Art in America: A Critical and Historial SketchBenjamin, S. G. W. (Samuel Greene Wheeler)
History
Art in America: A Critical and Historial Sketch
Benjamin, S. G. W. (Samuel Greene Wheeler)
Art, American
The early educational advantages of Horatio Greenough were superior to
those of Powers; and as one of the first in our country to assert
himself in marble, he won a name which we are reluctantly obliged to
consider in excess of his merits as an artist. He impresses one as a man
of intellectual force and culture, but without any special calling to
sculpture. The work by which he will be known the longest is the Bunker
Hill Monument, whose stately proportions he designed. Greenough executed
a number of vigorous and striking busts, like those of Lafayette and
Fenimore Cooper, which deserve favorable mention. But in venturing after
ideal expression he cannot be said to have accomplished satisfactory
results. The elaborate group called "The Rescue," on the portico of the
Capitol at Washington, is ambitious, but leaves one to regret that so
prominent a position could not have been more appropriately decorated.
Few statues have ever given rise to more conflicting criticisms than
Greenough's "Washington" in the grounds of the Capitol. Colossal in size
and on a massive throne, seated half nude and holding out a Roman sword
in his left hand, some one has jocularly observed that the august hero
of the republic seems to say, "Here is my sword; my clothes are in the
Patent-office yonder." It certainly seems an absurdity in this age to
represent so recent a character in a garb in which he was so rarely seen
by the public, or so closely and incongruously to imitate the style of
the antique. Benjamin West showed more originality and courage when, in
the last century, and in defiance of the opinion of such men as Sir
Joshua Reynolds, he dared to break loose from the conventional, and
created a revolution in historical art by permitting General Wolfe to
die in the clothes in which he went to battle. But in justice to
Greenough, whose statue is in some respects meritorious and important,
especially in the bass-reliefs on the elegant chair, it should be said
that he never designed to have this statue placed in its present
position, but under the dome of the Rotunda, where it would undoubtedly
be far more impressive, and being sheltered from the winter snows, its
nudity would be less incongruous.
[Illustration: GEORGE WASHINGTON.--[J. Q. A. WARD.]]
Last year a sculptor died at Florence who was born in Kentucky nearly
seventy years ago. His education was confined to three months in a
district school, and his first occupation was chimney-building. James
Hart, although successful in portraiture, was also an idealist, who,
after settling in Italy, produced numerous pleasing works, like his
"Angelina" and "Woman Triumphant." There is a delicate, winning sense of
beauty and a refined emotional tendency in his art, which pleases while
it fails to master us, because it was a facile fancy rather than a lofty
imagination that conceived his creations.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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