American Masters of Sculpture: Being Brief Appreciations of Some American Sculptors and of Some Phases of Sculpture in AmericaCaffin, Charles H. (Charles Henry)
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American Masters of Sculpture: Being Brief Appreciations of Some American Sculptors and of Some Phases of Sculpture in America
Caffin, Charles H. (Charles Henry)
Sculptors -- United States
For the convenience of analysing Ward’s methods I have ventured to
regard these three statues as examples of the significance,
respectively, of clothes, form and character. Not quite accurately, I
admit, because the three motives unite in all in various proportions;
but perhaps I am right in feeling a preponderance of the one in each.
However that may be, we shall find a completely balanced union of all
three in the Beecher monument. The sculptor had particularly in mind the
episode of Henry Ward Beecher’s visit to England in 1863, on a special
mission from President Lincoln, for the purpose of bringing to English
public notice the true position of the North. He was met by noisy
opposition, but bore it down by indomitable endurance and intellectual
force. In the strongly marked, mobile features; in the intellectuality
of the head, carried so resolutely above the broad chest; in the
striking simplicity of the quiet, stalwart pose, no less than in the
absence of all rhetorical gesture in the arms, which are suspended at
the sides; even to such a detail as the right hand, not clenched
aggressively or held in indecision, but with the fingers drawn up to the
thumb, a gesture that mingles alertness with poise, the figure expresses
character, rocklike will and mental preëminence. The Inverness cape
serves to give increased weight and breadth to the form; one arm being
restrained within its folds, the other free for a fling of action if the
occasion require it. The figure bears down upon its pedestal,
column-like, monumental in the highest degree. It is a portrait-statue
of most extraordinary impressiveness.
The equestrian statue of General Thomas at Washington, District of
Columbia, is a spirited and arresting composition. The rider presents a
portrait study of considerable power, but the sculptor in his zeal for
the actual has seized upon the fact that Thomas was not a practised
horseman. He does not move in his seat with the motion of the horse, his
bridle-hand lacks control, and the action of the horse’s head proclaims
it. One may enjoy a detail so minute as that of the hand in the Beecher
statue, because it is contributory to the total effect, and equally
regret this insistence upon a personal peculiarity of the General, since
the total effect is thereby diminished. Such a detail is local and
insignificant, only to be appreciated by a few of his comrades; but the
statue will endure and be judged for what it presents; a general and his
horse--do they move as one? is the personal supremacy of the rider
maintained?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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