He quoted Rodin’s remarks as recorded by M. Gsell in his book about the master: To any real artist worthy of the name, all nature is beautiful, because the eyes, fearlessly accepting all exterior truth, read there, as in a book, the inner truth. Not a feature deceives him. Hypocrisy is as transparent as truth. The beauty of the Greek ideal is ever present and there is as much loveliness in the human form today as when Phidias immortalized his race. But this loveliness is passing into oblivion unrecorded, because the artists of today are blind. That is all the difference. Whether or not we follow what Rodin said, there is no doubt that Gutzon did. He brought home with him from Europe nothing that so continuously affected his life. Again he writes of Rodin: Rodin meant more. He meant what I will add. The artists have not seen, nor felt, nor understood the present, although they still seem to appreciate the beauty of the Greek. Great emotion, with great understanding, again united with mastery over medium, are indispensable in the production of masterpieces in song, form or color. Prophetic insight, coupled with great love and trained to be a master in one of the mediums which the human race has invented or discovered to express itself, is lost in our day, as Rodin laments. This paragraph seems to sum up Gutzon Borglum’s position on the matter of art expression, and it explains his reaction to much of what is called Modern Art. Years afterward he augmented it with another bit of learning out of his two years of study in France. At a meeting in honor of the French during the First World War he said: France has been a foster mother and I shall always remember her, as Hugo put it, as my second birthplace, because to be “educated in another place is to be reborn there.” So I was born in France at Auvers-sur-Oise. Here at Auvers I had a quiet little home and for three years grubbed and labored with my stubborn Americanism. Finally I returned to America after having tried while there to acquire French art. And then it came to me in an hour. I shall never forget that hour. It came to me that the value and greatness of French influence are in their superiority and their devotion to the “inspiration” and not special concern for technique. France has taught me respect for the sincere effort of other men, courage in my own, and that originality lies in being true to one’s self.