III
Clark Mills, Brown, Ball, Ward, Saint-Gaudens, French, Potter, Partridge, Remington, Bush-Brown, Elwell, Proctor, Rhind, Lukeman, Bitter, Niehaus, Ruckstull, Bartlett, MacMonnies, Dallin, the two Borglums, Fraser, Aitken, Miss Hyatt, Mrs. Farnham, Roth, Packer, Shrady;—if without benefit of catalogue memory at once speaks all these names, no doubt there are others also. And in what infinite variety of imagination and of rendering their works stand before us! The whole procession of mounted heroes produces no sense of monotony. Originality, that quality overprized when prized at all as an end in itself, appears in sufficient measure. Yet, beginning with Saint-Gaudens, most of these well-trained artists would undoubtedly admit their debt of gratitude to Barye and Frémiet and Dubois, the French masters, and beyond these, to Donatello and to Verocchio and Leopardi, through whom the Renaissance gave to the world those two vivid masterpieces, the Gattamelata and the Colleoni. If that almost mythical third masterpiece, da Vinci’s Sforza, had been saved to round out a trinity of high accomplishment, how great would have been our debt to Italy! As it is, the void left is something every sculptor is free to fill, if his powers permit; there are still worlds to conquer.