From these two statues one may get a very fair impression of the sculptor’s natural bent as influenced by Munich training. Its prime feature is a vigorous realism that makes straight for character in the subject, finding it as much in pose and gesture as in the head, and giving expression to it in the simplest and directest fashion; if with some dramatic play as we have seen, yet without any floridness. What we do not yet observe is a feeling for the subtler expression of movement in the figure, and, in consequence, of subtler feeling in the disposition and texture of the draperies; qualities which entered into his work after his protracted study in Italy.
For, having completed these commissions, Niehaus set out for Rome and established himself in a studio just outside the Porta del Popolo, in close proximity to the Villa Borghese, devoting himself, as I have said, to the study of the nude. The only three statues which survive from this period—an athlete scraping himself with a strigil, another binding on the cestus, and a “Silenus,” pirouetting on one foot as he blows his pipes—are quite remarkable examples of the modern interpretation of the antique. Movement continuous through every part of the body and absolutely adjusted to the action; a poise of balance in the disposition of the torso and limbs, which combines the pleasure of repose with that of movement; anatomical accuracy that includes the structure of the figure and the varieties of tension according as the muscles are separately employed; and throughout a salience of modelling which imparts a dignity as well as naturalness to the whole—these are the qualities so admirably attained. The knowledge of form and the feeling for it thus perfected has naturally influenced all the sculptor’s subsequent work. He exhibits them obviously in the colossal nude, “The Driller,” executed for the Drake monument at Titusville, Pennsylvania; but no less in numerous portrait-statues.
An American sculptor has unfortunately few opportunities for displaying his ability in the treatment of the nude, the commissions which perforce engage his time being almost exclusively problems of figures in modern civilian garb or in the uniform of the army or navy. He may occasionally introduce it into a piece of decorative sculpture, or fashion some ideal subject for the pure love of doing it, since his chances of disposing
THE DRILLER
By Charles Henry Niehaus
From the Drake Monument, Titusville, Pennsylvania
