But though Mr Hogan was thus employed in pursuits congenial to his tastes, and to a great degree conducive to his future eminence as a sculptor, the idea of embracing sculpture as a profession did not occur to him for several years after, nor were the requisite means of study for that profession provided for the student in Cork at this time. There was as yet in that city no Academy of Arts or other institution like those in Dublin, provided, for the use of students, with those objects which are so essential to the formation of a correct taste in the higher departments of the Fine Arts, namely, a selection of casts from the antique statues: and until such subjects for study were acquired, the efforts of genius, however ardent, in the pursuit of beauty and excellence, were necessarily blind and fortuitous. Happily, however, this desideratum was at length supplied in Cork, where a Society for Promoting the Fine Arts was formed in February 1816; and to this Society the Prince Regent, in 1818, through the intercession of the late Marquis of Conyngham and other Irish noblemen who had influence with him, was induced to present a selection of the finest casts from the antique statues, which had been sent him as a gift by the Roman Pontiff, and the value of which the Prince but little appreciated. The result was not only beyond anything that the most sanguine could have anticipated in the rapid creation of artists of first-rate excellence, but also in establishing the fact that among our own countrymen the finest genius for art abundantly exists, and that it only requires the requisite objects for study, with encouragement, to develope it. The presence of these newly acquired treasures of ancient art, which consisted of one hundred and fifteen subjects selected by Canova, and cast under his direction, kindled a flame in Mr Hogan’s mind never to be extinguished but with life, and he immediately applied himself to their study with his whole heart and soul. Thus occupied he remained till 1823, surrounded and excited to emulation by the kindred spirits of Mac Clise, Scottowe, Ford—the glorious Ford!—Buckley the architect, equally glorious—Keller, his own brother Richard, and many other of lesser names—many of whom, alas for their own and their country’s fame! paid the price of their early distinction with their lives. Well may the people of Cork feel proud of this constellation of youthful genius—a brighter one was never assembled together in recent times.
The period, however, had now arrived when the eagle wing of Hogan was to try its strength; and most fortunately for him, an accident at this time brought to Cork a man more than ordinarily gifted with the power to assist him in its flight. The person we allude to was the late William Paulett Carey, an Irishman no less distinguished for his abilities as a critical writer on works of art, than for his ardent zeal in aiding the struggles of genius, by making their merit known to the world. In August 1823, this gentleman, on the occasion of paying a visit to the gallery of the Cork Society, “accidentally saw a small figure of a Torso, carved in pine timber, which had fallen down under one of the benches. On taking it up,” to continue Mr Carey’s own interesting narrative, “he was struck by the correctness and good taste of the design, and the newness of the execution. He was surprised to find a piece of so much excellence, apparently fresh from the tool, in a place where the arts had been so recently introduced, and where he did not expect to meet anything but the crude essays of uninstructed beginners. On inquiry he was informed it was the work of a young native of Cork, named Hogan, who had been apprenticed to the trade of a carpenter under Mr Deane, an eminent builder, and had at his leisure hours studied from the Papal casts, and practised carving and modelling with intense application. Hogan was then at work above stairs, in a small apartment in the Academy. The stranger immediately paid him a visit, and was astonished at the rich composition of a Triumph of Silenus, consisting of fifteen figures, about fourteen inches high, designed in an antique style, by this self-taught artist, and cut in bas-relief, in pine timber. He also saw various studies of hands and feet; a grand head of an Apostle, of a small size; a copy of Michael Angelo’s mask; some groups in bas-relief after designs by Barry; and a female skeleton, the full size, after nature; all cut with delicacy and beauty, in the same material. A copy of the antique Silenus and Satyrs, in stone, was chiselled with great spirit; and the model of a Roman soldier, about two feet high, would have done credit to a veteran sculptor. A number of his drawings in black and white chalks, from the Papal casts, marked his progressive improvement and sense of ideal excellence. The defects in his performances were such as are inseparable from an early stage of untaught study, and were far overbalanced by their merits. When his work for his master was over for the day, he usually employed his hours in the evening in these performances. The female skeleton had been all executed during the long winter nights.”
Becoming thus acquainted with Mr Hogan’s abilities, Mr Carey, with that surprising prophetic judgment with which he was so eminently gifted, at once predicted the young sculptor’s future fame, and proclaimed his genius in every quarter in which he hoped it might prove serviceable to him. He commenced by writing a series of letters, which were inserted in the Cork Advertiser, “addressed to the nobility, gentry, and opulent merchants, entreating them to raise a fund by subscription, to defray the expense of sending Hogan to Italy, and supporting him there for three or four years, to afford him the advantages of studying at Rome.” But for some time these letters proved ineffectual, and would probably have failed totally in their object but for Mr Carey’s untiring zeal. Acting under his direction, Mr Hogan was induced to address a letter to that noble patron of British genius, the late Lord de Tabley, then Sir John Fleming Leicester, and to send him at the same time two specimens of his carvings, “as the humble offering of a young self-taught artist.” This letter, which was backed by one from Mr Carey himself, was responded to at once in a letter written in the kindest spirit, and which contained an enclosure of twenty-five pounds as Sir John’s subscription to the proposed fund. This was the first money actually paid in, and subscriptions soon followed from others. Through Mr Carey’s enthusiastic representations, the Royal Irish Institution was induced to contribute the sum of one hundred pounds, and the Royal Dublin Society to vote twenty-five pounds for some specimens of his carvings which Mr Hogan submitted to their notice. These acts of liberality were honourable to those public bodies; yet, as Mr Carey well observed, it was to Lord de Tabley’s generosity that Mr Hogan’s gratitude was most due. Here, as he said, “was a young man of genius in obscurity, and wholly unknown to his lordship, rescued from adversity in the unpromising morning of life—a self-taught artist built up to fame and fortune by his munificence—a torch lighted, which I hope will burn bright for ages, to the honour of the empire. Hogan may receive thousands of pounds from future patrons, but it is to Lord de Tabley’s timely encouragement that he will be indebted for every thing.”
The subscriptions collected for Mr Hogan amounted in all to the sum of two hundred and fifty pounds; and thus provided, he set out for Italy, visiting London on his way, for the purpose of presenting letters to Sir Thomas Lawrence and Sir Francis Chantrey, which Lord de Tabley had given him, in the hope that they would procure him recommendatory letters from those great artists that would be serviceable to him in Rome. But these introductions proved of little value to him. Chantrey expressed regret that he knew no one in the “Eternal City” to whom he could give him a letter; and though Lawrence kindly gave him an introduction to the Duchess of Devonshire, that distinguished lady had died a few days before Mr Hogan reached Rome; “so that,” as Mr Carey remarks, “he found himself an entire stranger, with little knowledge of the world, without acquaintance or patron, and incapable of speaking the language, at the moment of commencing his studies in Italy.”
But the young sculptor, on leaving his native country, was provided by Lord de Tabley with something more valuable than these letters to British artists—namely, a commission to execute a statue in marble for him, as soon as he should think himself qualified by his preparatory studies for the undertaking.
The statue, which was to launch the young sculptor into professional life in Italy, was commenced soon after, but was not completed before his noble patron had paid the debt of nature. Its subject, which is taken from Gessner’s Death of Abel, is Eve, who shortly after her expulsion from Paradise picks up a dead bird, which being the first inanimate creature that she has seen, fills her with emotions of surprise, terror, and pity. This statue, which is the size of life, and which is of exquisite beauty, is now at Lord de Tabley’s seat in Cheshire.
While this statue was in progress, Mr Hogan conceived the subject and completed the model of his second great work—one in which the peculiar powers of his genius were more fully developed, and on the execution of which, from peculiar circumstances, he entered with the most excited enthusiasm. During the first year of his residence at Rome, Mr Hogan happening to be present at an evening meeting of artists of eminence, the conversation turned on the difficulty of producing any thing in sculpture perfectly original; and to Mr Hogan’s astonishment, the celebrated British sculptor Gibson stated as his opinion that it was impossible now to imagine an attitude or expression in the human figure which had not been already appropriated by the great sculptors of antiquity. This opinion, though coming from one to whom our countryman then looked up, appeared to him a strange and unsound one, and with the diffidence of an artist whose powers were as yet untried, he ventured to express his dissent from it; when Gibson, astonished at his presumption, somewhat pettishly replied, “Then let us see if you are able to produce such an original work!” The challenge thus publicly offered could not be refused by one of Hogan’s temperament; and the young sculptor, stung with the taunt, lost no time in entering upon a work which was to test his abilities as an artist, and to rescue his character from the imputation of vanity and rashness. Under such feelings Mr Hogan toiled day and night at his work, till he submitted to the artists in whose presence the challenge had been offered, the result of his labours—his statue of the Drunken Faun—a work which the great Thorwaldsen pronounced a miracle of art, and which, if Hogan had never produced another, would have been alone sufficient to immortalize his name. It is to be regretted that this figure, which has all the beauty and truth of the antique sculpture, combined with the most perfect originality, and which Mr Hogan himself has recently expressed his conviction that it is beyond his power to excel, should never have been executed in marble; but a cast of it, presented by Lord de Tabley to the Royal Irish Institution (though intended by Mr Hogan for the Dublin Society), may still be seen in their deserted hall.
We have given these, as we trust, not uninteresting details of Mr Hogan’s early life, at greater length than the limits assigned to our article can well allow, and we must notice his subsequent career in briefer terms. Though enrolled now among the resident sculptors in Rome, his difficulties were not yet over; and in spite of the most enthusiastic efforts on his part, they might and probably would have been ineffectual in sustaining him, if no friendly aid had come to his assistance. In two years after his arrival in Rome, or at the end of the year 1825, Hogan found himself again in a state of embarrassment, without a commission, his funds exhausted, or at least reduced to a state inadequate to the necessary outlay of a sculptor in the purchase of marble, the rent of a studio, and the payment of living models. For his extrication from these difficulties he was again indebted to the liberality of Lord de Tabley and the zeal of his advocate Mr Carey, by whom a second subscription was collected, chiefly in England, amounting to one hundred and fifty pounds; of which sum twenty-five pounds was contributed by Lord de Tabley in the first instance, and twenty-five pounds by the Royal Irish Institution. Trifling as this amount was, it proved sufficient for its object, and Mr Hogan was never again necessitated to receive pecuniary assistance from the public.
He applied himself forthwith to the production of a marble figure intended for his friend and former master Sir Thomas Deane, but which when finished his necessities obliged him to dispose of to the present Lord Powerscourt, and for which he received one hundred pounds, being barely the cost of the marble and roughing out or boasting. This statue, which is about half the size of life, is now preserved in Powerscourt House; and we may remark, that it is the only work of our countryman in the possession of an Irish nobleman. His next important work was the exquisite statue of the Dead Christ, now placed beneath the altar of the Roman Catholic church in Clarendon Street. This work was originally ordered for a chapel in Cork by the Rev. Mr O’Keeffe; but that gentleman, on its arrival in Dublin, not being able to raise the funds required for its payment, permitted Mr Hogan to dispose of it to the clergymen of Clarendon Street, who paid for it the sum originally stipulated, namely, four hundred and fifty pounds; and we need scarcely add, that this statue is one of the most interesting objects of art adorning our metropolitan city. Mr Hogan subsequently executed a duplicate of this statue, but with some changes in the design, for the city of Cork; but we regret to have to add that he has been as yet but very inadequately rewarded for his labours on that work, a sum of two hundred and thirty-seven pounds being still due him, and the amount which he has actually received (two hundred pounds) being barely the cost of the marble and rough workmanship.
The execution of this statue was followed by that of a large sepulchral monument in basso relievo to the memory of the late Dr Collins, Roman Catholic Bishop of Cloyne—a figure of Religion holding in her lap a medallion portrait of the bishop. For this work Mr Hogan was to have received two hundred pounds, but there is still a balance of thirty pounds due to him.