The Mentor: Famous American Sculptors, Vol. 1, Num. 36, Serial No. 36 — John Shaqi
The Mentor: Famous American Sculptors, Vol. 1, Num. 36, Serial No. 36Taft, Lorado
General
The Mentor: Famous American Sculptors, Vol. 1, Num. 36, Serial No. 36
Taft, Lorado
Sculptors -- United States; Sculpture, American
PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION
ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR. VOL. 1. No. 36 SERIAL No. 36
COPYRIGHT 1913, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC.
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, 1902. DETROIT PHOTO CO.
PRIMITIVE MAN. BY PAUL WAYLAND BARTLETT]
Famous American Sculptors
PAUL WAYLAND BARTLETT
Monograph Number Six in The Mentor Reading Course
Everyone knows the saying, “Genius is the capacity for taking infinite
pains.” If this adage is true, then Paul Wayland Bartlett is a great
genius; for in everything this sculptor does he pays the closest
attention to details. He attends personally to every part of his work.
And this “capacity for taking pains” accounts largely for his success.
Paul Wayland Bartlett was born amid scholarly surroundings at New
Haven, Connecticut, in 1865. He was the son of Truman H. Bartlett of
Boston, an art critic and sculptor. Many years ago Bartlett and his
mother went to live in Paris. Here the young man found his vocation.
When he was only fifteen years old he entered the École des Beaux Arts.
He quickly became an excellent modeler. He worked hard, and in addition
took up a course on animal sculpture. As he could thus help other
sculptors as an animal specialist, he was able to earn money to carry
on his studies.
Bartlett tells about the time when he and a friend, M. Gardet, used
to go around “doing animals” wherever they got the opportunity. Among
the modernized decorations of the Porte St. Denis is a lion, “fierce
and terrible,” which is the work of his hands. An “Orpheus” in the
Luxembourg has attached to it a three-headed dog that he modeled. And
he created on one occasion for the Exposition of Amsterdam an elephant
of gigantic proportions.
Bartlett lived during this time in a quaint little street off the
Rue de Vaugirard, where he had a little vine-covered studio. It was
there that he began “The Bear Tamer,” which is now in bronze in the
Metropolitan Museum of New York City. He spent a year upon it, and then
became dissatisfied with it and spent another year in changing the
composition.
Many works followed this successful effort. First appeared the “Ghost
Dancer,” a vicious looking savage. Then came the equestrian statue of
Lafayette, presented to the French republic by the school children of
America; the powerful and virile Columbus, and the Michelangelo, both
of which are in the Congressional Library at Washington; the lifelike
“Dying Lion,” and many others.
Besides these works Bartlett has modeled beetles, fishes, reptiles, and
crustaceans. Here his skill with patinas (the coloring of bronzes) is
shown. A wealth of color is seen in his small figures of beetles and
snakes.
Bartlett’s work is not finished. More and greater is still to come. No
man is better equipped for his work than he.
PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION
ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR. VOL. 1. No. 36 SERIAL No. 36
COPYRIGHT 1913, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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