American Masters of Sculpture

THE year 1876, the date of the Centennial Exhibition, is a landmark in the progress of American sculpture as it is in that of American painting. Not to be fixed too definitely, and yet serving approximately as a starting-point of new conditions which have transformed what had been a sporadic and largely exotic product into a lusty, homogeneous and thoroughly acclimatised growth. I speak of the gradual improvement and spread of taste in the community; the steady trend of students to Paris and the habit of American sculptors to make their own country the scene and inspiration of their labours.

The earlier tendency had been toward Italy; to Rome and Florence, especially, where American colonies existed. Here the student adopted the Canova tradition of sweetened classicism, or the infusion of naturalism into the classic vein, represented in the work of a few romanticists; and, having learned his craft, remained in Italy to practise it. His sources of instruction had not been of the best and he worked in an atmosphere tainted with artistic and political decadence. It is not surprising that much of the sculpture of this period, though considerably admired in its day, strikes us now as coldly and pedantically null, unconvincing and grandiloquent or, at best, innocuously sentimental. Only once in a while is there a statue of such moment as “The Greek Slave,” by Hiram Powers, which very closely follows and attains to the purity of Canova’s style. The more memorable works of this period came chiefly from those sculptors who, although living abroad, kept in touch with home. Of these the most distinguished was William Henry Rinehart; yet his classical pieces will not compare in force and dignity with his sitting statue of Chief Justice Taney at Annapolis, reproduced in Mount Vernon Square, Baltimore, which still remains one of the most impressive monuments in this country. In like manner Thomas Crawford’s best works were the bronze doors for the Capitol, illustrating events in the Revolution, the colossal “Liberty” which crowns the dome and an equestrian statue of Washington at Richmond. Equally it was in another equestrian statue of Washington, the one which stands in the Boston Public Gardens, that Thomas Ball reached his best achievement. But it is inferior in ease and dignity to the same subject executed by Henry Kirke Brown, whose equestrian statue of General Scott at Washington also stands out conspicuously among the best we have. Brown, too, studied in Italy, but with the conviction that Americans should occupy themselves upon American subjects returned home and established his studio in New York. It would be going too far to attribute the excellence of these two statues to the fact of their having been conceived and executed in the American environment, the more so as Brown’s work was uneven in quality and did not in other subjects reach the dignity of these. Yet his deviation from the custom of the time was the outcome of a very individual force of character, and the influence of the latter upon his work may very well have been reënforced by the environment. At any rate, his action was considered notable in his own day and has always been remembered since, and undoubtedly marks the beginning of the reaction against self-expatriation.