I do not forget that Sargent in his Boston decoration has made noble use of symbolism. Yet I feel strongly that the earlier part of the work which involved Egyptian, Assyrian and Judaic symbolism is inferior to the subsequent work, which is impregnated with the Byzantine. For in the latter the artist has identified himself so completely with the medieval mind, that he is thinking in it, while working in the modern technique; consequently his work is veritably a reincarnation of the old thought. Compared with this his earlier use of symbolism appears only scholarly and ingenious. So, one may infer, it is not the use of symbolism that is alien to the modern mind, but that use of it which borrows from the past and does not reproduce the ancient spirit or incorporate the old with modern thought.
In his “Fountain of Man” at the Pan-American Exposition, Charles Grafly combined a cryptic motive with what was otherwise simply and intelligibly sculpturesque. The crowning and most prominent feature of the composition, to which the remainder served as an elaborate base, was a draped mass, which on nearer view proved to be two figures back to back, their heads covered with perforated casques, joined together over the top by what had the appearance of a handle. The faces were visible, but from the rim of the casques descended curtains of drapery, enshrouding the figures, but leaving exposed the hands, which grasped short cylinders. There can be no doubt of the general suggestion of the symbolism, the twofold nature of man, the mystery of it; but I must confess that I am baffled by the headgear and the cylinders. Yet the mass was impressive as a finial to the fountain, having something of the character of a low obelisk. Indeed, for decorative purposes it might almost as well have been a shaft, the special aptitude of the human form for the expression of ornamental design having been obliterated by the drapery. Not so, however, in the lower part of the composition. The pedestal on which the figure rested was surrounded by nude forms of youths and maidens intended to represent the seasons, while the platform on which they rested was supported by crouching male and female forms, personifying, I believe, the virtues and vices. Yet with all Grafly’s inclination toward symbolism, there is very little expressional suggestion in his treatment of the nude. He becomes preoccupied with the model and his imagination seems to leave him. However, in one statue at least, “The Vulture of War,” he has shown what he can accomplish, when he permits his imagination to control. Here the nude is made a vehicle of emotional force: a male figure stooping forward, as if he were on some lofty crag and about to hurl himself to earth; his face treacherous and cruel; the limbs constricted like a beast of prey’s. There is a largeness of design in this figure as well as expression; something infinitely finer than mere close studies of anatomy, accompanied with accessories of abstruse suggestion; a real incentive to one’s imagination which is lacking, if I mistake not, in such compositions as “Symbol of Life,” “In Much Wisdom” and “From Generation to Generation.” On the other hand, in his busts Grafly exhibits a directness of insight into character and a vigorous, very personal technique that make them most distinguished.
Nor does the symbolism of F. E. Elwell, as shown for example, in his “Goddess of Fire,” stir more in me than an interested curiosity. Why should he have drawn the type of his figure and its accessories from the art of ancient Egypt? Had he the intention of fashioning something beautiful, or that should pique the appetite for surprise? Was his motive to allure or tantalise our imagination? For my own part, I admit the fascination of this spritish figure, so queerly bedizened, but am not conscious of any appeal to the imagination. On the other hand, when his work is not abstruse it is apt to be too obvious. The “Orchid Dancer” is clearly posing for effect, looking for applause, and, I should judge from the expression of her face, quite unable to understand why any one could withhold it. However, while the movement of the figure lacks expression, there is a very pleasing fancifulness in the treatment of the drapery, curling across the body and upward from the feet in petal-like volutes. I think I do not fail to appreciate the sentiment which inspired this statue, and, if I speak of it as being too obvious, it is because it seems to me that the sentiment stands out clear of the sculptural feeling. Thought and technique are not wedded in such manner, that you not only cannot feel them separately, but would find it impossible to distinguish how much had been inspired by the one, how much by the other.
Elwell’s work suggests a man of poetic and intellectual capacity who has resorted to sculpture to express his ideas, and this is a different thing from the sculptural instinct, influenced by intellect and poetry. Accompanying this lack of a predominant feeling for form is a lack of mastery of it, which becomes apparent when he confronts his model. The latter does not act as stimulus to sculptural motive, but becomes something to be reproduced, and his invention is absorbed in the details which shall convey a suggestion of the intellectual and poetic motive. One may even feel that this intellectual or poetic motive becomes an obsession, which interferes with his receiving sculptural stimulus from the model. For among his later works are two in which evidently the same model has been used; but in one case he has been filled with an idea, and the use he has made of the model is tame, whereas in the other case it would appear to have been the model herself which engaged his imagination. He has made a close study of her head and bust, producing something in which the nobility of form and flesh are very apparent, which, in fact, has very strongly the sculpturesque feeling. He calls the finished work “Mary Magdalen,” but this, one feels sure, was a convenient afterthought, and that the original intention, as I have said, was simply a study of form and flesh; and his temporary escape from the prepossession of an idea has given free course to the sculptural purpose. Two earlier works, regarded as being his most important productions, were the Dickens Memorial and a statue of General Hancock at Gettysburg.
These two, Grafly and Elwell, are the only American sculptors within my knowledge who have been drawn toward symbolic mysticism; for the mysticism that appears in Barnard’s work, and must have been present in the colossal “Spirit” by John Donoghue, a work known to me only by report, is of a grander, deeper character, growing out of and penetrating the form itself. This statue of Donoghue’s, a seated, winged figure thirty feet high, represented the Spirit, the “Thou” of Milton’s apostrophe, who
“from the first
Wast present, and, with mighty wings outspread,
Dove-like, satst brooding on the vast abyss,
And madst it pregnant.”
Described as a work of great impressiveness, with suggestion of sublimity, benignity and mysterious power, it was executed in the artist’s studio on the Roman Campagna and sent to this country for exhibition at the Chicago World’s Fair. But for some reason it never reached its destination, and was allowed to crumble away in the warehouse of a Brooklyn wharf. Other works of his also—“Sophocles,” “Diana,” “Venus”—for lack of appreciation lie in storage.
Working fitfully and with painful hindrances from insufficient facility in the handling of his medium, Theodore Bauer has produced some works full of imagination. Nature gave him the gifts of music and of dreaming; and, nursing these, he slipped on into middle life, without ceasing to be a child. The grit of manhood, the practicality of the world and the need of responding to it in kind, are outside his comprehension. He lives within himself in a world of his own: a world of rosy lights and purple shadows; soft, Æolian breezes, whose wailing arouses a rapture of mild despair; distant mountains, whose inaccessible snows prompt sweet imaginings of purity and high endeavour, while he meditates in his valley of unlaborious delight and delicious, pleasurable pain. A world of reverie, darkened, however, at times by storm-clouds and disturbed by the deep moan of thunder along the distant heights.
For in Bauer’s work delicate fancy alternates with sadness, as one may see in his two statues in the Library of Congress. “Religion” is represented as a young girl peering into the far beyond with wistful, visionary gaze and holding before her a poppy flower with leaves and seed-pod. In her grasp is the pride of life and the narcotic with which the world lulls its pain; but she looks beyond them to the ideal and to the balm of spiritual ecstasy. In the “Beethoven,” however, is expressed the world-wearied yearning of the artistic soul. The well-known face, rugged and graven with the lines of time and suffering, is slightly bowed, and the right hand is held to the ear as it listens intently for the far-off strain of inspiration, while the other hand is poised as if above a keyboard, the fingers searching to express the music in his brain. A heavy cloak with high-standing collar gives breadth and picturesqueness to the figure. It is, indeed, too picturesque, one may feel—with too expanded a composition and too much play of movement, to satisfy its architectonic function of relieving by a vertical line the horizontal of the balustrade. But, however that may be, as the portrait of a great musician and an idealisation of his art, it is a statue full of suggestion—a work of imagination, elevated, tender, deep and true.
Bauer had long pondered a series of four groups, representing “The Tragedy of the Sphinx”; her awakening to love, her passion, disillusion and death; and in one of the buildings of the Chicago World’s Fair, amid the chaos of the construction period and in a winter of unusual severity, a winter of veritable discontent to him, he worked upon the first of these, “The Sphinx and the Cupid.” During the exposition months it stood in a retreat of foliage near the Art Palace unnoticed. Yet, even unfinished as it was, it exerted an extraordinary fascination. The little Love God was whispering in the creature’s ear, and as the honey of his words sweetly melted her slow imagination, a smile of aroused appetite began to play upon her lips, hunger shone in her eye; a passion hot and cold, eager with desire, callous to everything but its own satisfaction; a cruelty that would not be appeased until it had consumed itself.