comprehension which disregards details, except in so far as they are essential to the action or the sentiment. And how characteristic are the details which he does introduce! Here, for example, is the figure of a horse, “tamed.” A saddle lies upon the ground. It is the object which excites, first the terror, then the anger of the untamed horse. But this one is conquered and hangs his head submissively over the instrument and badge of his defeat. He stands with front feet planted forward, the legs trembling, the hind ones limp and sluggish; the line of the ribs exposed as the flank heaves; the nostrils distended with the gasps of breath; the eye listless, the ear fallen. But, keenest touch of all, note how the saddle-cloth and girths have left a hot, glossy impress upon the body, the hair around their edges being clotted with sweat. It is detail such as this, full of character, that one finds in all these pieces of sculpture; and, for the rest, the modelling is broadly suggestive, yet always distinctly characteristic; not only rendering structure and action, but offering varieties of flesh texture, according to the condition and character of the horse represented.
Borglum, in a word, is an impressionistic sculptor, untrammelled by formula or tradition, seeking nature direct, with an eye habituated to essentials and with a degree of sympathetic comprehension that corresponds with the range and reality of his life’s experiences. His work is, thus, truly original; a product of his own manhood, fashioned to artistic fitness.
XI
VICTOR DAVID BRENNER
IN this country, as elsewhere, prior to the establishment of the French Société des Amis de la Medaille, medal-making had sunk to a department of trade; or, if something artistic were attempted, there was a divorce between the designing and engraving. A sculptor or painter, with no practical knowledge of the possibilities and limitations of the cutting process, would be commissioned to produce the design, while its execution in the die was turned over to a more or less skilled operative. The barrenness of the result may be seen in the majority of medals produced during many years.
Recognising that the work of the medallist had been and should be a special department of art, with very individual qualities of exquisite expression, the National Academy two years ago established a class in Coin and Medal Designing and put it in charge of Victor D. Brenner.
Ten years previously the latter had arrived in New York, an expert die-sinker and engraver; now he had just returned from studying under Roty in Paris. The story of his progress from artisan to artist is not without a touch of romance.
To the student of personal accomplishment there is always a particular satisfaction in the contrast between hard and strait beginnings and the ultimate success. He forgets, as the artist himself perhaps does when the sweets of victory are on his tongue, the long weariness of the previous struggle, and is philosophically persuaded that the pain of parturition must necessarily precede the birth of art as of life. However that may be, Brenner has had his share of privations; and it is well for him that he encountered them early and surmounted them before the enthusiasm of youth dwindled.
He was born in 1871 at Shavly, in the north-west of Russia, and from his sixth to his thirteenth year attended the Hebrew school. After three years of apprenticeship to his father, who was a general mechanic and seal-cutter, with considerable talent in carving, the youth, now sixteen years old, travelled through the neighbouring towns, making seals. Then he worked for a jewelry engraver in Riga, and subsequently migrated to Mittau, where he found employment in a rubber stamp and type foundry, cutting dies and illustrations for advertisements. In 1889 he established himself in Kowno as a jewelry engraver and seal-cutter. By this time he had saved nearly enough to pay his passage to New York, and the following year he reached our shores. He was then scarcely nineteen, without friends, knowledge of the language or ready funds. For a while he sold matches on Fulton Street, and then graduated to the superior opportunities of a sweat-shop in Brooklyn. He was rescued from this by an advertisement through which he found employment with a jewelry firm. Meanwhile his acquaintance with the language and with the local conditions was improving, and it was not long before he obtained a position as seal-cutter. Then followed an engagement with Mr. H. Popper as die-cutter and jewelry engraver, during which he came to the notice of Professor S. H. Oetinger, the numismatist, whose collection of medals seems to have awakened in the young man a longing to be himself an artist. In 1891 he first learned to handle clay at the Cooper Union night class, but attended only for a month, and it was not until 1896 that he studied drawing under Ward in the night class of the Academy of Design.