George Grey Barnard is a Westerner, although he chanced to be born in Pennsylvania, where his parents were temporarily residing in 1863. The sculptor’s father is a clergyman, and the fortunes of the ministry afterward led him to Chicago, and thence to Muscatine, Iowa, where the son passed his boyhood. One cannot doubt that these circumstances had their profound influence upon the character of the young artist. In it is something of the largeness of the western prairies, something of the audacity of a life without tradition or precedent, a burning intensity of enthusiasm; above all, a strong element of mysticism which permeates all that Barnard does or thinks. [Illustration: Reproduced from American Sculpture, by Lorado Taft. Copyright, 1903, by The MacMillan Co. MICHELANGELO, BY BARTLETT _A vivid representation of the mighty Florentine, is one of the bronze effigies that decorate the rotunda of the Congressional Library._] The stories of his student struggles in Chicago and Paris are familiar. The first result of all this self sacrifice became tangible in that early group, a tombstone for Norway, in which the youth portrayed “Brotherly Love,” a work of “weird and indescribable charm.” In 1894 Barnard completed his celebrated group, “Two Natures,” upon which he had toiled, in clay and marble, for several years. This masterful achievement gave him at once high standing in Europe, and his work has never since ceased to interest the cultivated public of the world’s capitals. Then followed an extraordinary “Norwegian Stove,” a monumental affair illustrative of Scandinavian mythology; and “Maidenhood” and the “Hewer,” two of the finest nudes thus far produced in America. The great work of Barnard’s recent years has been the decoration of the Pennsylvania capitol. It has been said of him that he was “the only one connected with that building who was not smirched”; but his part is a story of heroism and triumph. The writer has not yet seen the enormous groups in place, but is familiar with fragments that have won the enthusiastic praise of the best sculptors of Paris. They are inspiring conceptions which point the way to still mightier achievements in American sculpture. THE VIGOR OF BARTLETT [Illustration: LAFAYETTE, BY BARTLETT _In the square before the Louvre, Paris_] Paul Wayland Bartlett was born in 1865 of artistic ancestry, his father being Truman Bartlett, teacher and critic. The boy grew up in Paris, entering the Beaux-Arts at the age of fifteen, and working also at the Jardin des Plantes under the helpful guidance of Frémiet, the great animalist. His art has always offered an interesting blend of the two influences, animal forms appearing in nearly all his compositions.