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
There is a dramatic touch in the pose of the figure; the weight firmly
on the left foot, the other energetically advanced; both arms extended;
one holding a sheaf of paper, the other raised slightly in a gesture of
maintaining the attention of the audience; the handsome head well
carried above the broad, arched chest. But this dramatic suggestion does
not pass beyond the limit of tolerably natural characterisation; the
balance between energy and controlling force, manifested in the studied
carriage of a speaker accustomed to move his hearers; and the naturalism
is completed by the absence of all affectations of arrangement in the
costume. It comprises simply a frock coat and trousers and an overcoat
unbuttoned and drawn clear of the chest. The figure, indeed, is
represented in the guise and attitude in which it might be familiar to
the greatest number of people. So, too, is that of William Allen, for
which Niehaus shortly afterward received the commission from the State
of Ohio; yet with even greater simplicity and naturalness, with an
absence of the heroic or dramatic which had been fitting enough in the
“Garfield,” considering the circumstances. The “Allen” is an intimate
portrait of an incisive speaker and clear, close reasoner, in an
attitude entirely unstudied, full of natural resolution.
From these two statues one may get a very fair impression of the
sculptor’s natural bent as influenced by Munich training. Its prime
feature is a vigorous realism that makes straight for character in the
subject, finding it as much in pose and gesture as in the head, and
giving expression to it in the simplest and directest fashion; if with
some dramatic play as we have seen, yet without any floridness. What we
do not yet observe is a feeling for the subtler expression of movement
in the figure, and, in consequence, of subtler feeling in the
disposition and texture of the draperies; qualities which entered into
his work after his protracted study in Italy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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