American Masters of Sculpture / Being Brief Appreciations of Some American Sculptors and of Some Phases of Sculpture in America

by Charles H. Caffin

A Memorial Monument

reserve far greater of unexpended power. In correspondence with the controlled bigness of this conception is the generalized method of the actual modelling, so that the eye is not deflected to this or that part, but compelled to embrace the figure as a whole. It is in this respect that Barnard’s work differs from that of Rodin, to which at a first glance we might feel disposed to liken it, in consequence of the expression of character in both and the freedom from conventional restraint. But each has his separate method of attack; for while Rodin reaches his ensemble through an elaboration of the parts, Barnard is possessed first and foremost of the conception in its entirety and keeps the parts subordinate. The one entices you to follow the play of subtle expression that winds through the figure, while the other arrests your eye to its structural significance as a unity.

In a brief summary of this sculptor’s art the thing to be noted is that it is distinguished as much by breadth of conception as by expression of character, and always with an instinctive regard for the simplest form of plastic interpretation. It is this which separates him from the hypersensitive tendencies of the old world and proves him to be a prophet of the new. His vision is less penetrating than embracing; his methods more constructive than analytical; his emotions ample, sane. His genius indeed has not grown with the sinuous convolutions of a sapling that enforces its existence in a thicket, but like one that stands alone in virgin soil with spaciousness around it.

III
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS WARD

BORN in Urbana, Ohio, in 1830, Ward is still an active force among American sculptors. His career connects the past with the present, spanning the long interval like a bridge: one pier, embedded in the old condition of things when American sculptors first began to make America the scene and inspiration of their art, its arch mounting above the indifference to, and ignorance of, things artistic which prevailed before the influence of European art began to be felt here, and its other pier firmly incorporated into the new order. And there is additional fitness in the simile, for Ward’s career has presented the logical reasonableness of an architectural structure; built up of character, stout as granite, shaped by experience and tempered by local necessities; a structure modified by practical as well as by esthetic considerations, which has been invaluable in its day and embodies some features of permanent worth among others that time has superseded. For the architect of his own life cannot proceed like the builder of a material bridge—establish simultaneously his hither and nether pier, and then by ingenious underpinning support the weight of the arch until he reaches the keystone, which finally locks all into a compact whole. He can but start with good, firm basis of intention, hew the stones as faithfully as he knows and set them in cement of honest endeavour, lifting his arch by personal force, while the force of gravity, acting outside himself, gradually determines the direction of its curve. He will be shrewder than most if he guesses when he has reached the keystone—generally will only discern it after long years by looking back; and when he gains the farther bank of the stream and once more has the firm ground beneath his feet, if he turns round to view the work he will be conscious of parts which disturb the symmetry of the whole: here a bit of inferior craftsmanship which his later knowledge detects, there some result of untoward circumstances. He is happy if his life presents a constancy of purpose and has been of service to his fellows.

Such happiness may fairly be enjoyed by Ward. His share in establishing the National Sculpture Society, of which he has been president since its foundation, would alone entitle him to the permanent consideration of his colleagues, while to the sum total of American sculpture he has made some very notable contributions. That his work includes examples which fall short in artistic conception and in technical skill, is undeniable. They are the result partly of the circumstances of his development and partly of his own determined, straightforward character; a combination of meager artistic experiences at the start and of a predisposition to the objective point of view.

One imagines that he has always been powerfully attracted to the facts of things: the facts of American life and the facts of the subjects which he has portrayed in his art. If there was any fiber of transcendentalism in his mind—and few of us are altogether without some vision of what is beyond the bounds of actual experience—it took the form of speculating upon the future of American civilisation, which facts have subsequently indorsed, or, if it entered into his feeling toward his subject, made him realise something of the spirit embedded in the fact, as in his early statue representing the Negro breaking loose his fetters. But the various theories concerning art which study in Paris might have taught him, and which in a measure are the shibboleth of people whose faith in facts has dwindled, and, unless reallied to actual facts, are but “vacant chaff well meant for grain,” he had no means of learning in his youth, and throughout his manhood, I suspect, has had little patience with. Still at the bottom of all theories is the principle that it is not in the subject but in the manner of presenting it that a work of art is proclaimed; that technique and motive should be indissolubly wedded—to their mutual perfection if each is choice, and, if either is inferior, to a mutual loss. This was not recognised in America in Ward’s youth, nor until much later; and none of his work, it is probably true to say, reveals that particular kind of craftsmanlike facility which distinguishes the work of the sculptor who has been trained abroad, and by the side of this more accomplished modelling Ward’s statues often appear crude. But if they lack the stylistic quality, the best of them have a force which more than compensates. It results from a strong feeling for design, the general accumulative effect of the whole composition, which itself results from a strong antecedent feeling for form. The latter seems to characterise all self-taught students, whether sculptors or painters; and, although, as their experience broadens, there may be increased subtlety of expression, the primary characteristic of their work will continue to be a very strong sense and enjoyment of the structural facts of the figure or landscape, and most frequently in their simplest and directest manifestations. And in the case of sculpture this is an especially valuable gift of vision, since the most sculptural quality in sculpture is unquestionably that of form: its solidity, stability and natural grace or dignity of movement. It is precisely in these particulars that some of our foreign-taught sculptors, while easily excelling Ward in refinements of detail, fall short of him.