Statues in Public Places.
FIG. 62.—BRONZE LION, BY BARYE.
During the last half-century simple statues erected to the memories of noted politicians and military men in public parks, streets, and open places, have been added to by more realistic groups. It would be beyond the scope of this work to attempt categorical descriptions of such bronzes to be seen in the public places of our great cities, and it would be still more difficult to rightly classify them either in their order of merit or of the appropriateness of their selection. It seems justly fit that those who have been associated with the metallic art should be commemorated in copper and brass. To Pittsburg belongs the honour of having remembered the father of the art of hammering into shape the metals. In that city, on a massive pedestal, stands a colossal bronze figure of Tubal Cain, who, in his brief life's history given in Genesis, is spoken of as an "artificer in brass." He fittingly heads the list of metallurgists and scientists, to many of whom monuments have been erected.
The use of bronze in monuments is not confined to figures of great men, for bronze and brass ornament often adds to the magnificence of a national memorial. As examples of the use of bronze for that purpose mention may be made of the bronze lions, after Landseer, at the four corners of Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square. The use of bronze, as adding to the adornment or appearance of an antiquity in stone, is exemplified in the two bronze sphinxes at the base of Cleopatra's Needle on the Thames Embankment.
The bronzes of comparatively modern days are mostly the work of the founder, cast after the sculptor has done his work. Some of the early examples of Etruscan and Egyptian art consisted of bronze or brass hammered into form by hand, or made of plates riveted together. Others appear to have been beaten or embossed into high relief in a mould. Some of the cleverest castings of bronze, however, are found in the work of Eastern nations, the best examples being idols and temple ornaments (see [Chapter XIV]).