THE SHAW MEMORIAL—AUGUSTUS SAINT-GAUDENS
AUGUSTUS SAINT GAUDENS
Monograph Number Two in The Mentor Reading Course
St. Gaudens is the name of a little town in the south of France and close to the foot of the Pyrenees. A humble shoemaker named Bernard Paul Ernest dwelt there, and in 1848, after he had moved to Dublin, Ireland, he had a son, to whom he gave the name Augustus. The mother of the boy was a native of Dublin; her maiden name was Mary McGuinness. Such was the origin of a master in sculpture, Augustus Saint Gaudens. His parents came to America when he was an infant, and after a short stay in Boston took up their residence in New York City. Augustus Saint Gaudens attended school until he was thirteen. Then he was apprenticed to a cameo cutter named Avet. After three years’ service he left his master and found employment with a shell cameo cutter named Le Breton, with whom he worked for several years. During this time young Saint Gaudens was studying drawing at night; first at Cooper Union, and then for two years at the National Academy of Design.
Augustus Saint Gaudens was always a thoughtful, quiet youth, with extraordinary power of concentration. He pursued the art of modeling with great enthusiasm. It was said of him that his sense of form and of objects in relief was so vivid that with his eyes closed he could fairly “see with his fingers.” His cameo cutting naturally assisted him in the perfection of art in high and low relief.
When twenty years old Saint Gaudens was already a well trained artist. He went to Paris and worked in the School of Fine Arts in the studio of M. Jouffroy. There he studied the human figure in all phases, and quickly mastered it. A residence of several years in Italy followed, with constant art activity and steady artistic growth. He came back to the United States in 1874, and his first work was a bust in marble of William M. Evarts. Then came a commission for a large decorative relief for St. Thomas’ Church, New York City, and in 1878 he began work on the statue of Admiral Farragut that now stands in Madison Square, New York City, which is one of the most widely known and admired of all his works.
The years that followed were full of distinguished achievements. His “Lincoln,” which was unveiled in Lincoln Park, Chicago, in 1887, has been hailed as the greatest portrait statue in the United States.