Women of Achievement: Written for the Fireside SchoolsBrawley, Benjamin Griffith
History
Women of Achievement: Written for the Fireside Schools
Brawley, Benjamin Griffith
African American women -- Biography; Women -- Biography
Philosopher who suffers perhaps more keenly than the others as he views
the misery around them, and who, powerless to relieve it, also sinks
into despair.
Other early productions were similarly characterized by a strongly
romantic quality. "Silent Sorrow" has already been remarked in passing.
In this a man, worn and gaunt and in despair, is represented as leaning
over and actually eating out his own heart. "Man Carrying Dead Body" is
in similar vein. The sculptor is moved by the thought of one who will be
spurred on by the impulse of duty to the performance of some task not
only unpleasant but even loathsome. She shows a man bearing across his
shoulder the body of a comrade that has evidently lain on the
battlefield for days. The thing is horrible, and the man totters under
the great weight; but he forces his way onward until he can give it
decent burial. Another early production was based on the ancient Greek
story of Oedipus. This story was somewhat as follows: Oedipus was the
son of Laius and Jocasta, king and queen of Thebes. At his birth an
oracle foretold that the father Laius would be killed by his son. The
child was sent away to be killed by exposure, but in course of time was
saved and afterwards adopted by the King of Corinth. When he was grown,
being warned by an oracle that he would kill his father and marry his
mother, he left home. On his journey he met Laius and slew him in the
course of an altercation. Later, by solving the riddle of the sphinx, he
freed Thebes from distress, was made king of the city, and married
Jocasta. Eventually the terrible truth of the relationship became known
to all. Jocasta hanged herself and Oedipus tore out his eyes. The
sculptor portrays the hero of the old legend at the very moment that he
is thus trying to punish himself for his crime. There is nothing
delicate or pretty about all such work as this. It is grewsome in fact,
and horrible; but it is also strong and intense and vital. Its merit was
at once recognized by the French, and it gave Meta Warrick a recognized
place among the sculptors of America.
On her return to America the artist resumed her studies at the School of
Industrial Art, winning in 1904 the Battles first prize for pottery. In
1907 she produced a series of tableaux representing the advance of the
Negro for the Jamestown Tercentennial Exposition, and in 1913 a group
for the New York State Emancipation Proclamation Commission. In 1909 she
became the wife of Dr. Solomon C. Fuller, of Framingham, Massachusetts.
A fire in 1910 unfortunately destroyed some of her most valuable pieces
while they were in storage in Philadelphia. Only a few examples of her
early work, that happened to be elsewhere, were saved. The artist was
undaunted, however, and by May, 1914, she had sufficiently recovered
from the blow to be able to hold at her home a public exhibition of her
work.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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