Give the man room : $b The story of Gutzon BorglumCasey, Robert J. (Robert Joseph)
General
Give the man room : $b The story of Gutzon Borglum
Casey, Robert J. (Robert Joseph)
Borglum, Gutzon, 1867-1941
I learned that what is known as “French Art” is not the art which
has placed France as art mistress of the modern world. Rather, it
is Millet, Corot, Rousseau, Chavannes. It is not the Parisian
article, any more than it was Falguière or any other dozens of
masters of the technique, but Rodin and Dalou who helped French
sculpture to its high place in our century and fixed France with
the ancients.
Gutzon was not a pupil of Rodin, but he was a frequent visitor in his
studio. He used to tell of watching Rodin make quantities of water-color
sketches of his model, who was allowed to sit at ease and to change her
position as she wished. He gave Gutzon some of these sketches, which
have been preserved. They are inscribed “A mon ami, Borglum” and signed
“Rodin.” Letters from him across the years have also been kept. During
the First World War, when Paris was being bombed, Gutzon invited Rodin
to come to the United States and use his studio in Stamford. Rodin
declined and said he had decided to find refuge in Rome.
During this early period in Europe, Gutzon also passed an interesting
year in Spain about which his American friends seem to have known very
little. As a record of his stay, many spirited sketches of bullfights
are still extant. One of them is owned by O. R. McGuire, the art
connoisseur of Washington, D. C. He also made a copy of Velasquez’
portrait of the court jester, and a wood carving done by Gregory Pardo,
pupil of Michelangelo, in the Toledo cathedral. His studies of Cortez’
conquest in Mexico and the tragic fate of the Aztecs made a deep
impression on him.
He prepared background sketches for a large painting which he started on
his return to California. It depicted the gray dawn on the broken
causeway of Mexico City when the soldiers of Cortez were floundering
against the Aztecs in the gap. The episode, known to history as _noche
triste_, was a subject that haunted Gutzon through his life. But
although he first planned his picture of it for exhibition at the
Columbian World’s Fair in Chicago in 1893, he seems never to have
finished it.
Other sidelights of his year in Spain are found in a letter to Mrs. J.
Seddon of Hollywood who bought a painting labeled “Don T., Toledo, Sept.
1892.” She had written to him for information about it, and his reply to
her query was this:
I am very much interested in the picture, and I have wondered what
had become of it. It ought to be in good condition, for it was
honestly and well painted.
It is the portrait of a Catholic priest, Don Tomas, pronounced
To-mass. He was the canon in charge of the great cathedral in
Toledo, a remarkable little man, very kindly and friendly, but he
belonged to the period of Philip II. He was extremely fond of
bullfights. He and I attended them regularly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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