
For some years the activity amongst what may be called theSicilian group of sculptors was headed b Benedetto Civiletti (b.Palermo, 1846). Civiletti was a pupil of Dupré, but his work bearslittle impress of his master’s influence; it is characterized mostly byits force and meaning of gesture and facial expression. His statueof “The Youth Dante” at the moment of the first meeting withBeatrice, and his seated figure of “The Young Caesar” are bothworks which successfully show his power of ose and facial expression.He is the author also of the famous Canaris group, “Christin Gethsemane,” “The Dead Christ,” a group of the siege of Missolonghi,and a group of seventeen life-size figures representing thelast stand of the Italians at the massacre of Dogali.
The family of Ximenes of Palermo is noted on account of thethree of its members who each became well known in the world ofart: Empedocle, the painter, Eduardo, the writer, and Ettore, thesculptor. Ettore was a pupil of Morelli. His earliest work of notewas a boy balancing himself upon a ball which he called “Equilibrium.”He also produced “La Rixe,” “Le marmiton,” “Cuore delRe,” “The Death of Ciceruacchio,” “Achilles,” and many others.His statue of “Revolution” is one of his best works.
Giulio Monteverde’s work is conspicuous for its gaiety and sparkle,but though he has had some influence upon the recent sculptors ofItal, his work follows the naturalistic precepts laid down by hispredecessors. A group of his own children, full of vivacious merriment,is in the Palazzo Bianco at Genoa; a “Madonna and Child” isin the Camposanto, and a statue of Victor Emmanuel stands in thesquare in the centre of Bologna.
Ettore Ferrari of Rome (b. 1849) is another sculptor whose workshows remarkable care and love of what is called finish. He hasproduced the statues “Porcari,” the medieval revolutionist, “Ovid,”“Jacopo Ortis,” “A Roman Slave,” “Giordano Bruno,” in the Campodi Fiori, and “Abraham Lincoln,” in the New York Museum.
To the Roman group of sculptors also belongs Ercole Rosa (b.1846). That he was a man of considerable talent is shown by hisgroup of the Cairoli at Rome and his monument of Victor Emmanuelnear the cathedral at Milan. Emilio Gallori, who studied at theFlorence academy, is the author of the colossal statue of St Peter onthe façade, of the cathedral at Florence. He won the competitionfor, and executed, the Garibaldi monument at Rome.
A sculptor who is looked upon as the leader of the Venetian schoolis Antonio dal Zotto (b. 1841), a follower of Ferrari, at whose handshe received much of his training. He won the prix de Rome offeredby the academy, and in Rome he met and became a friend ofTenerani. Being a man of independent views, however, he was butlittle affected by Tenerani’s work. He was then twenty-five yearsold, and after spending two years in Rome and in other centres ofartistic interest, he returned to Venice, where he produced a statueof St Anthony of Padua, one of Petrarch and another of Galileo.In 1880 he completed his statue of Titian for the master’s birthplace,Pieve di Cadore, and in 1883 he finished the figure of Goldoniin Venice. He, is author also of a statue of Victor Emmanuel anda monument of Tartini the violinist, the former in the memorialtower on the battlefield of S. Martino near Brescia, the latter in apublic square at Pirano.
Turin boasts many sculptors who are known throughout thecountry. Chief of these is Odoardo Tabacchi (b. 1831). He is thejoint author with Antonio Tantardini of the Cavour monument atMilan. He has modelled several subjects of a lighter type, such as“The Bather,” exhibited in Milan in 1894. Lorenzo Bistolfi, ayounger man, conquered recognition chiefly by his composition of“Grief Comforted by Memory.” Amongst other Turin sculptorsmust be mentioned Luigi Belli, author of the Raphael monument atUrbino, and Davide Calandra, whose “L’Aratro” is in the nationalgallery at Rome.
As everywhere in western and central Europe, nationalsculpture in Austria during the first half of the 19th centurywas altogether influenced by the classicism of theItalian Canova—in Austria perhaps more than inother countries, since two of Canova’s most importantworks came to Vienna in the early years of the century:Modern Austrian sculpture.the famous tomb of Marie Christine in the Augustinerkirche, which was ordered by Duke Albrecht of Saxony, in 1805, at theprice of 20,000 ducats; and the Theseus group, bought by theemperor Francis, in Rome, which is now in the Vienna Museum.Canova’s pupil, Pompeo Marchesi, was the author of the emperorFrancis monument, unveiled in 1846, in the inner court of theHofburg.
The first national sculptor of note was the Tirolese FranzZauner (1746–1822), who was knighted in 1807 (the year inwhich his Kaiser-Joseph monument was unveiled) and becamedirector of the Vienna gallery and academy. Among his worksare the tomb of LeopoldII. in the Augustinerkirche; thetomb of General Laudon at Hadersdorf; the tomb of the poetHeinrich von Collin in the Karlskirche in Vienna; and a numberof busts in the Empire style, which are by no means remarkable asexpressions of artistic individuality. Leopold Kiesling (1770–1827),another Tirolese, Whose first work on a large scale is theMars, Venus and Cupid, in the Imperial gallery, was sent byhis patron, Count Cobenzl, to Rome, where he was more attractedby Canova than by the antique or the late Renaissance. JosephKlieber (1773–1850), also Tirolese, enjoyed the protection ofPrince Johann Liechtenstein, who employed him in the plasticdecoration of his town residence and country seats. His reputationas sculptor of colossal figures for imperial triumphal archesand lofty tombs was so widespread that he was given thecommission for the catafalque of LouisXVIII. in Paris. Manymiddle-class houses of the Empire period in Vienna were decorated byhim with reliefs of children. The elaborate relief figureson the Andreas Hofer monument in Innsbruck are the work ofhis hand. His followers were less favoured by powerful protectionand were forced into a definite direction: among themmust be mentioned Johann Martin Fischer (1740–1820), whosucceeded Zauner as head of the academy. His best-known workis “The Muscle-man,” which still serves as model to students.
Of the greatest importance for the development of Austriansculpture in the second half of the 19th century was the influenceof Joseph Daniel Boehm (1794–1865), director of the academyof coin-engravers, and discriminating collector of art treasures.He was the father of Sir Joseph Edgar Boehm, R.A. Emanuelvon Max (1810–1900), who in conjunction with his brotherJoseph modelled the Radetzky monument in Prague, wrotein his autobiography, concerning the year 1833 in Vienna:“Art, particularly sculpture, was at the lowest ebb. Theappearance of a statuette or bust at an exhibition was consideredan event.” But a strong movement began towards the endof the ’fifties. Professor Franz Bauer, of the Vienna academy(1797–1872), exercised a most stimulating influence upon therising generation. Among the earlier artists, whose life overlapsinto the new era, were Anton Dietrich (1799–1872), who isbest known by “The Three Magi,” on the porch of the churchof St John, and by a very beautiful ivory crucifix; and JohannPreleuthner (b. 1810).
The architectural rejuvenation of Vienna led to the rise of anoriginal local school of sculpture. J. D. Boehm devoted himselfalmost entirely to goldsmith-work and medals, but with the aid ofhis great collections he taught the new generation and helped todevelop original talent. Hans Gasser (1817–1868) owed him hisintroduction to society, for whom he produced many busts. Hemodelled the empress Elisabeth monument at the western railwaystation in Vienna, the Wieland monument in Weimar, and thefamous “Donauweibchen” in the Vienna town park. His brother,Joseph Gasser von Wallhorn (b. 1816), was a sculptor of figures ofsaints, many of which decorate St Stephen’s Cathedral and theVotive Church in Vienna. Anton Fernkorn (1813–1878), born atErfurt, was Austrian by his art. He started as a metal worker,and studied in Munich, but not at the academy. His talent was onlyfully developed after he settled in Vienna, which city owes to himthe bold equestrian bronze monuments of Archduke Charles (1859)and Prince Eugene of Savoy (1865). He became director of theimperial bronze foundry, in which post he was followed by his pupilFranz Poenninger. Johann Meixner (b. 1819 in Bohemia) is thecreator of the marble figures on the Albrecht Fountain, one of themost famous and imposing monuments in Vienna. Vienna receiveda few of her most important monuments from the strong personalityof the Westphalian Kaspar von Zumbusch (b. 1830), the Beethovenmonument, and that o Maria Theresa, an imposing and skilfullydesigned work, which solves in admirable fashion the problem ofplacmga. monument effectively between the heavy masses of thetwo imperial museums. Munich owns his monument of KinMaximilianII. Zumbusch’s fame did not quite overshadow that ofKarl Kundmann (b. 1838), to whose vigorous art Vienna owes theTegetthoff monument (based on the Duilius column), the Schubertstatue, the seated figure of Grillparzer, and the awkwardly placed“Minerva” in front of the houses of parliament. JosephV. Myslbeck(b. 1848) worked under Thomas Seidaus (1830–1890), and isthe author of the equestrian figure of St Vaelav, of “The CrucifiedSaviour,” and of the Sladkowsky tomb in Prague. The most successfulof the younger school was Edmund Hellmer (b. 1850), who executedthe group on the pediment of the houses of parliament; “FrancisJoseph granting the Constitution”; the Turkish monument at StStephen’s; one of the wall fountains on the façade of the new Hofburg(Austria’s land power)—the companion figure (“Sea Power”) isby Rudolf Weyr (b. 1847);—the animated Bacchus frieze of theCourt Theatre; the statue of Francis Joseph in the polytechnicinstitute; and the reliefs of the Grillparzer monument.
Like Hellmer and Weyr, Victor Tilgner (1844–1896) was a pupil ofF. Bauer; but he owed his training rather to Joseph von Gasserand Daniel Boehm. He produced a vast number of portrait bustsof his most prominent contemporaries in Vienna. Among his mostnotable monuments are those to Mozart and Makart in Vienna, theWerndl figure at Steyr, Bürgermeister Petersen in Hamburg, and awar memorial at Königgrätz, in addition to numerous monumentalfountains. Artistically on a higher plane than Tilgner standsArthur Strasser (b. 1854), who excelled in polychromatic work on asmall scale. In the ’seventies his Japanese figures excited considerableinterest and attracted Makart’s attention. He excelled inEgyptian and Indian genre figures, such as a praying Hindu betweentwo elephants. An Arab leaning against a Sphinx and a classicfemale figure with a funeral torch were strikingly decorative. Hisgreen patined bronze of “The Triumph of Antinous” with a teamof lions was awarded a first medal at the Paris Exhibition of 1900.
Vincenz Pilz (b. 1816) was the sculptor of the quadrigas andcaryatids on the Vienna houses of parliament, and of the Kolnitzand Türck monuments. Contempora with him were Karl, Costenoble(b. 1837), Alois Dull (b. 1843), Otto König (b. 1838), AntonSchmidgruber (b. 1837), the craftsman Franz Schonthaler, JohannSilbernagel (b. 1839) the author of the Liebenberg monument inVienna, and Anton Wagner (1834–1900), whose “Goose Girl” isone of the monumental features of the streets of Vienna. Classicform was represented by Johannes Benk, who did good work ingroups for pediments. One of his latest productions is the Arnerlinmonument in the Vienna town park. Theodor Friedel (1842–1899) excelled in decorative work on a large scale.” His are “The HorseTamers” in front of the Hof-Stallgebäude.
Edmund Hofmann von Aspernburg (b. 1847) is the sculptor of theFriedrich Schmidt monument, of the bronze centaurs in front of theVienna Academy of Fine Arts, and of the monument of ArchdukeKarl Ludwig. The works of Stefan Schwartz (b. 1851) are remarkablefor their vigour. He excelled in a new technique of embossingportrait plaques in silver direct from life.” He counts also among thebest Viennese medallists, almost equalling, Heinrich Natter (1844–1892).Hermann Klotz (b.1850) became professor of sculpture in wood.The very talented statuette-maker Ludwig Dürnbauer (1860–1895)died almost at the beginning of what promised to be a brilliantcareer. Other distinguished sculptors of statuettes and works on asmall scale were Hans Rathausky (b.1858) and Johann Scherpe(b.1855), who was entrusted with the execution of the Anzengrubermonument. They all were pupils of Kundmann, as was also theanimal sculptor Lax. Karl Schwerzek is the author of the Lenauand Anastasias Grün busts in Vienna, and Franz Vogl (b.1861) ofthe poet Raimund’s monument. Among Zumbusch’s pupils wereAnton Brenck, the creator of the emperor JosephII. monumentsin Brünn and Reichenberg; Emanuel Pendl, whose colossal marblestatue of “Justice” is laced in the law courts in Vienna; and HansBitterlich (b. 1860), whose bust of Exner in the Vienna universityis one of the most remarkable pieces of realistic portraiture in thatcity. Another work of his is the Gutenberg monument. OthmarSchimkowitz is remarkable for a strikingly original style.
In the other provinces under the Austrian emperor’s rule, thebest-known sculptors are the Carniole Marcell Guigki (1830–1894),Lewandowski, Buracz, and the Tirolese Gurschner, who follows themodern French style of statuette sculptors.
In the art of the medallist, Professor Karl Radnitzky the elder(b. 1818) led the way after J. D. Boehm; but he was surpassed byhis pupil Joseph Tautenhayn (b. 1837), whose large shield “Strugglebetween the Centaurs and Lapithae” was the cause of his appointmentas professor. More important still is Anton Scharff (b. 1845),a real master of the delicate art of the medallist.
At the beginning of the 19th century the art of sculpturewas practically dead in Spain—or at least was mainly confinedto the mechanical production of images of saints.But towards the middle of the century the two brothersAgapito and Venancio Vallmitjana, of Barcelona,encouraged by the enthusiasm with which some ofSpanish 19th-century sculptors.their works had been received by local connoisseurs, took part in the Paris Figaro competition for the figure which decoratesthe entrance to the offices of that journal, and carried off thesecond prize. They afterwards obtained the first prize in othercompetitions at Madrid and other Spanish centres. Theirchief works are: “Beauty dominating Strength,” “St Vincentde Paul,” the large statue erected at Valencia to Don TaimeConquistador, and groups of Queen Isabella with the Princeof the Asturias, and Queen Marie Christine with AlfonsoXIII.
Another sculptor of distinction is Andres Aleu, professorof the Barcelona School of Fine Arts, whose principal worksare the “St George and the Dragon” on the façade of theBarcelona Chamber of Deputies, and Marshal Concha, theequestrian statue in Madrid. Kosendo Novas, of Catalan birth,like most modern Spanish sculptors of eminence, is best knownby his masterpiece, “The dead Torero." Manuel Oms, anotherBarcelona sculptor who leans to the naturalistic school, is theauthor of the monument to Isabella the Catholic, erected at theend of the Paseo de la Castellana in Madrid in 1883. AntonioFabrés, who at the beginning of his career was an eminentsculptor, devoted himself subsequently to painting. AgustinQuerol, and Mariano Benlliure, of Valencia, were for many yearsthe official favourites of the Spanish government, who entrustedthem with numerous important commissions, though theirwork was neither lofty in conception nor particularly remarkableas regards execution, and occasionally, as in Querol’s monumentof Alfonso XII.—especially in the completed sketch of it baroquein the extreme. Indeed, the genius of the Spanishrace at all times, and particularly in the 19th century, foundits expression in painting rather than in sculpture. Querol’sgroup called “Tradition” is well imagined and expressive, anda good example of the best work achieved by a school in whichfreedom is the chief note.
Towards the end of the 19th and in the early years of the 20thcenturies, Joseph Llimona y Brugena (“ The Communion ) andBlay, both of Catalan birth, were the most distinguished sculptorsof Spain. The fame of Blay, who was a pupil of Chapu in Paris, hasextended beyond the frontiers of his native country. His style has atthe same time strength and delicacy. His chief works are theMiners’ monument at Bilbao, and a group of an old man seated ona bench protecting a little girl from the cold. He also produced agreat number of delicately wrought marble busts before his careerwas prematurely cut short. Joseph Llimona is the most personaland distinguished of all modern Spanish sculptors. His art rangesfrom the greatest delicacy to real power. At the InternationalExhibition at Barcelona in 1907 he was awarded the grand prize ofhonour for a group intended for the monument to Dr Robert in thatcity; and for a small marble figure of Pain, a work in which hehas been thought to rival the Florentines of the best period. JoséAlcoverro, Pages y Serratora, José Gragera, f*cka y Leal, MiguelEmbil, and the brothers Osle are prominent members of the youngerschool and aim at giving “the personal note.” The vigour displayedby them illustrates the revivification and rejuvenation of Spanishsculpture.
Russian sculpture has practically no past to record. In itsbeginnings Russian art was entirely ruled by the Church, whoselaws were inspired by Byzantinism, and who forced allartists to submit to strictly fixed rules as regardsform and formula. Before the 18th century, Russiansculpture was practically non-existent, except in the form ofRussian sculpture.peasant wood-carving. The early stone idols (Kamenyia baby)and primitive bas-reliefs belong to the sphere of archaeologyrather than of art. Real sculpture only appears at the end ofthe 18th century, when Peter the Great, to use his own expression,“opened a window upon Europe” and ordered, togetherwith a radical change in Russian society, the introduction ofwestern art in Russia.
From all European countries artists streamed into Russiaand helped to educate native talent, and at the same time thetsar sent young artists abroad to study in foreign art centres.Among the foreign artists of this period were Conrad Hausner,Egelgrener and Schpekle; among the Russians Koulomjin,Issaeiv and Woynow. About 1776 Falconet and his wifearrived in Russia; then Gillet, whose pupil Schubin ranksamong Russia’s most gifted artists. Among his best-knownworks is the monument of Catherine II. His fame was rivalledby that of Schedrine. Kozlovski is known by his Souvorinemonument. Other early sculptors of distinction were Demouth-Malinowski,the sculptor of the Soussaniev monument; Pimenow,Martos, and the medallist Count Theodore Tolstoi, who is also-known as an able illustrator. Orlovsky, Vitali and the wholepreceding group represent the pseudo-classic character acquiredat foreign academies. Among animal sculptors Baron Klodtis known by his horses which decorate the Anitschkine bridgeat StPetersburg.
About the beginning of the 19th century the sculptor Kamenskiinaugurated a more realistic tendency by his work which wasinspired by contemporary life. He entered the academy afterhaving exhibited a series of sculptures among which the mostinteresting were “The First Step” and “Children in the Rain.”His contemporary Tschigoloff began his career in brilliantfashion, but devoted himself subsequently to the execution ofcommissions which did not give full scope to his gifts.
The greatest talent of all was unquestionably Marc Antokolsky(1845–1902), a Jewish sculptor permitted to work outside thePale, of whom the Paris correspondent of The Times wrote,about 1888, that French sculptors would benefit by studyingunder Antokolsky, and by learning from him the powerof the inspiration drawn from the study of nature. The artisthimself held his statue of Spinoza to be his finest achievement.I have put into this statue,” he wrote, “all that is best inme. In the hard moments of life I can find peace only before thiswork.” Equally beautiful is “The Christian Martyr,” in thecreation of which Antokolsky definitely broke all the fettersof tradition and strove no longer to express linear beauty, butintense truth. The martyr is an ugly, deformed woman, torturedand suffering, but of such beautiful sentiment that under theinfluence of religious extasis her very soul seems to rise to thesurface. Among his other works few are better known than“Mephistopheles” (which he wanted to call “The 19th Century”)and the powerful “Ivan the Terrible,” which the Russiancritic Starsoff called “The Torturer Tortured.” The wholestrange psychology of this ruler, whose compeer in history canonly be found perhaps in the person of Louis XI., is strikinglyexpressed by Antokolsky. Very beautiful is the statue of Peterthe Great, which breathes strength, intelligence, genius anddevouring activity. To the works already mentioned mustbe added the statues of Ermak and of Nestor. Antokolskyhas left to the world a gallery of the most striking figures inRussian history, giving to each one among them his properpsychology. His technique is always marked by perfect surenessand frequently by dazzling bravura.
Antokolsky was twenty-one years of age when he left St Petersburg.The academy at that time was in a state of complete decadence,under the rule of worthy old professors who remained strangers totheir pupils, just as their pupils remained strangers to them. WhenProfessors Piminoff and Raimers died, soon after, the academyseemed quite deserted; but just at that time a number of verygifted students began to work with energy, learning all they couldfrom one another, fired by the same purpose and spirit. Antokolskywas in close touch with his friend, the painter Repin, with whom heworked much; and so failed to come under the influence of theidealist M.V. Praklow, who soon began to deliver certain lectures onart which excited keen interest among the young workers. Antokolskytried the Berlin Academy of Fine Arts, but finding it ruledby the same routine, he returned before long to StPetersburg, wherewithin a short time he executed the statue of “Ivan the Terrible” towhich he owed his fame. This epoch became the starting-point ofRussian sculpture, so that Antokolsky deserves an eminent positionin the history of Russian art.
Among his pupils was his faithful follower and friend Ilia Ginsbourg(b. 1859), who devoted himself to genre scenes and portraits inthe spirit of his master, but with a degree of sincerity and enthusiasmwhich save him from the reproach of plagiarism. Lancéré(1848–1887) is known by his military statuettes, Libérich (1828–1883)has left few remarkable works. Léopold Bernstamm alwayspractised in Paris; among his works are a great number of portraitsand a few monuments that are not without merit. Among contemporarysculptors, whose number is still restricted in Russia, andwhose artistic merit remains stationary, without marked progressand with little evidence of evolution, are Beklemicheff, Bach,Brodsky, Mikechine, Tourgeneff, Auber and Bernstein. PrinceTroubetzkoï, who is counted among the sculptors of Russia, thoughhe was educated and worked in Italy, acquired some reputation by his skill in the rapid execution of cleverly-wrought impressioniststatuettes of figures and horses as well as busts. heir value lies inthe vivid representation they give of Russian life and types. Amongthe most original modern Russian sculptors is Naoum Aronson (b.1872), whose best-known work is his Beethoven monument at Bonn.At Godesberg is his Narcissus fountain, whilst other works of hisare at the Berlin, St Petersburg and Dublin Museums.(M. H. S.59; P. G. K.)
The early names in American sculpture-Shem Drowne, themaker of weather-vanes; Patience Wright (1725–1785); WilliamUnited Rush (1765–1833), carver of portraits and of figure-headsfor ships; John Frazer (1790–1850), the stone cutter;and Hezekiah Augur (1791–1858)—have the interestof chronicle at least. Hiram Powers (1805–1873) had a certaintechnical skill, and his statues of the “Greek Slave” (carvedin 1843 in Rome and now at Raby castle, Darlington, the seatof Lord Barnard, with a replica at the Corcoran Gallery, Washington,and others elsewhere) and “Eve before the Fall” wereimportant agents in overcoming the Puritanic abhorrence of thenude. Horatio Greenough (1805–1852), Joel T. Hart (1810–1877),S.V. Clevenger (1812–1843) and Clark Mills (1815–1883) allreceived many commissions but made no additions to theadvancement of a true art-spirit. Thomas Crawford (1814–1857)began the bas-reliefs for the bronze doors of the Capitol, andthey were finished by William H. Rinehart (1825–1874),whose “Latona” has considerable grace. Henry Kirke Brown(1814—1886) achieved, among less noteworthy works, the heroic“Washington” in Union Square, New York City. It is one of thenoblest of equestrian statues in America, both in breadth andcertainty of handling and in actual majesty, and reliects unwontedcredit on its' period. Erastus D. Palmer (1817–1904) was thefirst to introduce the lyrical note into American sculpture; hisstatue, “The White Captive,” and still more his relief, “Peacein Bondage,” may be named in proof. There is undeniableskill, which yet lacks the highest qualities, in the work of ThomasBall (b. 1819). William Wetmore Story (1819–1896), whose“ Cleopatra,” though cold, shows power; Randolph Rogers (1825–1892),best known for his blind “Nydia,” and for his bronzedoors of the Capitol at Washington; John Rogers (1829–1904),who struck out a new line in actuality, mainly of an anecdotalmilitary kind; Harriet Hosmer (1830–1908), a classicist, whoserecumbent “Beatrice Cenci” is perhaps her most gracefulwork; J.S. Hartley (b. 1845); Launt Thompson (1833–1894)are among the leaders of their day. The works of Olin L. Warner(1844–1896) and J.Q.A. Ward (1830–1910) reveal at timesfar greater originality than any of these. Warner’s two gracefulclassical igures for a fountain in Portland, Oregon, and hisadmirable portrait statue of William Lloyd Garrison, reveal anice discernment of the fitness of manner to matter. He wasalso successful in modelling medallions. Ward has a sturdiness,dignity, and individuality quite his own, and may be consideredat the head of his own generation. In addition to these shouldbe mentioned Larkin G. Mead (b. 1835), George Bissell (b.1839), Franklin Simmons (b. 1839), Martin Milmore (1844–1883),Howard Roberts (1843–1900), Moses Ezekiel (b. 1844), 'all ofwhom are prominent in the history and development ofsculpture in America. By their time the sculptors of Americahad wakened completely, artistically speaking, to a sense of theirown nationality.
It was however later that came that inspired modernity,that sympathy with the present, which are in some senses vitalto genuinely emotional art. American sculpture, like Americanpainting, was awakened by French example. The leading spiritin the new movement was Augustus St Gaudens (q.v.), a greatsculptor whose work is sufficiently dealt with in the separatearticle devoted to him. Two other Americans stand out, withSt Gaudens, among their contemporaries, Daniel ChesterFrench (q.v.) and Frederick Macmonnies (q.v.). French’s“Gallaudet teaching a Deaf Mute” is an example of how adifficult subject can be turned into a triumph of grace. His“Death and the Young Sculptor” is a singularly beautifulrendering of the idea of the intervention of death. In collaborationwith E. C. Potter he modelled various important groups,particularly “Indian Corn” and the equestrian “Washington,”in Paris. The “Bacchante” of Macmonnies, instinct withRenaissance feeling, is a triumph of modelling and of joyoushumour; while his statue of “Nathan Hale” in City HallPark, New York, his “Horse Tamers,” and his triumphal archdecorations for the Soldiers' and Sailors' Memorial at Brooklyn,show the artist’s power in the treatment of a serious theme.
The strenuous achievements of George Grey Barnard have bothhigh skill and deep sincerity. His “Two Natures,” his “BrotherlyLove,” his “Pan” and the design for a monumental Norwegianstove are among the strongest efforts of modern American statuary.Ranking with him, though different in thought and method, standsPaul Wayland Bartlett. Success, too, artistically has been accordedto the fine works of John J. Boyle, William Couper, twenty years ofwhose life were passed in Florence, William O. Partridge, HermonMacNeil and Lorado Taft. The beautiful busts of Herbert Adams;the thoroughly artistic miniature figures of Mrs Clio Hinton Bracken;the graceful figurines of Mrs Potter Vonnoh; Edwin F. Elwell’s“Egypt" and “Orchid ”; and the work of F. Wellington Ruckstuhlshould also be mentioned; also J. Massey Rhind, a Scotsmanby birth and artistic education, John Donoghue, Charles H. Niehaus,Roland H. Perry (“Fountain of Neptune ), Andrew O'Connor,lerome Conner, John H. Roudebush, and Louis Potter. Equallynoteworthy are Bela L. Pratt (“General Benjamin F. Butlermemorial), Cyrus E. Dallin (with Wild West subjects), Richard E.Brooks, Charles Grafly (“Fountain of Life ”), Alexander S. Calder,Edmund A. Stewardson (“The Bather”) and Douglas Tilden(“Mechanics’ Fountain,” San Francisco). The leading “animaliers”include Edward Kemeys (represent in the Southern states), EdwardC. Potter, Phimister Proctor, Solon H. Borglum, Frederick G. Roth,and Frederick Remington. Among the women sculptors are MrsKitson, Mrs Hermon A. MacNeil, Miss Helen Mears, Miss EvelynLongman, Miss Elise Ward, Miss Yandell and Miss KatherineCohen. (M. H. S.)
Literature.—On the general history of sculpture, see Agincourt,Histoire de l’art (Paris, 1823); du Sommerard, Les Arts au moyen âge(Paris, 1839–1846); Cicognara, Storia della scultura (Prato, 1823–1844);Westmacott, Handbook of Sculpture (Edinburgh, 1864);Lübke, History of Sculpture (Eng. trans., London, 1875); Ruskin,Aratra Pentelici (six lectures on sculpture) (London, 1872); Viardot,Les Merveilles de la sculpture (Paris, 1869); Arsenne and Denis,Manuel ... du sculpteur (Paris, 1858); Clarac, Musée de sculpture(Paris, 1826–1853); Demmin, Encyclopédie des beaux-arts plastiques(Paris, 1872–1875), vol. iii.
On Italian and Spanish sculpture, see Vasari, Trattato della scultura(Florence, 1568, vol. i.), and his Vite dei pittori, &c., ed. Milanesi(Florence, 1880); Rumohr, Italienische Forschungen (Leipzig, 1827–1831);Dohme, Kunst und Künstler Italiens (Leipzig, 1879); Perkins,Tuscan Sculptors (London, 1865), Italian Sculptors (1868) andHand-book of Italian Sculpture (1883); Robinson, Italian Sculpture(London, 1862); Gruner, Marmor-Bildwerke der Pisaner (Leipzig,1858); Ferreri, L’ Arco di S.Agostino (Pavia, 1832); Symonds,Renaissance in Italy (London, 1877), vol. iii.; Crowe and Cavalcaselle,Hist. of Painting in Italy (London, 1903) (new ed.), vol. i.;Selvatico, Arch. e scultura in Venezia (Venice, 1847); Ricci, Storiadell’ arch. in Italia (Modena, 1857–1860); Street (Arundel Society),Sepulchral Monuments of Italy (1878); Gozzini, Monumenti sepolcralidella Toscana (Florence, 1319); de Montault, La Sculpturereligieuse à Rome (Rome, 1870), a French edition (with improvedtext) of Tosi and Becchio, Monumenti sacri di Roma (Rome, 1842);Cavallucci and Molinier, Les Della Robbia (Paris, 1884); Cicognara,Monumenti di Venezia (Venice, 1838–1840); Burges and Didron,Iconographie des chapitaux du palais ducal à Venise (Paris, 1857)(see also Ruskin’s Stones of Venice); Richter, “Sculpture of S. Mark’sat Venice, “Macmillan’s Mag. (June 1880); Temanza, Vita degliscultori veneziani (Venice, 1778); Diedo and Zanotto, Monumentidi Venezia (Milan, 1839); Schulz, Denkmäler der Kunst in Unter-Italien(Dresden, 1860); Brinckmann, Die Scul tur von B. Cellini(Leipzig, 1867); Eug. Plon, Cellini, sa vie, Ere. ggaris, 1882); JohnAddington Symonds, The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini(London, 1887); Moses and Cicognara, Works of Canova (London,1824–1828); Piroli, Fontana and others, a series of engraved Platesof Canova’s Works, s.l. et a.; Giulliot, Les Artistes en Espagne (Paris,1870); Carderera y Solano, Iconografia espanola, siglo XI-XVII(Madrid, 1855–1864); Monumentos arquitectonicos de España,published by the Spanish government (1859), passim; Lord Balcarres,The Evolution of Italian Sculpture (London, 1910); L.Freeman, Italian Sculpture of the Renaissance (London, 1901); A. .Willard, Hist. of Modern Italian Art (London, 1898). The recentliterature on the subject is too copious to be catalogued here; everyphase of the art has been critically dealt with and nearly everysculptor of importance has been made the subject of a biography;e.g. John Addington Symonds, The Life of Michelangelo Buonarrati,2nd ed. (London, 1898); Sir Charles Holroyd, Michael AngeloBuonarroti (London, 1903); Lord Balcarres, Donatello (London,1903); and G. H. Hill, Pisanello (London, 1905). For repertoires ofsculptural works, see collections such as Reale Galleria di Firenze: Statue (3 vols., 1817), and F. von Reber and A. Bayersdorfer,Classical Sculpture Gallery (4vols., London, 1897–1900).
On French sculpture see Adams, Recueil de sculptures gothiques(Paris, 1858); Cerf, Description de Notre Dame de Reims (Reims,1861); Eméric David, L’Art statuaire (Paris, 1805) and Histoire dela sculpture française (Paris, 1853); Guilhebaud, L’Architecture etla sculpture du Vᵉ au XVIᵉ siècle (Paris, 1851–1859); Ménard,Sculpture antique et moderne (Paris, 1867); Didron, Annales archéologiques,various articles; Félibien, Histoire de l’art en France(Paris, 1856); Lady Dilke- (Mrs Pattison), Renaissance of Art inFrance (London, 1879); M-ontfaucon, Monumens de la monarchiefrançaise (Paris, 1729–1733); Jouy, Sculptures modernes du Louvre(Paris, 1855); Reveil, Œuvre de Jean Goujon (Paris, 1868); Lister,Jean Goujon (London, 1903); Viollet-le-Duc, Dictionnaire de l’architecture(Paris, 1869), art. “Sculpture,” vol. viii. pp. 97-279; Claretie,Peintres et sculpteurs contemporains (Paris); Gonse, La Sculpturefrançaise depuis le XIVᵉ siècle (Paris, 1895); W. C. Brownell,French Art: Classic and Contemporary Painting and Sculpture(London, 1901); Male, L’Art religieux du XIIIᵉ siècle en France(Paris, 1902); Vitry and Briere, Documents de sculpture française dumoyen age (Paris, 1904); Lady Dilke, French Architects and Sculptorsof the XVIIIth Century (London, 1900); Lanislas Lami, Dictionnairedes sculpteurs de l’école française du moyen age au règne de Louis XIV(Paris, 1898), a useful book to consult for the sake of the bibliographicalreferences to nearly every artist entered; L. Bénédite, LesSculpteurs français contemporains (Paris, 1901); E. Guillaume, “LaSculpture française au XIXᵉ siècle,” Gaz. des beaux-arts (1900).
On German sculpture, see Foerster, Denkmale deutscher Baukunst(Leipzig, 1855). For an adequate but brief and concentrated accountof recent work see A. Heilmeyer, Die moderne Plastik in Deutschland(Bielefeld and Leipzig, 1903).
On Austrian sculpture, see Camillo List, Bildhauer-Arbeiten inÖesterreich-Ungarn (Vienna, 1901).
On Belgian sculpture, see Olivier Georges Destrée, The Renaissanceof Sculpture in Belgium (London, 1895).
On Spanish sculpture, see Paul Laforid, La Sculpture espagnole(Paris, 1908).
On English sculpture, see Carter, Specimens of Ancient Sculpture(London, 1780); Aldis, Sculpture of Worcester Cathedral (London,1874); co*ckerell, Iconography of Wells Cathedral (Oxford, 1851);Stothard, Monumental Effigies of Britain (London, 1817); Westmacott,“Sculpture in Westminster Abbey,” in Old London (pub. byArchaeological Institute, 1866), p. 159 seq.; G. G. Scott, Gleaningsfrom Westminster (London, 1862); W. Bell Scott, British School ofSculpture (London, 1872); W. M. Rossetti, “British Sculpture,” inFraser’s Mag. (April 1861). The subject of recent British sculpturehas been curiously neglected, except in newspaper notices andoccasional articles in the periodical press, such as Edmund Gosse’s“Living English Sculptors” in the Century Magazine for July 1883.The only volume published is M. H. Spielmann’s British Sculptureand Sculptors of To-day (London, 1901).
For American sculpture, see Henry T. Tuckerman, Book of theArtists: American Artist Life (New York, 1870, and later editions);Lorado Taft, American Sculpture (New York and London, 1903);William J. Clark, Jnr., Great American Sculptures (Philadelphia,1877); Charles H. Caffin, American Masters of Sculpture (New York,1903); Sadikichi Hartmann, Modern American Sculpture (New York).
- ↑ Moulds made in one or few pieces, from which the cast can onlybe extracted by destroying the mould, are called “spoil-moulds.”A large number of casts can be made from a “piece-mould,” but onlyone from a “spoil-mould.”
- ↑ Other effigies from Limoges were imported into England, but noother example now exists in the country.
- ↑ In the modern attempts to reproduce the medieval polychromethese delicate surface reliefs have been omitted; hence the painfulresults of such colouring as that in Notre-Dame and the SainteChapelle in Paris and many other “restored” churches, especiallyin France and Germany.
- ↑ On the tomb of Aymer de Valence (d. 1326) at Westminster agood deal of the stamped gesso and coloured decoration is visible onclose inspection. One of the cavities of the base retains a fragment ofglass covering the painted foil, still brilliant and jewel-like in effect.
- ↑ The Victoria and Albert Museum possesses a magnificent colossalwood figure of an angel, not English, but Italian work of the 14thcentury. A large stone statue of about the same date, of Frenchworkmanship, in the same museum is a most valuable example of theuse of stamped gesso and inlay of painted and glazed foil.
- ↑ A partial exception to this rule is the scene of Christ beforePilate, which sometimes occurs.
- ↑ See Dionysius, Sac. Vat. Bas. Cryp., and Bunsen, Besch. d. StadtRom (1840).
- ↑ There is no ground for the popular impression that this is anantique statue of Jupiter transformed into that of St Peter by theaddition of the keys.
- ↑ Various dates have been assigned to these interesting reliefs bydifferent archaeologists, but the costumes of the figures are strongevidence that they are not later than the 5th century.
- ↑ On early and medieval sculpture in ivory consult Gori, Thesaurusveterum diplychorum (Florence, 1759); Westwood, Diptychs ofConsuls (London, 1862); Didron, Images ouvrantes du Louvre (Paris,1871); William Maskell, Ivories in the South Kensington Museum(London, 1872 & 1875); Wieseler, Diptychon Quirinianum zuBrescia (Göttingen, 1868); Wyatt and Oldfield, Sculpture in Ivory(London, 1856); Alfred Maskell, Ivories (London, 1905), one of thebest treatises in the English language; E. Molinier, Les Ivoires;Die Elfenbeinbilder (Berlin Museum, 1903).
- ↑ See O’Neill, Sculptured Crosses of Ireland (London, 1857).
- ↑ The other finest examples of this early class of sculpture exist atPisa, Parma, Modena and Verona; in most of them the old Byzantineinfluence is very strong.
- ↑ In Norway and Denmark during the 11th and 12th centuriescarved ornament of the very highest merit was produced, especiallythe framework round the doors of the wooden churches; these areformed of large pine planks, sculptured in slight relief with dragonsand interlacing foliage in grand sweeping curves,—perfect masterpiecesof decorative art, full of the keenest inventive spirit andoriginality.
- ↑ See Richardson, Monumental Effigies of the Temple Church (London,1843).
- ↑ The effigy of King John in Worcester cathedral of about 1216 isan exception to this rule; though rudely executed, the head appearsto be a portrait.
- ↑ See Ruskin, The Bible of Amiens (1878).
- ↑ See Félibien, Histoire de l’Abbaye de Saint-Denys (Paris, 1706).
- ↑ See A. Kleinclausz, Claus slu*ter (Paris, 1908).
- ↑ See Baader, Beiträge zur Kunstgesch. Nürnbergs; Rettberg,Nürnberger Kunstleben (Stuttgart, 1854), and P. J. Rée, Nurembergand its Art to the end of the 18th Century (London, 1905).
- ↑ The sculpture on the Paris opera house is a striking instance ofthis; and so, in a small way, are the statues in the reredos at WestminsterAbbey and that at Gloucester cathedral. Another is affordedby the figures of modern soldiers inserted in the beautifully-designedGothic oer War Memorial (by G. F. Bodley, R.A.) set up in thecathedral close in York.
- ↑ On the whole, Westminster possesses the most completelyrepresentative collection of English medieval sculpture in an unbrokensuccession from the 13th to the 16th century.
- ↑ A kneeling portrait-statue of Mateo is introduced at the back ofthe central pier. This figure is now much revered by the Spanishpeasants, and the head is partly worn away with kisses.
- ↑ See Ruskin, Stones of Venice; and Mothes, Gesch. der Bauk. u.Bildh. Venedigs (Leipzig, 1859); also H. v. d. Gabelentz, Mittelaltert.Plastik in Venedig (Leipzig, 1902).
- ↑ See Carl Cornelius, Jacopo della Quercia (Halle a. S., 1896).
- ↑ See Yriarte, Rimini au XVᵉ siècle (Paris, 1880).
- ↑ This class of large wooden retable was much imitated in Spainand Scandinavia. The metropolitan cathedral of Roskilde in Denmarkpossesses a very large and magnificent example covered withsubject reliefs enriched with gold and colours.
- ↑ See Waagen, Kunst und Künstler in Deutschl. (Leipzig, 1843–1845).
- ↑ There were once no fewer than 107 statues in the interior of thischapel, besides a large number on the exterior; see J. T. Micklethwaitein Archaeologia, vol. xlvii. pl. x.-xii.
- ↑ For the earlier history of Spanish sculpture, see Don JuanAugustin Cean Bermudez, Diccionaria historian de los mas illustresprofessores de las bellas aries en Espagna (Madrid, 1800, 6 vols.).or the later sculptors, see B. Händke, Studien zur Geschichte derspanischen Plastik (Strasburg, 1900).
- ↑ The Ludovisi group of Pluto carrying off Proserpine, now inthe Borghese Gallery, is a striking example, and shows Bernini’sdeterioration of style in later life. It has nothing in common withthe Cain and Abel or the Apollo and Daphne of his earlier years.
- ↑ In the 19th century an Italian sculptor named Monti won muchpopular repute by similar unworthy tricks; some veiled statues byhim in the London Exhibition of 1851 were greatly admired; sincethen copies or imitations of them have enraptured the visitors whohave crowded round the Italian sculpture stalls at every subsequentinternational exhibition.
- ↑ See Arendt, Chateau de Vianden (Paris, 1884).
- ↑ The Villiers monument is evidently the work of two sculptorsworking in very opposite styles. These monuments, however, arenot included in the list of his works drawn up by Stone himselfand printed in Walpole’s Anecdotes of Painting, i. 239-243. Thissculptor’s receipts, recorded by his kinsman, Charles Stoakes,amounted to £10,889—an enormous sum for an English sculptorand “tomb-maker” of those days.
- ↑ In size, but not in merit, this enormous statue was surpassedby the figure of Liberty made in Paris by Bartholdi and erectedas a beacon in the harbour of New York city.