[IX]
This conclusion suggests the inevitable objection that sculpture in England is not in a condition favourable to the execution of a great piece of monumental art. Past experience in London does not make one very sanguine that it is possible to realise in statuary a worthy conception of a Shakespearean memorial. The various stages through which recent efforts to promote sculptured memorials in London have passed suggest the mock turtle's definition in Alice in Wonderland of the four branches of arithmetic—Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision. Save the old statue of James the Second, at Whitehall, and the new statue of Oliver Cromwell, which stands at a disadvantage on its present site beneath Westminster Hall, there is scarcely a sculptured portrait in the public places of London which is not
A fixèd figure for the time of scorn
To point his slow unmoving finger at.
London does not lack statues of men of letters. There are statues of Burns and John Stuart Mill on the Thames Embankment, of Byron in Hamilton Place, and of Carlyle on Chelsea Embankment. But all convey an impression of insignificance, and thereby fail to satisfy the nation's commemorative instinct.
The taste of the British nation needs rigorous control when it seeks to pay tribute to benefactors by means of sculptured monuments. During the last forty years a vast addition has been made throughout Great Britain—with most depressing effect—to the number of sculptured memorials in the open air. The people has certainly shown far too enthusiastic and too inconsiderate a liberality in commemorating by means of sculptured monuments the virtues of Prince Albert and the noble character and career of the late Queen Victoria. The deduction to be drawn from the numberless statues of Queen Victoria and her consort is not exhilarating. British taste never showed itself to worse effect. The general impression produced by the most ambitious of all these memorials, the Albert Memorial in Kensington Gardens, is especially deplorable. The gilt figure of the Prince seems to defy every principle that fine art should respect. The endeavour to produce imposing effect by dint of hugeness is, in all but inspired hands, certain to issue in ugliness.
It would, however, be a mistake to take too gloomy a view of the situation. The prospect may easily be painted in too dismal colours. It is a commonplace with foreign historians of art to assert that English sculpture ceased to flourish when the building of the old Gothic cathedrals came to an end. But Stevens's monument of the Duke of Wellington in St Paul's Cathedral, despite the imperfect execution of the sculptor's design, shows that the monumental art of England has proved itself, at a recent date, capable of realising a great commemorative conception. There are signs, too, that at least three living sculptors might in favourable conditions prove worthy competitors of Stevens. At least one literary memorial in the British Isles, the Scott monument in Edinburgh, which cost no more than £16,000, satisfies a nation's commemorative aspiration. There the natural environment and an architectural setting of impressive design reinforce the effect of sculpture. The whole typifies with fitting dignity the admiring affection which gathers about Scott's name. This successful realisation of a commemorative aim—not wholly dissimilar from that which should inspire a Shakespeare memorial—must check forebodings of despair.
There are obviously greater difficulties in erecting a monument to Shakespeare in London than in erecting a monument to Scott in Edinburgh. There is no site in London that will compare with the gardens of Princes Street in Edinburgh. It is essential that a Shakespeare memorial should occupy the best site that London can offer. Ideally the best site for any great monument is the summit of a gently rising eminence, with a roadway directly approaching it and circling round it. In 1864, when the question of a fit site for a Shakespeare memorial in London was warmly debated, a too ambitious scheme recommended the formation of an avenue on the model of the Champs-Elysées from the top of Portland Place across Primrose Hill; and at the end of the avenue, on the summit of Primrose Hill, at an elevation of 207 feet above the river Thames, the Shakespeare monument was to stand. This was and is an impracticable proposal. The site which in 1864 received the largest measure of approbation was a spot in the Green Park, near Piccadilly. A third suggestion of the same date was the bank of the river Thames, which was then called Thames-way, but was on the point of conversion into the Thames Embankment. Recent reconstruction of Central London—of the district north of the Strand—by the London County Council now widens the field of choice. There is much to be said for a site within the centre of London life. But an elevated monumental structure on the banks of the Thames seems to meet at the moment with the widest approval. In any case, no site that is mean or cramped would be permissible if the essential needs of the situation are to be met.
A monument that should be sufficiently imposing would need an architectural framework. But the figure of the poet must occupy the foremost place in the design. Herein lies another embarrassment. It is difficult to determine which of the extant portraits the sculptor ought to follow. The bust in Stratford Church, the print in the First Folio, and possibly the Chandos painting in the National Portrait Gallery, are honest efforts to present a faithful likeness. But they are crudely executed, and are posthumous sketches largely depending on the artist's memory. The sculptor would be compelled to work in the spirit of the historian, who recreates a past event from the indication given him by an illiterate or fragmentary chronicle or inscription. He would be bound to endow with artistic life those features in which the authentic portraits agree, but the highest effort of the imagination would be needed to create an impression of artistic truth.
The success of a Shakespeare memorial will ultimately depend on the pecuniary support that the public accord it. But in the initial stage of the movement all rests on the discovery of a sculptor capable of realising the significance of a national commemoration of the greatest of the nation's, or indeed of the worlds, heroes. It would be well to settle satisfactorily the question of such an artist's existence before anything else. The first step that any organising committee of a Shakespeare memorial should therefore take, in my view, would be to invite sculptors of every country to propose a design. The monument should be the best that artistic genius could contrive—the artistic genius of the world. There may be better sculptors abroad than at home. The universality of the appeal which Shakespeare's achievement makes, justifies a competition among artists of every race or nationality.
The crucial decision as to whether the capacity to execute the monument is available, should be entrusted to a committee of taste, to a committee of liberal-minded connoisseurs who command general confidence. If this jury decide by their verdict that the present conditions of art permit the production of a great memorial of Shakespeare on just principles, then a strenuous appeal for funds may be inaugurated with likelihood of success. It is hopeless to reverse these methods of procedure. If funds are first invited before rational doubts as to the possibility of a proper application of them are dispelled, it is improbable that the response will be satisfactory or that the issue of the movement of 1905 will differ from that of 1821 or 1864.