The Bay State Monthly Volume 2, Issue 3, December, 1884 written by Various
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Various >> The Bay State Monthly Volume 2, Issue 3, December, 1884
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Who and what is Mr. Bartholdi? He is a native of Colmar, in Alsace, and
comes of a good stock; a pupil of the Lycee Louis-le-Grand, and of Ary
Scheffer, he studied first painting then sculpture, and after a journey
in the East with Gerome, established his atelier in Paris. He served in
the irregular corps of Garibaldi during the war of 1870, and the
following year visited the United States. It is admitted that he is a
man of talent, but that he is not considered a great sculptor in his own
country is equally beyond doubt. He would not be compared, for instance,
with such men as Chapu, Dubois, Falguiere, Clesinger, Mercie, Fremiet,
men who stand in the front rank of their profession. The list of his
works is not long. It includes statues of General Rapp, Vercingetorix,
Vauban, Champollion, Lafayette and Rouget de l'Isle; ideal groups
entitled "Genius in the Grasp of Misery," and "the Malediction of
Alsace;" busts of Messrs. Erckmann and Chatrain; single figures called
"Le Vigneron," "Genie Funebre" and "Peace;" and a monument to Martin
Schoengauer in the form of a fountain for the courtyard of the Colmar
Museum. There may be a few others. Last, but by no means least, there is
the great Lion of Belfort, his best work. This is about 91 by 52 feet in
dimensions, and is carved from a block of reddish Vosges stone. It is
intended to commemorate the defence of Belfort against the German army
in 1870, an episode of heroic interest. The immense animal is
represented as wounded but still capable of fighting, half lying, half
standing, with an expression of rage and mighty defiance. It is not too
much to say that Mr. Bartholdi in this case has shown a fine
appreciation of the requirements of colossal sculpture. He has
sacrificed all unnecessary details, and, taking a lesson from the old
Egyptian stone-cutters, has presented an impressive arrangement of
simple masses and unvexed surfaces which give to the composition a
marvellous breadth of effect. The lion is placed in a sort of rude niche
on the side of a rocky hill, which is the foundation of the fortress of
Belfort. It is visible at a great distance, and is said to be strikingly
noble from every point of view. The idea is not original, however well
it may have been carried out, for the Lion of Lucerne by Thorwaldsen is
its prototype on a smaller scale and commemorates an event of somewhat
similar character. The bronze equestrian statue of Vercingetorix, the
fiery Gallic chieftain, in the Clermont museum, is full of violent
action. The horse is flying along with his legs in positions which set
all the science of Mr. Muybridge at defiance; the man is brandishing his
sword and half-turning in his saddle to shout encouragement to his
followers. The whole is supported by a bit of artificial rock-work under
the horse, and the body of a dead Gaul lies close beside it. In the
statue of Rouget de l'Isle we see a young man striking an orator's
attitude, with his right arm raised in a gesture which seems to say:
"_Aux armes, citoyens / Formes vos bataillons!_"
The Lafayette, in New York, is perhaps a mediocre statue, but even so,
it is better than most of our statues. A Frenchman has said of it that
the figure "resembles rather a young tenor hurling out his C sharp, than
a hero offering his heart and sword to liberty." It represents our
ancient ally extending his left hand in a gesture of greeting, while his
right hand, which holds his sword, is pressed against his breast in a
somewhat theatrical movement. It will be inferred that the general
criticism to be made upon Mr. Bartholdi's statues is that they are
violent and want repose. The Vercingetorix, the Rouget de l'Isle, the
Lafayette, all have this exaggerated stress of action. They have
counterbalancing features of merit, no doubt, but none of so
transcendent weight that we can afford to overlook this grave defect.
Coming now to the main question, which it is the design of this paper to
discuss, the inquiry arises: What of the colossal statue of Liberty as a
work of art? For, no matter how noble the motive may be, or how generous
the givers, it must after all be subjected to this test. If it is not a
work of art, the larger it is, the more offensive it must be. There are
not wanting critics who maintain that colossal figures cannot be works
of art; they claim that such representations of the human form are
unnatural and monstrous, and it is true that they are able to point out
some "terrible examples" of modern failures, such, for instance, as the
"Bavaria" statue at Munich. But these writers appear to forget that the
"Minerva" of the Parthenon and the Olympian Jupiter were the works of
the greatest sculptor of ancient times, and that no less a man than
Michael Angelo was the author of the "David" and "Moses." It is
therefore apparent that those who deny the legitimacy of colossal
sculptures _in toto_ go too far; but it is quite true that colossal
works have their own laws and are subject to peculiar conditions. Mr.
Lesbazeilles[A] says that "colossal statuary is in its proper place when
it expresses power, majesty, the qualities that inspire respect and
fear; but it would be out of place if it sought to please us by the
expression of grace.... Its function is to set forth the sublime and the
grandiose." The colossi found among the ruins of Egyptian Temples and
Palaces cannot be seen without emotion, for if many of them are
admirable only because of their great size, still no observer can avoid
a feeling of astonishment on account of the vast energy, courage and
industry of the men of old who could vanquish such gigantic
difficulties. At the same time it will not do to assume that the
Egyptian stone cutters were not artists. The great Sphinx of Giseh, huge
as it is, is far from being a primitive and vulgar creation. "The
portions of the head which have been preserved," says Mr. Charles Blanc,
"the brow, the eyebrows, the corners of the eyes, the passage from the
temples to the cheek-bones, and from the cheek-bones to the cheek, the
remains of the mouth and chin,--all this testifies to an extraordinary
fineness of chiselling. The entire face has a solemn serenity and a
sovereign goodness." Leaving aside all consideration of the artistic
merits of other Egyptian colossi,--those at Memphis, Thebes, Karnac and
Luxor, with the twin marvels of Amenophis-Memnon--we turn to the most
famous colossus of antiquity, that at Rhodes, only to find that we have
even less evidence on which to base an opinion as to its quality than is
available in the case of the numerous primitive works of Egypt and of
India. We know its approximate dimensions, the material of which it was
made, and that it was overthrown by an earthquake, but there seems to be
reason to doubt its traditional attitude, and nothing is known as to
what it amounted to as a work of art, though it may be presumed that,
being the creation of a Greek, it had the merits of its classic age and
school. Of the masterpieces of Phidias it may be said that they were
designed for the interiors of Temples and were adopted with consummate
art to the places they occupied; they have been reconstructed for us
from authentic descriptions, and we are enabled to judge concerning that
majestic and ponderous beauty which made them the fit presentments of
the greatest pagan deities. I need say nothing of the immortal statues
by Michael Angelo, and will therefore hasten to consider the modern
outdoor colossi which now exist in Europe--the St. Charles Borromeo at
Arona, Italy, the Bavaria at Munich, the Arminius in Westphalia, Our
Lady of Puy in France. The St. Charles Borromeo, near the shore of Lake
Maggiore, dates from 1697, and is the work of a sculptor known as Il
Cerano. Its height is 76 feet, or with its pedestal, 114 feet. The arm
is over 29 feet long, the nose 33 inches, and the forefinger 6 feet 4
inches. The statue is entirely of hammered copper plates riveted
together, supported by means of clamps and bands of iron on an interior
mass of masonry. The effect of the work is far from being artistic. It
is in a retired spot on a hill, a mile or two from the little village of
Arona. The Bavaria, near Munich, erected in 1850, is 51 feet high, on a
pedestal about 26 feet high, and is the work of Schwanthaler. It is of
bronze and weighs about 78 tons. The location of this monstrous lump of
metal directly in front of a building emphasizes its total want of
sculptural merit, and makes it a doubly lamentable example of bad taste
and bombast. The Arminius colossal, on a height near Detmold in
Westphalia, was erected in 1875, is 65 feet high, and weighs 18 tons.
The name of the sculptor is not given by any of the authorities
consulted, which is perhaps just as well. This statue rests on "a
dome-like summit of a monumental structure," and brandishes a sword 24
feet long in one hand. The Virgin of Puy is by Bonassieux, was set up in
1860, is 52 feet high, weighs 110 tons, and stands on a cliff some 400
feet above the town. It is, like the Bavaria, of bronze, cast in
sections, and made from cannons taken in warfare. The Virgin's head is
surmounted by a crown of stars, and she carries the infant Christ on her
left arm. The location of this statue is felicitous, but it has no
intrinsic value as an art work. It will be seen, then, that these
outdoor colossi of to-day do not afford us much encouragement to believe
that Mr. Bartholdi will be able to surmount the difficulties which have
vanquished one sculptor after another in their endeavors to perform
similar prodigies. Sculpture is perhaps the most difficult of the arts
of design. There is an antique statue in the Louvre which displays such
wonderful anatomical knowledge, that Reynolds is said to have remarked,
"to learn that alone might consume the labor of a whole life." And it is
an undeniable fact that enlarging the scale of a statue adds in more
than a corresponding degree to the difficulties of the undertaking. The
colossi of the ancients were to a great extent designed for either the
interiors or the exteriors of religious temples, where they were
artfully adapted to be seen in connection with architectural effects.
Concerning the sole prominent exception to this rule, the statue of
Apollo at Rhodes, we have such scant information that even its position
is a subject of dispute. It has been pointed out how the four modern
outdoor colossi of Europe each and all fail to attain the requirements
of a work of art. All our inquiries, it appears then, lead to the
conclusion that Mr. Bartholdi has many chances against him, so far as we
are able to learn from an examination of the precedents, and in view of
these facts it would be a matter for surprise if the "Liberty" statue
should prove to possess any title to the name of a work of art. We
reserve a final decision, however, as to this most important phase of
the affair, until the statue is in place.
[Footnote A: "Les Colosses anciens et moderns," par E. Lesbazeilles;
Paris: 1881.]
The idea that great size in statues is necessarily vulgar, does not seem
admissible. It would be quite as just to condemn the paintings on a
colossal scale in which Tintoretto and Veronese so nobly manifested
their exceptional powers. The size of a work of art _per se_ is an
indifferent matter. Mere bigness or mere littleness decides nothing. But
a colossal work has its conditions of being: it must conform to certain
laws. It must be executed in a large style; it must represent a grand
idea; it must possess dignity and strength; it must convey the idea of
power and majesty; it must be located in a place where its surroundings
shall augment instead of detracting from its aspect of grandeur; it must
be magnificent, for if not it will be ridiculous. The engravings of Mr.
Bartholdi's statue represent a woman clad in a peplum and tunic which
fall in ample folds from waist and shoulder to her feet. The left foot,
a trifle advanced supports the main weight of the body. The right arm is
uplifted in a vigorous movement and holds aloft a blazing torch. The
left hand grasps a tablet on which the date of the Declaration of
Independence appears; this is held rather close to the body and at a
slight angle from it. The head is that of a handsome, proud and brave
woman. It is crowned by a diadem. The arrangement of the draperies is,
if one may judge from the pictures, a feature of especial excellence in
the design. There is merit in the disposition of the peplum or that
portion of the draperies flung back over the left shoulder, the folds of
which hang obliquely (from the left shoulder to the right side of the
waist and thence downward almost to the right knee,) thus breaking up
the monotony of the perpendicular lines formed by the folds of the tunic
beneath. The movement of the uplifted right arm is characterized by a
certain _elan_ which, however, does not suggest violence; the carriage
of the head is dignified, and so far as one may judge from a variety of
prints, the face is fine in its proportions and expression. I do not
find the movement of the uplifted arm violent, and, on the whole, am
inclined to believe the composition a very good one in its main
features. There will be an undeniable heaviness in the great masses of
drapery, especially as seen from behind, but the illusion as to the size
of the figure created by its elevation on a pedestal and foundation
nearly twice as high as itself may do much towards obviating this
objection. The background of the figure will be the
... Spacious firmament on high,
With all the blue etherial sky,
And spangled heavens ...
The island is far enough removed from the city so that no direct
comparisons can be made between the statue and any buildings. Seen from
the deck of a steamer at a distance say of a quarter of a mile, the
horizon, formed by the roofs, towers, spires and chimneys of three
cities, will not appear higher than the lower half of the pedestal. In
other words the statue will neither be dwarfed nor magnified by the
contiguity of any discordant objects. It will stand alone. The abstract
idea, as has been said, is noble. The plan of utilizing the statue as a
lighthouse at night does not detract from its worth in this respect; it
may be said to even emphasize the allegorial sense of the work.
"Liberty enlightening the world," lights the way of the sailor in the
crowded harbor of the second commercial city of the world. The very
magnitude of the work typifies, after a manner, the vast extent of our
country, and the audacity of the scheme is not inappropriate in the
place where it is to stand. It may be, indeed, that when the statue is
set up, we shall find it awkward and offensive, as some critics have
already prophecied: but that it must be so inevitably does not appear to
me to be a logical deduction from the information we have at hand as to
the artist and his plans. It is freely admitted that no modern work of
this nature has been successful, but that does not prove that this must
absolutely be a failure. The project ought not to be condemned in
advance because of the great difficulties surrounding it, its unequalled
scope and its novelty. Mr. Bartholdi is above all ingenious, bold, and
fertile in resources; it would be a great pity not to have him allowed
every opportunity to carry out a design in which, as we have seen, there
are so many elements of interest and even of grandeur. It has been said
that "there does not exist on French soil such a bombastic work as this
will be." Very well; admitting for the sake of argument that it will be
bombastic, shall we reject and condemn a colossal statue before having
seen it, because there is nothing like it in France? And is it true that
it will be bomastic? That is by no means demonstrated. On the contrary
an impartial examination of the design would show that the work has been
seriously conceived and thought out; that it does not lack dignity; that
it is intended to be full of spirit and significance. It would be the
part of wisdom at least to avoid dogmatism in an advance judgment as to
its worth as a work of art, and to wait awhile before pronouncing a
final verdict.
Hazlitt tells of a conceited English painter who went to Rome, and when
he got into the Sistine Chapel, turning to his companion, said, "Egad,
George, we're bit!" Our own tendency is, because of our ignorance, to be
sceptical and suspicious as to foreign works of art, especially of a
kind that are novel and daring. No one is so hard to please as a
simpleton. We are so afraid of being taken in, that we are reluctant to
commit ourselves in favor of any new thing until we have heard from
headquarters; but it appears to be considered a sign of knowledge to
vituperate pictures and statues which do not conform to some undefinable
ideal standard of our own invention. There is, of course, a class of
indulgent critics who are pernicious enough in their way; but the savage
and destructive criticism of which I speak is quite as ignorant and far
more harmful. It assumes an air of authority based on a superficial
knowledge of art, and beguiles the public into a belief in its
infallibility by means of a smooth style and an occasional epigram the
smartness of which may and often does conceal a rank injustice. The
expression of a hope that the result of Mr. Bartholdi's labors "will be
something better than another gigantic asparagus stalk added to those
that already give so comical a look to our sky-line," is truly an
encouraging and generous utterance at this particular stage of the
enterprise, and equals in moderation the courteous remark that the
statue "could not fail to be ridiculous in the expanse of New York
Bay."[A] It is not necessary to touch upon the question of courtesy at
all, but it is possible that one of our critics may live to regret his
vegetable metaphor, and the other to revise his prematurely positive
censure. There is a sketch in charcoal which represents the Bartholdi
colossus as the artist has seen it in his mind's eye, standing high
above the waters of the beautiful harbor at twilight, when the lights
are just beginning to twinkle in the distant cities and when darkness is
softly stealing over the service of the busy earth and sea. The mystery
of evening enwraps the huge form of the statue, which looms vaster than
by day, and takes on an aspect of strange majesty, augmented by the
background of hurrying clouds which fill the upper portion of the sky.
So seen, the immense Liberty appears what the sculptor wishes and
intends it to be, what we Americans sincerely hope it may be,--a fitting
memorial of an inspiring episode in history, and a great work of modern
art.
[Footnote A: _Vide_ papers by Clarence Cook in The Studio, and by
Professor D. Cady Eaton of Yale College in the New York Tribune.]
* * * * *
ELIZABETH.[A]
A ROMANCE OF COLONIAL DAYS.
BY FRANCES C. SPARHAWK, Author of "A Lazy Man's Work."
[Footnote A: Copyright, 1884, by Frances C. Sparhawk. All rights
reserved.]
CHAPTER III.
IDLESSE.
"Don't move your head, Elizabeth, keep it in that position a little
longer," said Katie Archdale, as she and her friend sat together the
morning after the sail. "I wish an artist were here to paint you so;
you've no idea how striking you are."
"No, I have not," laughed the other, forgetting to keep still as she
spoke, and turning the face that had been toward the window full upon
her companion. The scene that Elizabeth's eyes had been dwelling upon
was worthy of admiration; her enthusiasm had not escaped her in any
word, but her eyes were enraptured with it, and her whole face, warmed
with faint reflection of the inward glow, was beautiful with youth, and
thought, and feeling.
"Now you've spoilt it," cried Katie, "now you are merely a nice-looking
young lady; you were beautiful before, perfectly beautiful, like a
picture that one can look at, and look at, and go away filled with, and
come back to, and never tire of. The people that see you so worship you,
but then, nobody has a chance to do it. You just sit and don't say much
except once in a while when you wake up, then you are brilliant, but
never tender, as you know how to be. You give people an impression that
you are hard. Sometimes I should like to shake you."
Elizabeth laughed.
"That's the way you worship me," she answered. "I suspected it was a
strange kind of adoration, largely made up of snubbing."
"It's not snubbing," retorted Katie, "it is trying to rouse you to what
you you might be. But I am wasting my breath; you don't believe a word I
say."
"I should like to believe it," returned the girl, smiling a little
sadly. "But even if I did believe every word of it, it would seem to me
a great deal nicer to be like you, beautiful all the time, and one whom
everybody loves. But there's one thing to be said, if it were I who were
beautiful, I could'nt have the pleasure I do in looking at you, and
perhaps, after all, I shouldn't get any more enjoyment out of it."
"Oh, yes, you would," retorted the other, then bit her lips angrily at
her inadvertence. A shrewd smile flitted over Elizabeth's face, but she
made no comment, and Katie went on hurriedly to ask, "What shall we do
to amuse ourselves to-day, Betsey?" Another slight movement of the
hearer's lips responded. This name was Katie's special term of
endearment, and never used except when they were alone; no one else ever
called her by it.
"I don't know," she said. "Let us sit here as we are doing now. Move
your chair nearer the window and look down on the river. See the
blue-black shadows on it. And look at the forests, how they stretch away
with a few clearings here and there. A city behind us, to be sure, a
little city, but before us the forests, and the Indians. I wonder what
it all means for us."
"The axe for one, the gun for the other," retorted Katie with a hardness
which belief in the savageness and treachery of the red man had
instilled into the age. "The forests mean fortune to some of us," she
added.
"Yes," answered Elizabeth slowly, finding an unsatisfactory element in
her companion's summary.
"Do you mean that we shall have to shoot down a whole race? That is
dreadful," she added after a pause.
"You and I have nothing to do with all that," returned Katie.
Elizabeth waited in despair of putting the case as she felt it.
"I was thinking," she said at last, "that if we have a whole land of
forests to cut down and of cities to build up, somehow, everything will
be different here from the Old England. I often wonder what it is to be
in this New World. It must be unlike the Old," she repeated.
"I don't wonder," returned Katie, "and that's just what you shouldn't
do. Wonder what you're going to wear to-morrow when we dine at Aunt
Faith's, or whether Master Harwin will call this morning, or Master
Waldo, or wonder about something sensible."
"Which means, 'or if it's to be Master Archdale,'" retorted Elizabeth,
smiling into the laughing eyes fixed upon her face, and making them fall
at the keenness of her glance, while a brighter rose than Katie cared to
show tinted the creamy skin and made her bend a moment to arrange the
rosette of her slipper. The movement showed her hair in all its
perfection, for at this early hour it had not been tortured into
elaborateness, but as she sat in her bedroom talking with her guest, was
loosely coiled to be out of the way, and thus drawn back in its wavy
abundance showed now burnished, and now a darker brown, as the sunlight
or the shadow fell upon it.
"He's not always sensible," she answered, lifting her head again with a
half defiant gesture, and smiling. Katie's smile was irresistible, it
won her admirers by the score, not altogether because it gave a glimpse
of beautiful teeth, or because her mouth was at its perfection then, but
that it was an expression of childlike abandonment to the spirit of the
moment, which charmed the gay because they sympathized with it and the
serious because it was a mood of mind into which they would be glad to
enter. "Stephen has not been quite himself lately, rather stupid," and
she looked as if she were not unsuspicious of the reason.
"Too many of us admirers, he thinks?" laughed Elizabeth. "For he is
bright enough when he takes the trouble to speak, but generally he
doesn't seem to consider any one of sufficient importance to amuse."
"That is not so," cried Katie, "you are mistaken. But you don't know
Stephen very well," she added. "What a pity that you are not living
here, then you would, and then we should have known each other all our
lives, instead of only since we went to school together. What good times
we had at Madam Flamingo's. There you sit, now, and look as meekly
reproving as if you had'nt invented that name for her yourself. It was
so good, it has stood by her ever since."
"Did I? I had forgotten it."
"Perhaps, at least, you remember the red shawl that got her the
nickname? It was really something nice,--the shawl, I mean, but the old
dame was so ridiculously proud of it and so perpetually flaunting it,
she must have thought it very becoming. We girls were tired of the sight
of it. And one day, when you were provoked with her about something and
left her and came into the schoolroom after hours, you walked up to a
knot of us, and with your air of scorn said something about Madam
Flamingo. Didn't it spread like wildfire? Our set will call that
venerable dame 'Flamingo' to the end of her days."
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