The transition stage through which our plastic art is passing is also indicated by the stirring, realistic, and sometimes sensational art of a number of earnest and original young sculptors who have studied abroad, but have wisely concluded to return home, and to found, and grow up with, a new and progressive school of sculpture. One of these was the late Frank Dengler, of Cincinnati, who had studied at Munich, and was professor of sculpture at Boston; and others are Olin M. Warner, of New York, and Howard Roberts, of Philadelphia, who made the singularly bold statues of "Hypatia" and "Lot's Wife." To these may be added J. S. Hartley, who was recently Professor of Anatomy at the Art Students' League, and is now president of that flourishing institution. He began his career in Palmer's studio, and afterward studied in London and Paris. The art of these young sculptors is still immature and highly emotional or lyrical, and often verges on the picturesque rather than the severely classic. But if it lacks repose, on the other hand it is imaginative and powerful; its faults are those of an exuberant fancy that teems with thought; and these artists are undoubtedly the forerunners, if not the creators, of a thoroughly national school of sculpture. Superior in technic skill, moved by a genius thoroughly trained in the best modern school of plastic art, that of Paris, St. Gaudens, a native of New York, has given us, in the exquisite groups called "The Adoration of the Cross by Angels," in St. Thomas's Church, New York, one of the most important and beautiful works in the country. The Astor Reredos behind the altar at Trinity Church, designed by Mr. Withers, and partly executed here, is also a very rich addition to our plastic art, and is another sign that it is taking a direction little followed heretofore on this side the Atlantic. Dr. William Rimmer, who has recently died, powerful in modelling, a master of art anatomy, and author of a valuable work on that subject, also exerted an important influence in directing the studies of our rising sculptors. Having little sense of beauty, he understood art anatomy profoundly, and modelled with energy if not with grace. His statue of "The Gladiator" aroused astonishment in Paris; for as it is impossible for a living man to keep a falling position long enough for a cast to be taken, this masterly composition was necessarily a creation of the imagination based upon exhaustive knowledge of the figure.