Behind this group looms up the tremendous issues of the war; they were present to the imagination of the sculptor and he has suggested them to ours. Hence the work is big with fatefulness, with a reference reaching beyond the fate of the personages represented to the fate of a nation trembling in the balance. Ah! it is a great gift, this power to touch upon the fundamental, the essentially and genetically vital aspect of a matter, and by means so simple and of common knowledge. As he worked upon the memorial it would seem as if Saint-Gaudens distrusted somewhat his possession of this faculty, for to increase the idealisation he has introduced a figure of Victory floating above the head of the leader. It was not necessary and is scarcely in accord with the rest of the composition, introducing into the energy and concentration of the whole a somewhat quavering note. Yet, to judge by my own experience, the sense of jar yields to indifference; one loses consciousness of this figure in the grandeur and elevation of the whole. But, if this is the experience also of others, it tends to prove how unnecessary was its introduction; and, further, one is inclined to resent it as partaking of the obviousness which would occur to a smaller sculptor.
A similar attempt to reënforce the ideal suggestion contained in the realistic parts of the group with the direct introduction of a symbolic figure reappears in the equestrian statue of General Sherman. But the figure in this case is more intrinsically a part of the general design in perfect harmony of character and feeling, and the group as it stands, while almost the latest, is probably the most completely grand example of Saint-Gaudens’s art. Sherman leans a little forward in the saddle with a handling of the reins that keeps in control the impetuosity of his big-boned, powerful charger, an action of the hands very characteristic of an accomplished horseman. His head is bare and his military cloak floats from his back in ample folds. Victory moves ahead of his left stirrup, palm branch in hand, her drapery buoyed up with air; the horse’s tail streams behind; throughout the whole composition is a single impulse of irresistible advance. From every point of view the mass is compact with dignity, ornamental in line and bulk, alive with elevated and inspiring energy. At closer range one may discover the big simplicity and pregnant generalisation of the modelling, also the meaningfulness of the characterisation. The horse in build and gait is a serviceable beast, bred for courage and endurance; the rider, a man of iron purpose, indomitable in face and carriage; while the woman’s figure in the grand spirit of the flowing lines and in the lofty sadness of her mien touches a chord of triumph and pathos, of the glory and the tragedy of victory.
I compared this statue with Dubois’s “Joan of Arc,” and found it so much less mannered, so far more vital in the immediateness of its import; or, shall we state it in this way: less consciously a work of art, more spontaneously the expression of an overpowering sentiment. This, if I am not mistaken, contains the gist of Saint-Gaudens’s art. While traditional in its origin, it is a living art, rooted in the realities of its environment, modified in its growth—that is to say, in its technique—by the necessity of responding to its conditions.
But how does Saint-Gaudens fare when he confines himself to a factual representation of his subject? Let his statue of Lincoln at Chicago testify. No grace of line or grandeur of mass; only a chair behind the standing figure to eke out the stringiness of the legs and in a measure to build up the composition. Nor could the sculptor snatch an easy triumph through any heroic rendering of the figure, spare and elongated, in clothes uncompromisingly ordinary. But the man as he was, and just because he chanced to be the man he was, was great, and in the fearless acceptance of this fact the sculptor has seized his opportunity. The statue is planted firmly on the right foot—not every statue really stands upon its feet—the right arm held behind the back—these are the characteristic gestures of stability, tenacity and reflection; while the advance of the left leg and the grip of the left hand upon the lapel of the coat bespeak the man of action. With such completeness are these complex qualities suggested and then crowned with the solemn dignity of the declined head, so aloof in impenetrable meditation, that the homely figure has a grandeur and a power of appeal which are irresistible. True, our imagination, reënforced by knowledge, goes out to reach the artist half-way, thereby lessening the space he has to travel in his idealisation of facts. Behind this isolated figure looms up the scene in which he played so great a part. It was precisely because this scene was present to the sculptor’s imagination, and he knew it would be to ours, that he set himself to the most realistic rendering of his subject and thereby triumphed.
But once more, turn to his statue of Peter Cooper. There is no background here of heroism, or any environment of a nation roused to highest sacrifice; only the background of a building, ugly in itself, though we know it to be the habitation of a great educational movement. Homely also is the general appearance of the founder and benefactor, yet the figure in its loose, slovenly costume, seated in a chair, presents in its solid mass a suggestion of fundamental force; the left hand grasps a walking-cane with a gesture of fine decision, and the head, with its long hair and fringe of beard, by sheer force of genial, manly directness, so earnest and unsophisticated, compels us to realize this man to be more than ordinary. He is the prophet of a cause, the leader of a peaceful revolution. In a word, if one has the mind and sympathy to note it, this old and yet alert man, of ungarnished simplicity and indomitable confidence, is an embodiment of the same sure uplifting of the people to which he contributed so largely.
I have chosen these examples to illustrate Saint-Gaudens’s ability to idealise his subject, to reach through the fact to the soul within the fact. But his sensibility to impressions is not only moved by the larger aspects of life; it is also exquisitely sweet and subtle. Study his numerous low-relief portraits—for example, the children of Prescott Hall Butler, those of Jacob H. Schiff, and the single portraits of Miss Violet Sargent and of Robert Louis Stevenson. In all these and in many others his sensibility is exhibited, not only in the sympathetic comprehension of character, but also in the extraordinary finesse of the execution.
RELIEF PORTRAIT OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
By Augustus Saint-Gaudens