Barnard thus early had experienced it; but, we should notice, so far only through an experience of minute work. Yet his communing with himself and with nature along the shores of the great lake and of the Father of Waters was only waiting to discover its effects in a larger field of sensations.
This awakening did not come to him at once in Chicago. There was then no Art Institute with its array of sculpture casts; no flourishing school with its accompanying enthusiasms. Yet, possibly that was well for the slow, silent development of this youth, a dreamer of dreams, already a student of philosophy and occultism, fervently religious, with a religion that felt after the mysteries of life and included such dawning notions as he had of art.
He chanced upon a teacher whose stock in trade consisted of four casts of the antique statues in reduced size, which he drew in every possible position, until he had completely mastered the representation of an object on the flat. This, it will be observed, was a temporary suspension of his study of solid form, being indeed, a transposition from actual depth and distance to the illusion of a third dimension; and the intense application in this direction, with the fascination of it, affected his work for some time. I think a comparison of “The Boy” with one of his later works will show this. The early work displays more feeling for light and shade than for form, and is, in fact, rather a study of planes of varying value than of bulk. While this may appear a somewhat fine-drawn distinction, it does involve an important principle, because it affects the way in which the subject has been considered, the conception, indeed, which inspired the work. In his later work Barnard is not oblivious to the charm of subtle modelling, but the larger motive is present in his mind, that of the constructional, organic character of the mass, and it becomes the distinctive direction in which his genius expresses itself.
He grew to consciousness of this large aspect of sculpture through the influence of Michelangelo. Hearing that there were some casts of the master’s work stored away in a room under lock and key he sought admission. It was at first denied; students by acts of vandalism had abused their privileges; the exhibition had been closed to them, and no exception could be made in his case. “But I must see them,” was his simple answer. “Michelangelo lived and worked for me as much as Jesus did; his works belong to me—I must see them.” In presence of such a fervour of conviction the director yielded, and Barnard was allowed to come and go as he pleased.
If one could really know the boy’s emotions, what a revelation it would be! To most of us, if we can recall our youth, the impressions that counted most came gradually, finding us often unprepared for them, and through circumstances or our own levity of soul unable to receive due profit at the time. But to the young Barnard, with a seriousness beyond his years, peering into the mystery of life, feeling after expression in form, the revelation of Michelangelo’s genius must have been like sudden light to a blind man, who, hitherto, had had but vague imaginings of light and form. There, in the quiet afternoons, until daylight faded into twilight, alone with these sublime beings, the boy would sit and sit. Tired on one occasion, he sat himself in the lap of the “Moses”—for he was small and boyish-looking despite his seventeen years—and resting his curly head against the statue’s beard fell fast asleep, his young, eager spirit, wrapped around and absorbed by the influence of the mighty dead. Do you not perceive in this little story another proof of the boy’s physical joy in form, so that after drawing from it sustenance to his spirit he nestled into contact with the feel of it, as a baby, surfeited with nourishment, lies close to the mother’s breast?
And it was with a good deal of a baby’s unconsciousness, I suspect, that Barnard sucked in nourishment from the experiences of this time. He was not as yet deliberately studying these statues, was still ignorant of the technical problems which they offered; but, himself a dreamer of dreams, he lost himself in the magnitude of the conception, and little by little grew to realise how dreams may shape themselves into form. He began to have an inkling of the majesty of form in the round, as something not to be translated into the flat, but to be felt in the bulk; a realisation of the wonder of palpable structure, when it has become the plastic expression of noble thought. It was several years later, and much discipline had to be undergone, before the impressions of this lonely communing were to become part of his conscious equipment as a sculptor.
But I wonder whether the scarcity of artists, as compared with the great number of skilful practitioners of painting and sculpture, is not due, in part at any rate, to the fact that few students enjoy a period of subconscious reception of impressions. In place of it they are surrounded by the clatter of the classroom, share in the smart little theories of their fellow-students and for the influence of the great masters substitute adulation for some teacher who professes to know a short cut to success. Most modern education, indeed, is a bustling after results, that allows no space for the slow, steady, silent growth, such as prepares the sapling to take its place among the giants of the forests. Yet in our study of the lives of all true artists we shall find that the period of communing, either with nature or with the masterpieces of art, has intervened. Happy for the student to whom it comes early!
At the end of his eighteenth year he received a commission for the portrait bust of a child, and discovered for himself the manner of executing it in marble. With the sum received, he went to Paris, studying for a time under the academician, Cavelier, and then establishing himself in a humble studio. Twelve years he lived in Paris, enduring the extreme of privations, until the patronage of an American, Mr. Alfred Corning Clark, relieved the pressure of want; and the acceptance of seven of his works at the Champ de Mars in 1894 and his election as an associate of the Société Nationale des Beaux Arts crowned his struggles with artistic recognition. During
